SELF-HEALING FACTORY PROCESSES IN A SOFTWARE FACTORY

• US 20100031090A1
• Filed: 07/31/2008
• Published: 02/04/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 07/31/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: CHEE, YI-MIN, BERNARDINI, FAUSTO, RATAKONDA, KRISHNA C., CHAAR, JARIR K., HUCHEL, JOSEPH P., JOBSON, THOMAS A. JR., OPPENHEIM, DANIEL V.
• Granted Patent: US 8,271,949 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 714/38
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3612 by runtime analysis performance monitoring G06F11/3466
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/366 using diagnostics G06F11/0703 takes precedence

Abstract

A method, system, and computer-readable medium for self-healing a software factory are presented. Factory metrics that describe resources and operations within the software factory are collected and analyzed. If the analysis reveals a significant problem within the software factory, then corrective measures are taken and stored, thus enabling the software factory to evolve and improve over time.

Claims

1. A computer-executed method of self-healing a software factory, the computer-executed method comprising:

collecting real time factory metrics for a process that is executing within a software factory, wherein the real time factory metrics describe operational patterns of processes within the software factory, and wherein the processes use work packets that are operated upon, by factory resources within the software factory, for a current project;

analyzing the real time factory metrics to detect problems that might have occurred during an execution of a work packet, within a software factory component, or across software factory components that are involved in executing a project plan;

determining whether problems detected by the analysis exceed one or more threshold criteria;

in response to the problems detected by the analysis exceeding one or more of the threshold criteria, performing a detailed analysis of the problems by matching each identified problem to one or more specific root causes through an analysis of the factory process building blocks;

in response to determining that a delay caused by waiting for a manual response would result in major disruption to a software factory operation, launching automated recovery measures to correct each identified problem; and

storing results of the automated recovery measures within the software factory in order to improve an operational efficiency of the software factory when used on future projects.

2. The computer-executed method of claim 1, wherein the expected ranges describe a progress status for servicing a work packet service request.

3. The computer-executed method of claim 2, wherein the expected ranges further describe how many resources in the software factory are currently being delayed while waiting for an output of a particular work packet.

4. The computer-executed method of claim 3, wherein the expected ranges further describe how many team members working in an assembly line and job shop of the software factory are missing.

5. The computer-executed method of claim 4, wherein the software factory further comprises:

a software factory governance section that evaluates a project proposal for acceptance by the software factory; and

the assembly line and job shop that receive and execute the work packets to create the deliverable software.

6. The computer-executed method of claim 5, wherein the assembly line and job shop further comprise:

a published set of services and a published set of requirements for the assembly line and job shop, wherein the published set of services and the published set of requirements for the assembly line and job shop are published to the design center, and wherein the published set of services describes what assembly services for assembling work packets are offered by the assembly line and job shop, and wherein the published set of requirements describes what execution environment must be used by work packets that are provided by the design center for assembly in the assembly line and job shop.

7. The computer-executed method of claim 6, wherein the work packets include governance procedures, standards, reused assets, work packet instructions, integration strategy, schedules, exit criteria and artifact checklist templates for Input/Output routines.

8. The computer-executed method of claim 7, wherein the assembly line and job shop includes software that automatically recognizes a project type for the project proposal, and wherein the assembly line and job shop assemble the work packets into the deliverable software in accordance with the project type that is recognized by the assembly line and job shop.

9. The computer-executed method of claim 8, wherein the assembly line and job shop conduct an integration test, a system test, a system integration test and a performance test of the deliverable software, wherein the integration test tests the deliverable software for compatibility with the client'"'"'s system, the system test checks the client'"'"'s system to ensure that the client'"'"'s system is operating properly, the system integration test tests for bugs that may arise when the deliverable software is integrated into the client'"'"'s system, and the performance test tests the deliverable software for defects as it is executing in the client'"'"'s system.

10. A system comprising:

a processor;

a data bus coupled to the processor;

a memory coupled to the data bus; and

a tangible computer-usable medium on which is stored computer program code, the computer program code comprising instructions executable by the processor and configured to self-heal a software factory by performing the steps of;

collecting real time factory metrics for a process that is executing within a software factory, wherein the real time factory metrics describe operational patterns of processes within the software factory, and wherein the processes use work packets that are operated upon, by factory resources within the software factory, for a current project;

analyzing the real time factory metrics to detect problems that might have occurred during an execution of a work packet, within a software factory component, or across software factory components that are involved in executing a project plan;

determining whether problems detected by the analysis exceed one or more threshold criteria;

in response to the problems detected by the analysis exceeding one or more of the threshold criteria, performing a detailed analysis of the problems by matching each identified problem to one or more specific root causes through an analysis of the factory process building blocks;

in response to determining that a delay caused by waiting for a manual response would result in major disruption to a software factory operation, launching automated recovery measures to correct each identified problem; and

storing results of the automated recovery measures within the software factory in order to improve an operational efficiency of the software factory when used on future projects.

11. The system of claim 10, wherein the expected ranges describe a progress status for servicing a work packet service request.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the expected ranges further describe how many resources in the software factory are currently being delayed while waiting for an output of a particular work packet.

13. The system of claim 12, wherein the expected ranges further describe how many team members working in an assembly line and job shop of the software factory are missing.

14. A tangible computer-readable storage medium encoded with a computer program, the computer program comprising computer executable instructions configured for self-healing a software factory by performing the steps of:

collecting real time factory metrics for a process that is executing within a software factory, wherein the real time factory metrics describe operational patterns of processes within the software factory, and wherein the processes use work packets that are operated upon, by factory resources within the software factory, for a current project;

analyzing the real time factory metrics to detect problems that might have occurred during an execution of a work packet, within a software factory component, or across software factory components that are involved in executing a project plan;

determining whether problems detected by the analysis exceed one or more threshold criteria;

in response to the problems detected by the analysis exceeding one or more of the threshold criteria, performing a detailed analysis of the problems by matching each identified problem to one or more specific root causes through an analysis of the factory process building blocks;

in response to determining that a delay caused by waiting for a manual response would result in major disruption to a software factory operation, launching automated recovery measures to correct each identified problem; and

storing results of the automated recovery measures within the software factory in order to improve an operational efficiency of the software factory when used on future projects.

15. The tangible computer-readable storage medium of claim 14, wherein the expected ranges describe a progress status for servicing a work packet service request.

16. The tangible computer-readable storage medium of claim 15, wherein the expected ranges further describe how many resources in the software factory are currently being delayed while waiting for an output of a particular work packet.

17. The tangible computer-readable storage medium of claim 16, wherein the expected ranges further describe how many team members working in an assembly line and job shop of the software factory are missing.

18. The tangible computer-readable storage medium of claim 17, wherein the software factory further comprises:

a software factory governance section that evaluates a project proposal for acceptance by the software factory; and

an assembly line and job shop that receive and execute the work packets to create the deliverable software.

19. The tangible computer-readable storage medium of claim 14, wherein the tangible computer-readable storage medium is a component of a remote server, and wherein the computer executable instructions are deployable to a supervisory computer from the remote server.

20. The tangible computer-readable storage medium of claim 14, wherein the computer executable instructions are capable of being provided by a service provider to a customer on an on-demand basis.