SERVICE LEVEL MANAGEMENT IN A SERVICE ENVIRONMENT HAVING MULTIPLE MANAGEMENT PRODUCTS IMPLEMENTING PRODUCT LEVEL POLICIES

• US 20100042450A1
• Filed: 08/15/2008
• Published: 02/18/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 08/15/2008
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: BINSWANGER, KEVIN M., KAMINSKY, DAVID L., EPSTEIN, SAMUEL R., ZHANG, LIFENG, WAGNER, JONATHAN M.
• Application Number:
  US12/192,664
• Publication Number:
  US 20100042450A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/7
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06393 Score-carding, benchmarking or key performance indicator [KPI] analysis
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06395 Quality analysis or management
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5003 Managing SLA; Interaction between SLA and QoS

Abstract

A change can be identified in service level for a Web service for an entity from a first service level to a second service level. Active policies associated with the first service can be retrieved. The active policies can be policies of a set of different management products of a service environment. For each management product, policies associated with the first service level can be deactivated. Policies associated with the second service level can be retrieved. For each management product, policies associated with the second service level can be activated. In one embodiment, the activation and deactivation of policies can occur automatically using a service level manager that programmatically handles service level specific adjustments across management products.

Claims

1. A method for managing service level policies across management products in a service environment comprising:

identifying a change in service level for a service for an entity from a first service level to a second service level;

retrieving active policies associated with the first service, wherein the active policies are policies of a plurality of different management products of a service environment;

for each management product, deactivating policies associated with the first service level;

retrieving policies associated with the second service level, which at the time of retrieving are not active for the service for the entity; and

for each management product, activating policies associated with the second service level.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

tagging each policy of each management product with a service level, which is used when retrieving policies associated with the first service level and the second service level.

3. The method of claim 2, further comprising:

tagging each policy of each management product with a policy domain, wherein said values for the policy domain comprise domains for at least two of security, performance, monitoring, and business logic.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

extracting active policies implemented within each of the management products;

storing extracted policies in a centralized data store;

for each stored policy adding an attribute and value for a service level for which the policy relates; and

utilizing records and service level values from the centralized data store when retrieving active policies associated with the first service.

5. The method of claim 4, further comprising:

establishing a service level data store of policies that are to be associated with a plurality of different service levels, wherein for each service level a plurality of different policies are associated, wherein these plurality of policies are policies of different management products; and

querying the service level data store for policies associated with the second service level when retrieving policies associated with the second service level.

6. The method of claim 4, further comprising:

deploying a plurality of software agents within different ones of the management products, wherein the software agents are configured to permit a software routine external to the management product to extract active service policies implemented within the management product, wherein the deployed software agents are used when extracting active policies for storage within the centralized data store.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein each of the management products is a modular product configured to provide runtime governance of services provided via the service environment.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein said service associated with the first service level and the second service level is a Web service.

9. The method of claim 7, wherein the service environment is a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) environment, wherein the management products are configured to monitor, manage, secure, and control end-to-end implementations of SOA-based services and applications for the SOA environment.

10. A computer program product for managing service level policies across management products in a service environment comprising:

a computer usable medium having computer usable program code embodied therewith, the computer usable program code comprising;

computer usable program code configured to identify a change in service level for a service for an entity from a first service level to a second service level;

computer usable program code configured to retrieve active policies associated with the first service, wherein the active policies are policies of a plurality of different management products of a service environment;

computer usable program code configured for each management product, to deactivate policies associated with the first service level;

computer usable program code configured to retrieve policies associated with the second service level, which at the time of retrieving are not active for the service for the entity; and

computer usable program code configured for each management product, to activate policies associated with the second service level.

11. The computer program product of claim 10, further comprising:

computer usable program code configured to tag each policy of each management product with a service level, which is used when retrieving policies associated with the first service level and the second service level.

12. A method for providing services comprising:

identifying a service environment configured to provide at least one service, wherein said service environment comprises a plurality of management products, wherein each of the management products comprises a set of at least one configurable policies specific to that management product, wherein a configuration of the configurable policies affects an execution characteristic of a provided service;

establishing a plurality of different service levels for the at least one service, wherein each of the different service levels are associated with a service level specific set of execution characteristics, wherein each service level corresponds to a plurality of policies established via a plurality of different management products; and

centralizing managing service level specifics for the service environment with a service level manager independent of each of the management products, wherein the service level manager is communicatively linked to each of the management products and is configured to determine current policy settings of each of the management products.

13. The method of claim 12, further comprising:

for each policy implemented within one of the management products, maintaining a service level value associated with that policy.

14. The method of claim 13, further comprising:

identifying management product specific data stores for each of the management products, each configured to maintain policy information for the related management product; and

extracting policy data from the management product specific data stores and placing this extracted policy data within a centralized data store utilized by the service manager, wherein the service level value is associated with each extracted policy maintained within the centralized data store.

15. The method of claim 14, further comprising:

maintaining a software agent within each of the management products, wherein said software agent is used to drive Application Program Interfaces (APIs) used to extract policies of the associated management product.

16. The method of claim 13, further comprising;

associating different ones of the service levels with different entities, each entity comprising a set of at least one user;

receiving a change request to change a service level of one of the entities;

determining using the service level manager all policies across the management products associated with a current service level for the entity;

the service level manager removing the determined policies across the management products associated with the determined policies;

determining using the service level manager new policies across the management products associated with a new service level in accordance with the request to change; and

the service level manager adding the determined new policies across the management products associated with the new policies.

17. The method of claim 12, wherein each of the management products is a modular product configured to provide runtime governance of services provided via the service environment.

18. The method of claim 12, wherein said service provided by the service environment is a Web service.

19. The method of claim 17, wherein the service environment is a Service Oriented Architecture environment, wherein the management products are configured to monitor, manage, secure, and control end-to-end implementations of SOA-based services and applications for the SOA environment.

20. A computer program product for providing services comprising:

a computer usable medium having computer usable program code embodied therewith, the computer usable program code comprising;

computer usable program code configured to identify a service environment configured to provide at least one service, wherein said service environment comprises a plurality of management products, wherein each of the management products comprises a set of at least one configurable policies specific to that management product, wherein a configuration of the configurable policies affects an execution characteristic of a provided service;

computer usable program code configured to identify establish a plurality of different service levels for the at least one service, wherein each of the different service levels are associated with a service level specific set of execution characteristics, wherein each service level corresponds to a plurality of policies established via a plurality of different management products; and

computer usable program code configured to identify centralize managing service level specifics for the service environment with a service level manager independent of each of the management products, wherein the service level manager is communicatively linked to each of the management products and is configured to determine current policy settings of each of the management products.