INFERENTIAL BUSINESS PROCESS MONITORING

• US 20100082379A1
• Filed: 09/30/2008
• Published: 04/01/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 09/30/2008
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Coulthard, Phil S., Muthusamy, Vinod, Waterhouse, Julie F., Chan, Allen V.C., Litani, Helena, Jacobsen, Hans-Arno
• Application Number:
  US12/241,989
• Publication Number:
  US 20100082379A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/7
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/0639 Performance analysis of employees; Performance analysis of enterprise or organisation operations
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0213 Standardised network management protocols, e.g. simple network management protocol [SNMP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5003 Managing SLA; Interaction between SLA and QoS
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/12 Network monitoring probes

Abstract

Methods, systems and computer program products for inferential business process monitoring. Exemplary embodiments include an inferential business process monitoring method, including deriving an optimal set of key performance indicators from a service level agreement specification, determining metrics to compute the key performance indicators from the service level agreement specification, assigning and configuring monitoring agents to retrieve the metrics to obtain the key performance indicators, deploying the monitoring agents and delivering key performance indicator metrics observed by the monitoring agents.

Claims

1. An inferential business process monitoring method, comprising:

deriving an optimal set of key performance indicators via a service level agreement;

determining metrics to compute the key performance indicators via the service level agreement;

assigning and configuring monitoring agents to retrieve the metrics to obtain the key performance indicators;

deploying the monitoring agents; and

delivering key performance indicator metrics observed by the monitoring agents.

2. The method as claimed in claim 1 wherein the key performance indicators are parameters in the service level agreement that are specified in a service level objective, a violation of which requires an action.

3. The method as claimed in claim 1 further comprising processing sources of the metrics to compute the key performance indicators.

4. The method as claimed in claim 3 further comprising activating an optimal set of monitoring points via processed sources of the metrics.

5. The method as claimed in claim 1 further comprising processing the metrics into higher level metrics to obtain the key performance indicators.

6. The method as claimed in claim 1 further comprising selecting the monitoring agents from a library of generic monitoring agents.

7. The method as claimed in claim 6 further comprising configuring the monitoring agents for an input, computation and output based on the service level agreement.

8. The method as claimed in claim 1 wherein the monitoring agents are deployed onto a distributed process execution engine that optimizes the placement of the monitoring agents, which include monitoring rules.

9. A computer program product including instructions for causing a computer to implement an inferential business process monitoring method, the method comprising:

deriving an optimal set of key performance indicators via a service level agreement;

determining metrics to compute the key performance indicators via the service level agreement;

assigning and configuring monitoring agents to retrieve the metrics to obtain the key performance indicators;

deploying the monitoring agents; and

delivering key performance indicator metrics observed by the monitoring agents.

10. The computer program product as claimed in claim 9 wherein the key performance indicators are parameters in the service level agreement, which are specified in a service level objective, a violation of which requires an action.

11. The computer program product as claimed in claim 9 wherein the method further comprises processing sources of the metrics to compute the key performance indicators.

12. The computer program product as claimed in claim 11 wherein the method further comprises activating an optimal set of monitoring points via processed sources of the metrics.

13. The computer program product as claimed in claim 9 wherein the method further comprises processing the metrics into higher level metrics to obtain the key performance indicators.

14. The computer program product as claimed in claim 9 wherein the method further comprises selecting the monitoring agents from a library of generic monitoring agents.

15. The computer program product as claimed in claim 14 wherein the method further comprises configuring the monitoring agents for an input, computation and output based on the service level agreement.

16. The computer program product as claimed in claim 9 wherein the monitoring agents are deployed onto a distributed process execution engine that optimizes the placement of rules associated with the monitoring agents.

17. An inferential business process monitoring system, comprising:

a processor;

a library of generic monitoring agents operatively coupled to the processor, wherein the processor is configured for;

deriving an optimal set of key performance indicators via a service level agreement;

determining metrics to compute the key performance indicators via the service level agreement;

assigning and configuring monitoring agents to retrieve the metrics to obtain the key performance indicators;

deploying the monitoring agents; and

delivering key performance indicator metrics observed by the monitoring agents.

18. The system as claimed in claim 17 wherein the processor is further configured for selecting the monitoring agents from the library of generic monitoring agents.

19. The system as claimed in claim 18 wherein the process is further configured configuring the monitoring agents for an input, computation and output based on the service level agreement.

20. The system as claimed in claim 17 wherein the monitoring agents are deployed onto a distributed process execution engine that optimizes the placement of rules associated with the monitoring agents.