SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR AUTOMATIC DISCOVERY OF NETWORK SOFTWARE RELATIONSHIPS

• US 20100223609A1
• Filed: 02/27/2009
• Published: 09/02/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 02/27/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Red Hat, Inc. (International Business Machines Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Red Hat, Inc. (International Business Machines Corporation)
• Inventors: Likins, Adrian Karstan, Vidal, Seth Kelby, DeHaan, Michael Paul
• Granted Patent: US 8,990,368 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 717/177
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/24 Resetting means
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/07 Responding to the occurrence of a fault, e.g. fault tolerance
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1675 Temporal synchronisation or re-synchronisation of redundant processing components
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/61 Installation
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/12 Discovery or management of network topologies
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/34 Signalling channels for network management communication
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/51 Discovery or management thereof, e.g. service location protocol [SLP] or web services

Abstract

Embodiments relate to systems and methods for automatic discovery of network software relationships. A set of managed machines, such as personal computers or servers, can be managed by a network management platform communicating with the machines via a secure channel. The network management platform can issue a set of discovery commands interrogating nodes of the network to report software or services which they consume. The network management platform can build a dependency map encoding the dependency or other relationships between nodes in the managed network based on their use of software resources. Network restorations can therefore be conducted in a rational order, maintaining stability in the restored nodes and network.

Claims

1. A method of generating a network map, comprising:

generating a set of discovery commands to issue to a set of nodes of a managed network;

transmitting the set of discovery commands to the set of nodes of the managed network;

receiving a set of software relationship data from the set of nodes in response to the set of discovery commands; and

generating a dependency map based on the software relationship data, the dependency map representing a set of ordered links between software installed on the set of nodes.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising storing the dependency map.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the generating a set of discovery commands comprises generating a set of commands to initiate a report of installed software or services on a node.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the software dependency map comprises at least one of a tree, a linked list, a table, and a database.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the set of ordered links comprises a representation of a first set of software applications whose output comprises input to a second set of software applications.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the set of ordered links comprises a representation of a first set of software applications whose network-enabled services are accessed by a second set of software applications.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising initiating a recovery process to re-install software on the nodes of the managed network based on software dependency relationships specified in the dependency map.

8. A network management platform, comprising:

an interface to a managed network having a set of nodes; and

a network management engine, communicating with the set of nodes via the interface, the network management engine being configured to—

generate a set of discovery commands to issue to the set of nodes of the managed network,

transmit the set of discovery commands to the set of nodes of the managed network,

receive a set of software relationship data from the set of nodes in response to the set of discovery commands, and

generate a dependency map based on the software relationship data, the dependency map representing a set of ordered links between software installed on the set of nodes.

9. The network management platform of claim 8, wherein the network management engine is further configured to store the dependency map.

10. The network management platform of claim 8, wherein the generating a set of discovery commands comprises generating a set of commands to initiate a report of installed software or services on a node.

11. The network management platform of claim 8, wherein the software dependency map comprises at least one of a tree, a linked list, a table, and a database.

12. The network management platform of claim 8, wherein the set of ordered links comprises a representation of a first set of software applications whose output comprises input to a second set of software applications.

13. The network management platform of claim 8, wherein the set of ordered links comprises a representation of a first set of software applications whose network-enabled services are accessed by a second set of software applications.

14. The network management platform of claim 8, wherein the network management engine is further configured to initiate a recovery process to re-install software on the nodes of the managed network based on software dependency relationships specified in the dependency map.

15. A dependency map, the dependency map representing software dependencies of nodes in a managed network and being generated by a method comprising:

generating a set of discovery commands to issue to a set of nodes of a managed network;

transmitting the set of discovery commands to the set of nodes of the managed network;

receiving a set of software relationship data from the set of nodes in response to the set of discovery commands; and

generating a dependency map based on the software relationship data, the dependency map representing a set of ordered links between software installed on the set of nodes.

16. The dependency map of claim 15, wherein the method further comprises storing the dependency map.

17. The dependency map of claim 15, wherein the generating a set of discovery commands comprises generating a set of commands to initiate a report of installed software or services on a node.

18. The dependency map of claim 15, wherein the software dependency map comprises at least one of a tree, a linked list, a table, and a database.

19. The dependency map of claim 15, wherein the set of ordered links comprises a representation of a first set of software applications whose output comprises input to a second set of software applications.

20. The dependency map of claim 15, wherein the set of ordered links comprises a representation of a first set of software applications whose network-enabled services are accessed by a second set of software applications.