CAUSE-CHAIN ANALYSIS USING OBJECTS

• US 20110107351A1
• Filed: 11/05/2009
• Published: 05/05/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 11/05/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Ganjeh, Nima, McMurtry, Craig V.
• Granted Patent: US 9,213,951 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 719/315
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling

Abstract

Identification of the root cause of a change in the system, as well as any side-effects (“ancillary changes”) caused by the change via an object attribute. A change resulting from a request in a system, whether originating from a user, service, or workflow, has an associated request object that captures the details of the change. An ancillary change resulting from the prior change is correlated to the prior change through a parent attribute on the request object that identifies the prior change as the immediate parent. Thus, all downstream ancillary changes resulting from a request can be correlated back to the root request (change) via the parent attributes of the ancillary changes.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented change management system, comprising:

a request object created in response to a change; and

a correlation component that correlates an ancillary change that results from the change via an object attribute associated with the ancillary change.

2. The system of claim 1, further comprising an auditing component that audits one or more changes in an environment based on object attributes associated with changes and ancillary changes.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein the auditing component facilitates determination of the change as a root cause based on correlation of the ancillary change to the change using the object attribute.

4. The system of claim 1, further comprising a detection component that detects the change as part of an environment and the ancillary change in the environment, the ancillary change occurring as a consequence of the change.

5. The system of claim 4, wherein the detection component and correlation component are part of an identity management system.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein at least one of the change or the ancillary change is triggered by a management policy.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the ancillary change is captured in an associated ancillary request object, the ancillary request object references the change via the object attribute.

8. A computer-implemented change management system, comprising:

a detection component that detects a change in a system and ancillary changes occurring in response to the change;

an object component that creates a request object in association with the change; and

a correlation component that correlates the ancillary changes to the change via corresponding object attributes associated with the ancillary changes.

9. The system of claim 8, further comprising an auditing component that audits one or more changes in an environment based on object attributes associated with changes and ancillary changes.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein the auditing component facilitates determination of the change as a root cause based on correlation of the ancillary change to the change using the object attribute.

11. The system of claim 10, wherein the detection component, correlation component, and auditing component are part of an identity management system.

12. The system of claim 8, wherein at least one of the change or the ancillary change is triggered by a management policy.

13. The system of claim 8, wherein the ancillary change references the change via an object attribute.

14. A computer-implemented change management method, comprising:

receiving a request for a change in a system;

creating a request object in association with the request;

detecting an ancillary change that occurs as a result of processing the request;

creating an ancillary request object in association with the ancillary change; and

correlating the ancillary change to the request based on an attribute of the ancillary request object.

15. The method of claim 14, further comprising identifying the request as a root cause based on correlation of the ancillary change to the request via the attribute.

16. The method of claim 14, further comprising identifying a management policy that caused the ancillary change based on the attribute.

17. The method of claim 14, further comprising creating the request object based on receipt of the request for the change.

18. The method of claim 14, further comprising creating the request object based on commit of the change to a database.

19. The method of claim 14, further comprising auditing all changes in the system and associated request objects.

20. The method of claim 14, further comprising assigning time information to the request object and the ancillary request object for analysis of changes over a time period.