Flexible Delegation of Management Function For Self-Managing Resources

• US 20110219068A1
• Filed: 03/02/2010
• Published: 09/08/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 03/02/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Brittenham, Peter James, Lindquist, David Bruce, Subramanian, Balan
• Granted Patent: US 8,719,400 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/204
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 15/16 Combinations of two or more digital computers each having at least an arithmetic unit, a program unit and a register, e.g. for a simultaneous processing of several programs coordinating program control therefor G06F9/52; in regulating and control system G05B
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/00 Information retrieval; Database structures therefor; File system structures therefor
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/044 comprising hierarchical management structures
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/046 comprising network management agents or mobile agents therefor
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0816 the condition being an adaptation, e.g. in response to network events
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0893 Assignment of logical groups to network elements
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0896 Bandwidth or capacity management, i.e. automatically increasing or decreasing capacities flow or congestion control using dynamic resource allocation, e.g. in-call renegotiation, H04L47/76
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5009 Determining service level performance parameters or violations of service level contracts, e.g. violations of agreed response time or mean time between failures [MTBF]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0817 by checking functioning

Abstract

Included are method, article of manufacture, and device that serve to identify the status of a network resource along with whether the network resource is a self-managing resource. When autonomic management capabilities are identified, an autonomic management rule for management of the network resource may be generated and sent, over a network, for receipt and use by the identified self-managing resource.

Claims

1. A method of autonomic management involving an autonomic manager and a network resource, the method comprising:

identifying the status of a network resource and identifying whether the network resource is a self-managing resource;

at an autonomic manager having a processor and memory, generating an autonomic management rule for management of the network resource,

the autonomic management rule comprising diagnostic information, knowledge code and instruction code; and

after identifying the network resource as being a self-managing resource, sending the autonomic management rule, over a network, for receipt by the network resource.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

at the autonomic manager, retrieving responsibility for execution of the autonomic management rule from the network resource and executing the autonomic management rule generated for the network resource.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein sending the autonomic management rule occurs after the determining at the autonomic manager that data and management actions are localized at the network resource, the actions being transient and localized at the network resource.

4. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

at the autonomic manager, regaining management function of a network self-managing resource by retrieving the autonomic management rule when the operational load at the network self-managing resource exceeds a threshold, the threshold designating that management function being performed at the network self-managing resource is over a limit or the data and required management actions are no longer localized

5. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

at the autonomic manager, sending code to the network resource, the code, when executed, providing instructions and capabilities for the execution of a management operation by the network resource, wherein the code is retrievable by the autonomic manager when the autonomic manager determines that the code is no longer being used by the network resource or applicable to the management operations still executed by the network resource

6. The method of claim 1 wherein the autonomic management rule includes instructions for the network resource to be executed when the network resource has network access and does not have network access.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein the autonomic management rule is sent by the autonomic manager from a first network, to a second network, with a network resource that is a self-managing resource.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

bundling network resources that share one or more functions into a group, wherein, after identifying the status of the network resources, sending the autonomic management rule to a resource in the bundled resource group.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

retrieving from a database, stored autonomic management rules and data; and

comparing the retrieved autonomic management rules and the data with data extracted from data flows in a network.

10. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

prior to sending the autonomic management rule, identifying one or more service level agreement criteria and determining, at the autonomic manager, whether the one or more criteria is satisfied.

11. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

at the autonomic manager managing a group of peer clients, selecting a peer client from the group of peer clients to serve as an autonomic manager for one or more clients within the group.

12. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

at a first network resource, sending an autonomic management rule or a portion of an autonomic management rule, to a second receiving network resource.

13. The method of claim 12 further comprising:

before sending an autonomic management rule or a portion of an autonomic management rule, exchanging functional capabilities between the first network resource and the second receiving network resource.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein, the autonomic management rule includes instructions and criteria evaluated for satisfying a service level agreement.

15. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

at the autonomic manager, collecting management data and evaluating the collected data to identify relationships or interdependencies or trends in the data that relates to potential to localize management function;

upon identifying a relationship, trend or interdependency, triggering one or more rules for a network resource.

16. An autonomic management device comprising:

a bus;

memory coupled to the bus; and

a microprocessor coupled to the bus, wherein the microprocessor is programmed to identify the status of a network resource and whether the network resource is a self-managing resource,

generate an autonomic management rule for management of the network resource,

the autonomic management rule comprising diagnostic information, knowledge and instruction code; and

,

after identifying the status of the network resource, send the autonomic management rule, over a network, for receipt by the network resource.

17. The autonomic management device of claim 16 wherein the microprocessor is further programmed to retrieve, for execution, an autonomic management rule from a network resource, and execute the autonomic management rule.

18. The autonomic management device of claim 16 wherein the instructions generated for the resource to execute are executed by the resource when the resource has network access and does not have network access.

19. The autonomic management device of claim 16 wherein the autonomic management rule is sent from a first network with the microprocessor, to a second network, with a network resource and without the autonomic manager.

20. The autonomic management device of claim 16 wherein the microprocessor is further programmed to bundle resources that share one or more functions into a group, wherein, after identifying the status of the network resource, the autonomic management rule is sent to a resource in the group.

21. The autonomic management device of claim 16, further programmed to:

retrieve from a database, stored autonomic management rules and data; and

compare the retrieved autonomic management rules and the data with data extracted from data flows in a network.

22. The autonomic management device of claim 16 further programmed to:

prior to sending the autonomic management rule, identify one or more service level agreement criteria and

determine whether the one or more criteria is satisfied.

23. An article of manufacture comprising:

a computer readable storage medium, the storage medium containing instructions, which when executed, cause a microprocessor to

identify the status of a network resource and whether the network resource is a self-managing resource,

generate an autonomic management rule for management of the network resource,

the autonomic management rule comprising instruction code and information; and

after identifying the status of the network resource, send the autonomic management rule, over a network, for receipt by the network resource.

24. The article of manufacture of claim 23 wherein the instructions also cause a microprocessor to retrieve, for execution, an autonomic management rule from a network resource, and execute the autonomic management rule.

25. The article of manufacture of claim 23 wherein the instructions also cause a microprocessor to send autonomic management rules from a first network with the microprocessor, to a second network, with a network resource that is a self-managing resource.

26. The article of manufacture of claim 23 wherein the instructions also cause a microprocessor to bundle resources that share one or more functions into a group, wherein, after identifying the status of the network resource, send the autonomic management rule to a resource in the group.

27. The article of manufacture of claim 23 wherein the instructions also cause a microprocessor to:

retrieve from a database, stored autonomic management rules and data; and

compare the retrieved autonomic management rules and the data with data extracted from data flows in a network.

28. The article of manufacture of claim 23 wherein the instructions also cause a microprocessor, prior to sending the autonomic management rule, to identify one or more service level agreement criteria and determine whether the one or more criteria is satisfied.