APPARATUS, SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR DATA COLLECTION, IMPORT AND MODELING

• US 20140046952A1
• Filed: 06/11/2013
• Published: 02/13/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 08/07/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: McPhail, Iain
• Granted Patent: US 9,411,865 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/741
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0709 in a distributed system consisting of a plurality of standalone computer nodes, e.g. clusters, client-server systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0751 Error or fault detection not based on redundancy power supply failures G06F1/30; network fault management H04L41/06
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0778 Dumping, i.e. gathering error/state information after a fault for later diagnosis
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/079 Root cause analysis, i.e. error or fault diagnosis in a hardware test environment G06F11/22; in a software test environment G06F11/36
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1448 Management of the data involved in backup or backup restore
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1456 Hardware arrangements for backup
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1464 for networked environments
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/116 Details of conversion of file system types or formats
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/128 Details of file system snapshots on the file-level, e.g. snapshot creation, administration, deletion use of snapshots for error detection or correction G06F11/14, G06F11/16
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/22 Indexing; Data structures therefor; Storage structures
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/258 Data format conversion from or to a database
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/84 Using snapshots, i.e. a logical point-in-time copy of the data

Abstract

A method of and system for data analysis, including interrogating a plurality of computer systems to generate for each computer system at least one dump file, each dump file including configuration and state information; extracting predetermined configuration and state information from the respective dump files; and storing the extracted configuration and state information in a database in a normalized format.

Claims

1. A method of data analysis, the method comprising:

interrogating a plurality of computer systems to generate at least one dump file for each computer system, each dump file comprising configuration and state information;

extracting predetermined configuration and state information from the respective dump files; and

storing the extracted configuration and state information in a database in a normalized format.

2. A method according to claim 1, further comprising:

transforming the predetermined configuration and state information to the normalized format from a format that is at least one of vendor and product specific.

3. A method according to claim 1, wherein interrogating a plurality of computer systems to generate at least one dump file for each computer system comprises:

using a collector tool to query each computer system using the computer system'"'"'s native interface.

4. A method according to claim 3, wherein at least one said native interface comprises a standard command line interface and the respective collector tool is adapted to run a predetermined series of commands.

5. A method according to claim 3, wherein extracting predetermined configuration and state information from the respective dump files and storing the extracted configuration and state information in the database in the normalized format comprises:

using an importer tool, the importer tool being arranged to extract the predetermined configuration and state information from the dump files, transform the extracted information into the normalized format, and store the transformed information in the normalized format in the database.

6. A method according claim 1, wherein the configuration and state information relates to a plurality of objects and comprises metadata about the objects stored on the plurality of computer systems.

7. A method according to claim 6, wherein the metadata describes the physical storage location of each object.

8. A data repository comprising:

a storage device storing in a normalized format an index of data stored on a plurality of computer systems, whereby the configuration and state details of each computer system can be determined.

9. A data repository according to claim 8, wherein each said computer system is at least one of a back-up computer system, a primary storage layer computer system and an application layer computer system.

10. A data repository according to claim 8, wherein the data comprises a plurality of objects and the index comprises metadata about the objects stored on the plurality of computer systems.

11. A data repository according to claim 10, wherein the metadata describes the physical storage location of each object.

12. A data repository according to claim 8, further comprising:

an importer, wherein the importer is arranged to extract predetermined configuration and state information generated from a plurality of computer systems, translate the extracted information into the normalized format and store the transformed information in the normalized format in the index.

13. A data repository according to claim 12, further comprising:

at least one collector arranged to interrogate a said computer system to generate configuration and state information of the computer system, said generated configuration and state information being in a format native to the computer system.

14. A data repository according to claim 13, wherein the collector is arranged to query the computer system using the computer system'"'"'s native interface.

15. A data repository according to claim 14, wherein the native interface comprises a standard command line interface and the collector is adapted to run a predetermined series of commands.

16. A method of data analysis, the method comprising:

interrogating a plurality of computer systems to generate at least one dump file for each computer system, each dump file comprising configuration and state information;

extracting predetermined configuration and state information from the respective dump files;

storing the extracted configuration and state information in a database in a normalized format, and

transforming the predetermined configuration and state information to the normalized format from a format that is at least one of vendor and product specific,

wherein extracting predetermined configuration and state information from the respective dump files and storing the extracted configuration and state information in the database in the normalized format comprises;

using an importer tool, the importer tool being arranged to extract the predetermined configuration and state information from the dump files, transform the extracted information into the normalized format, and store the transformed information in the normalized format in the database.

17. A method according to claim 16, wherein interrogating a plurality of computer systems to generate at least one dump file for each computer system comprises:

using a collector tool to query each computer system using the computer system'"'"'s native interface.

18. A method according to claim 17, wherein at least one said native interface comprises a standard command line interface and the respective collector tool is adapted to run a predetermined series of commands.

19. A method according claim 16, wherein the configuration and state information relates to a plurality of objects and comprises metadata about the objects stored on the plurality of computer systems.

20. A method according to claim 19, wherein the metadata describes the physical storage location of each object.