SERVICE USAGE METERING TECHNIQUES

• US 20170126820A1
• Filed: 10/30/2015
• Published: 05/04/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 10/30/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Novell Incorporated (Open Text Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Novell Incorporated (Open Text Corporation)
• Inventors: McClain, Carolyn B., Goodwin, Greg, Andersen, Carl B., Bergeson, Bruce L.
• Granted Patent: US 10,708,387 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/34 involving the movement of software or configuration parameters network booting or remote initial program loading [RIPL] G06F9/4416
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/62 Establishing a time schedule for servicing the requests

Abstract

Metering service instances collect predefined types of metering events on the nodes in which the service instances process. Within each node, the events are statistically filtered, aggregated, and collected. The events are also passed to audit logs. At the conclusion of a metering period or upon detection of a batching event, the aggregated statistically filtered events (statistics) are forward to a collecting cluster where they are populated to a metering statistic data store.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

communicating, by a usage metering manager executing on a hardware processor, a metering period or a batch creation frequency condition to distributed network metering services;

aggregating, by the usage metering manager, statistics returned by the distributed network metering service at an end of the metering period or when the batch creation frequency policy is met;

populating, by the usage metering manager the aggregated statistics into a metering statistic data store.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein communicating further includes, configuring agents on nodes where the distributed network metering services process, the agents configured for tracking activities of the distributed network metering services on the nodes.

3. The method of claim 2 configuring further includes, configuring each agent for deploying metering statistical models processed by each agent for statistically filtering events raised by the distributed network metering services and processed by each agent on that agent'"'"'s particular node and for aggregating the statistically filtered events as aggregated node statistics that become part of the statistics.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein communicating further includes configuring the agents on the nodes where each of the distributed network metering services process through a Representational State Transfer (REST) interface.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein aggregating further includes combining aggregated node statistics received from each of the agents from those agent nodes in real time and at the end of the metering period as the aggregated statistics.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein aggregating further includes interacting with agents from nodes of the distributed network metering services through a Representational State Transfer (REST) interface.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein aggregating further includes instructing the network metering services when the end of the metering period is to occur.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein aggregating further includes identifying that a batch set of statistics are being received from the network metering services based on the batch creation frequency policy being met.

9. The method of claim 1 further comprising, generating a metering report from the metering statistic data store at the end of the metering period.

10. The method of claim 1 further comprising, generating a metering report from the metering statistic data store in response to receipt of a report request and based on report criteria received with the report request.

11. The method of claim 1 further comprising, requesting reconciliation information from the network metering services based on one of:

the end of the metering period, a trigger relevant to a health status change in a particular service instance, and a request issued from an administrator.

12. A method, comprising:

detecting, by a usage metering agent executing on a hardware processor, events raised by metering service instances;

filtering the events to retain statistically relevant events as statistics;

maintaining an aggregation of the statistics; and

communicating the aggregation to a director cluster when a policy condition indicates the aggregation is to be provided to the director cluster.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein detecting further includes obtaining copies of the events for inspection when the metering service instances write the events to an audit log.

14. The method of claim 12, wherein filtering further includes retaining those events that match event types defined as the statistically relevant events.

15. The method of claim 12, wherein maintaining further includes maintaining the aggregation according to an aggregation policy.

16. The method of claim 12, wherein maintaining further includes maintaining the aggregating as a set of counts for each type of statistically relevant event.

17. The method of claim 13, wherein maintaining further includes managing each set of counts as:

a unique count, a process count, a maximum use count, and a tracked unique count.

18. The method of claim 12, wherein communicating further includes interacting with the directory cluster through a Representational State Transfer (REST) interface.

19. A system, comprising:

a processor;

a usage metering manager configured and adapted to;

i) execute on the processor, ii) configure agents to;

filter events as statistics, selectively aggregate the statistics, and report the aggregated statistics back to the usage metering manager, iii) provide an interface for interaction between the usage metering manager and the agents.

20. The system of claim 19, wherein usage metering manager is further configured and adapted, to define:

a) an end of metric reporting period for the agents to report their aggregated statistics and b) intermediate batch reporting frequencies for distributed agents to report statistical batches to a local metering agent of the usage metering manager.