Process and system for real-time monitoring of a data processing system for its administration and maintenance support in the operating phase

• US 6,021,437 A
• Filed: 07/14/1997
• Issued: 02/01/2000
• Est. Priority Date: 07/17/1996
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Bull Sas (Atos SE)
• Original Assignee: Bull Sas (Atos SE)
• Inventors: Espie, Eric, Chen, Ty-Foune, Caudrelier, Christian, Reix, Tony
• Primary Examiner(s): Matar, Ahmad F.
• Assistant Examiner(s): Tran, Philip B.
• Application Number:
  US08/892,162
• Time in Patent Office: 932 Days
• Field of Search: 395/200.54, 395/200.57, 395/200.59, 395/200.32, 395/200.33, 709/224, 709/227, 709/229, 709/202, 709/203
• US Class Current: 709/224
• 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 11/0748 in a remote unit communicating with a single-box computer node experiencing an error/fault remote testing G06F11/2294
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/076 by exceeding a count or rate limit, e.g. word- or bit count limit
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/2205 using arrangements specific to the hardware being tested
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/2294 by remote test
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3006 where the computing system is distributed, e.g. networked systems, clusters, multiprocessor systems multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/46; allocation of resources G06F9/50
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/302 where the computing system component is a software system
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3051 Monitoring arrangements for monitoring the configuration of the computing system or of the computing system component, e.g. monitoring the presence of processing resources, peripherals, I/O links, software programs verification or detection of system hardware configuration G06F11/2247
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3055 Monitoring arrangements for monitoring the status of the computing system or of the computing system component, e.g. monitoring if the computing system is on, off, available, not available error or fault processing without redundancy G06F11/0703; error detection or correction by redundancy in data representation G06F11/08; error detection or correction by redundancy in operation G06F11/14; error detection or correction by redundancy in hardware G06F11/16
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3093 Configuration details thereof, e.g. installation, enabling, spatial arrangement of the probes
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/327 Alarm or error message display
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/328 Computer systems status display G06F11/327 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3466 Performance evaluation by tracing or monitoring
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3495 for systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/81 Threshold
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/875 Monitoring of systems including the internet
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0817 by checking functioning

Abstract

The present invention relates to a process and system for real-time monitoring of a data processing system for administration and maintenance support of the data processing system in the operating phase, which data processing system communicates in a client/server mode through interconnected networks (W), each client (WCL) comprising a browser (BRO) which supports a high-level hypertext language. Intelligent agents are installed in each server (WSE) for running, after the phrasing of client requests, a check on the status of each server, measuring and storing parameter information indicating the status and the behavior of the server at a given moment, which parameter information is automatically collected as a function of domains examined and systematically processed by the server so as to be offered in the form of presentation reports contained in dynamically evolving pages while the client'"'"'s browser accesses the dynamic pages having the collected and processed information responding to a request.

Claims

1. A process for real-time monitoring of a data processing system for administration and maintenance support of the system in an operating phase, said data processing system being arranged to communicate in a client-server mode through interconnected networks, each client including a browser which supports a high-level hypertext language, comprising the steps of:

installing intelligent agents in each server for phrasing a client request via the intelligent agents in each server,

running a check on the status of each server, measuring and storing parameter information indicating the status and behavior of the server at a given moment,

automatically collecting the parameter information as a function of domains examined and systematically processed by the server,

offering the information in the form of presentation reports contained in dynamically evolving pages, while accessing said dynamic pages having the collected and processed information responding to a request via the clients browser

carrying out systematic processing of the parameter information collected for construction of the dynamic pages by the server in successive steps, each step corresponding to the processing of said information by a particular module, including a page construction module, a semantic knowledge module, an information construction module and a generic tool module,

receiving a client'"'"'s request in the page construction module from the network and preparing the pages by collecting the necessary data in appropriate levels depending on the construction module'"'"'s operating system, then, by presenting said data to the generic tool module for aiding in the construction, independent of the operating system,

fetching low-level data in the information construction module depending on the operating system via the semantic knowledge module of the operating system, then

constructing a high-level semantic representation of the data requested,

acquiring low level data utilizing commands to the information construction module of the operating system to acquire said low-level data and communicating with the semantic knowledge module of the operating system via an application interface, and

constructing the pages in high-level hypertext language via the generic tool module for aiding in the construction of the pages in high-level hypertext language.

2. A monitoring process according to claim 1, characterized in that for the application of said process, the semantic knowledge module of the operating system comprises three parts, a first part directly contained to the page construction module and containing a code that makes it possible to collect and present semantic information, a second part for managing of logical structures containing the code to construct semantic structures by grouping individual basic structures, and a third part for managing basic structures containing the code to construct basic structures.

3. A monitoring process according to claim 2, characterized in that for the application of said process, a first intelligent agent in the server, integrated into the information construction module of the operating system, is an event management agent adapted to send real-time notifications in a given mode, the utilization of which makes it possible to provide alarm buffer registers and a history of alarms so as to facilitate the search for a particular alarm, said alarm buffer registers having an alarm threshold associated with each instantaneous threshold value which, when exceeded, triggers an event.

4. A monitoring process according to claim 3, wherein for the application of said process, a second intelligent agent in the server, integrated into the information construction module of the operating system, is an agent for performing the steps of:

measuring and managing a machine,

automatically collecting information which is then automatically produced in the form of presentation reports that are automatically updated,

producing pages relating to the utilization of the machines being monitored,

collecting raw data relative to the utilization of the machines, and

calculating usable data to supply instantaneous data to calculate the passing of thresholds and to produce the history of the data calculated,

said second agent being constituted by three main parts, a data collector which collects the data in patterns to determine objects to be monitored so as to collect the basic information necessary, a data manager to rearrange the data collected from the various machines observed so as to facilitate access relative to predefined criteria, and a data reporter to generate standard presentation reports from files in which all the raw data collected are stored.

5. A monitoring process according to claim 4, wherein organized functionalities are used to carry out the following various operations:

a configuration oriented operation to provide a global view of the software and hardware configuration of a server,

a network management oriented operation to provide a synthetic view relative to the availability of the resources in question,

a utilization oriented operation to monitor the capacity of the resources to meet current and future needs, which involves measuring the utilization of the main software and hardware resources and providing a visual check on the server,

a change oriented operation to save any record of a software or hardware change,

an event oriented operation to detect, search for and correct problems relative to message sending, and produce presentation reports on an analysis of the presentation reports relative to the problems for preventing reoccurrence of the problems,

an error management oriented operation to re-establish normal services for the user,

a service oriented operation to control most often used services,

a security oriented operation to provide the status of the control of access to local or distributed resources from a user point of view, and

an application oriented operation to manage various applications by supplying details on the status, the utilization, and the consumption of resources relative to such applications.

6. A system for real-time monitoring of a data processing system for administration and maintenance support of the data processing system in an operating phase, said data processing system adapted to communicate in a client-server mode through interconnected networks, each client including a browser which supports a high-level hypertext language, comprising;

intelligent agents in each server for running a check on the status of each server after phrasing of client requests,

means for measuring and storing information indicating the status and the behavior of the server at a given moment,

means for automatically collecting said information as a function of domains examined and systematically processing the information by the server,

means for offering the information in the form of presentation reports contained in dynamically evolving pages while the client'"'"'s browser accesses said dynamically evolving pages having the information collected and processed in response to a request,

wherein the systematic processing of the information collected for construction of the dynamic pages by the server is carried out in successive steps, each step corresponding to processing of said information by a particular module, including;

a page construction module which receives a client'"'"'s request from a network and prepares the pages by collecting necessary data in appropriate levels depending on the operating system of the page construction module, then presenting said data to a generic tool module for aiding in the construction of the pages, independent of the operating system,

a semantic knowledge module of the operating system for fetching low-level data in an information construction module and then constructing a high-level semantic representation of the data fetched,

an information construction module of the operating system which uses commands depending on the operating system to acquire low-level data and provides an application interface for communicating with the semantic knowledge module of the operating system, and

a generic tool module for aiding in the construction of the pages in high-level hypertext language.

7. A monitoring system according to claim 6, characterized in that the semantic knowledge module of the operating system comprises three parts, a first part directly connected to the page construction module, which contains a code that makes it possible to collect semantic information and present said information, a second part which manages logical structures containing the code which makes it possible to construct semantic structures by grouping individual basic structures and a third part which manages basic structures containing the code which makes it possible to construct basic structures.

8. A monitoring system according to claim 7, further including alarm buffer registers and characterized in that the server, integrated into the information construction module of the operating system, includes a first intelligent agent functioning as an event management agent for sending real-time notifications in a given mode, the utilization of which provides a history of alarms so as to facilitate the search for a particular alarm buffer register, said alarm buffer registers having an alarm threshold associated with each instantaneous threshold value which, when exceeded, triggers an event, said alarm threshold being capable of modification by a user.

9. A monitoring system according to claim 8, wherein the server is integrated into the information construction module of the operating system, said server including a second intelligent agent for measuring and managing a machine, and for automatically collecting information, said information then being automatically produced in the form of automatically updated presentation reports, said second agent being used to produce pages relating to the utilization of the machines monitored, thereby making it possible to collect raw data relative to the utilization of the machines, to calculate the usable data in order to supply the instantaneous data calculated, to calculate the passing of thresholds and to produce the history of the data calculated, said second agent being constituted by three main parts, a data collector for collecting data in patterns to determine which objects must be monitored so as to collect the basic information necessary, a data manager for rearranging the data collected from various machines observed so as to facilitate access relative to predefined criteria, and a data reporter for generating standard presentation reports from files in which all the raw data collected are stored.

10. A monitoring system according to claim 9, wherein organized functionalities are used to carry out the following various operations:

a configuration oriented operation which provides a global view of software and hardware configurations of a server,

a network management oriented operation which provides a synthetic view relative to availability of resources in question,

a utilization oriented operation for monitoring the capacity of the resources to meet current and future needs, which involves measuring the utilization of the main software and hardware resources and providing a visual check on the server,

a change oriented operation for saving a record of any software or hardware change,

an event oriented operation for detecting, and producing presentation reports on, searching for and correcting problems relative to message sending, analyzing of the presentation reports relative to system problems with a view toward preventing reoccurrence of the problems,

an error management oriented operation for re-establishing normal services for the user,

a service oriented operation for controlling the most often used services,

a security oriented operation for providing status information relative to the control of access to local or distributed resources from a user'"'"'s point of view, and

an application oriented operation for managing various applications by supplying details on the status, the utilization, and the consumption of resources relative to such applications.

11. A system for real-time monitoring of a data processing system for administration and maintenance support of the system in an operating phase, and for communicating in a client-server mode through interconnected networks, each client comprising a browser which supports a high-level hypertext language, comprising intelligent agents in each server for phrasing a client request via the intelligent agents in each server, means for running a check on the status of each server, means for measuring and storing parameter information indicating the status and behavior of the server at a given moment, means for automatically collecting the parameter information as a function of domains examined and systematically processed by the server, and means for offering the information in the form of presentation reports contained in dynamically evolving pages, while accessing said dynamic pages having the collected and processed information responding to a request via the client'"'"'s browser, wherein

said dynamically evolving pages are constructed by carrying out systematic processing of parameter information by the server in successive steps, each step corresponding to the processing of said information by a particular module, including a page construction module, a semantic knowledge module, an information construction module and a generic tool module,

the page construction module being configured to receive a client'"'"'s request from the network and prepare the pages by collecting the necessary data in appropriate levels depending on the construction module'"'"'s operating system, and then present said data to the generic tool module for aiding in the construction, independent of the operating system,

the information construction module being configured to fetch low-level data depending on the operating system via the semantic knowledge module of the operating system, construct a high-level semantic representation of the data requested, acquire low level data utilizing commands to the information construction module of the operating system to acquire said low-level data and communicate with the semantic knowledge module of the operating system via an application interface, and

the generic tool module being configured for aiding in the construction of the pages in high-level hypertext language.

12. A system according to claim 11, further comprising means for carrying out systematic processing of the parameter information collected for construction of the dynamic pages by the server in successive steps, each step corresponding to the processing of said information by a particular module, including a page construction module, a semantic knowledge module, an information construction module and a generic tool module, means for receiving a client'"'"'s request in the page construction module from the network and preparing the pages by collecting the necessary data in appropriate levels depending on the construction module'"'"'s operating system, means for presenting said data to the generic tool module independent of the operating system for aiding in the construction of the dynamic pages, means for fetching low-level data in the information construction module depending on the operating system via the semantic knowledge module of the operating system, means for constructing a high-level semantic representation of the data requested, means for acquiring low level data utilizing commands to the information construction module of the operating system to acquire said low-level data and communicating with the semantic knowledge module of the operating system via an application interface, and means for constructing the pages in high-level hypertext language via the generic tool module for aiding in the construction of the pages in high-level hypertext language.

13. A system according to claim 11, characterized in that the semantic knowledge module of the operating system comprises three parts, a first part directly connected to the page construction module, said first part containing a code that makes it possible to collect and present semantic information, a second part for managing of logical structures containing the code to construct semantic structures by grouping individual basic structures, and a third part for managing basic structures containing the code to construct basic structures.

14. A system according to claim 11, characterized in that for the application of said process there is included alarm buffer registers and a first intelligent event management agent in the server integrated into the information construction module of the operating system, said event management agent being adapted to send real-time notifications in a given mode, for utilizing said alarm buffer registers to provide a history of alarms so as to facilitate the search for a particular alarm, said alarm buffer registers having an alarm threshold associated with each instantaneous threshold value which, when exceeded, triggers an event.

15. A monitoring process according to claim 14, wherein for the application of said process, there is included a second intelligent agent in the server for measuring and managing a machine, said second agent being integrated into the information construction module of the operating system, and adapted to automatically collect information which is then automatically produced in the form of presentation reports that are automatically updated, means for producing by said second agent the pages relating to the utilization of the machines monitored, means for collecting the raw data relative to the utilization of the machines and calculating the usable data to supply the instantaneous data to be calculated, means for calculating the passing of thresholds and producing the history of the data calculated, said second agent being constituted by three main parts, a data collector which collects the data in patterns to determine objects to be monitored so as to collect the basic information necessary, a data manager to rearrange the data collected from the various machines observed so as to facilitate access relative to predefined criteria, and a data reporter to generate standard presentation reports from files in which all the raw data collected are stored.