System for monitoring and reporting performance of hosts and applications and selectively configuring applications in a resource managed system

• US 7,051,098 B2
• Filed: 05/24/2001
• Issued: 05/23/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 05/25/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: the united states of america as represented by the secretary of the navy
• Original Assignee: the united states of america as represented by the secretary of the navy
• Inventors: Welch, Lonnie R., Werme, Paul V., Masters, Michael W., Synan, William D.
• Primary Examiner(s): Luu, Le Hien
• Application Number:
  US09/864,830
• Publication Number:
  US 20050055322A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,825 Days
• Field of Search: 709/223, 709/224
• US Class Current: 709/224
• 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 11/3414 Workload generation, e.g. scripts, playback
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3433 for load management allocation of a server based on load conditions G06F9/505; load rebalancing G06F9/5083; redistributing the load in a network by a load balancer H04L67/1029
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3466 Performance evaluation by tracing or monitoring
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/349 for interfaces, buses
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3495 for systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/86 Event-based monitoring
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/865 Monitoring of software
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2209/482 Application
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2209/508 Monitor
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/4856 resumption being on a different machine, e.g. task migration, virtual machine migration G06F9/5088 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5038 considering the execution order of a plurality of tasks, e.g. taking priority or time dependency constraints into consideration scheduling strategies G06F9/4881 and subgroups
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5044 considering hardware capabilities
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/505 considering the load
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5072 Grid computing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/54 Interprogram communication
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/06 Management of faults, events, alarms or notifications
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0811 by checking connectivity
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0817 by checking functioning
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1001 for accessing one among a plurality of replicated servers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1008 : based on parameters of servers, e.g. available memory or workload monitoring of computer activity G06F11/30
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/101 : based on network conditions
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/40 : Network security protocols
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2405 : Monitoring of the internal components or processes of the server, e.g. server load allocation of resources in multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/50; performance measurement of computer activity G06F11/34
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/25 : Management operations performed by the server for facilitating the content distribution or administrating data related to end-users or client devices, e.g. end-user or client device authentication, learning user preferences for recommending movies maintenance or administration in data networks H04L41/00

Abstract

A monitoring system for a distributed environment including a plurality of hosts capable of executing multiple copies of a scalable application includes a first device for generating first data corresponding to performance of all copies of the scalable application; a second device for generating second data corresponding to performance of all host in the distributed environment; and a third device for generating performance metrics based on the first and second data.

Claims

1. Software stored on at least one host for converting N networked hosts into a resource managed system instantiating M managed characteristic applications, comprising:

a first function group which monitors the N hosts and network resources, the first function group running on the N hosts;

a second function group which provides general-purpose application event reporting and event correlation capabilities, the second function group running on the M characteristic applications themselves and reporting to daemons running on the N hosts;

a third function group which provides the reasoning and decision-making capabilities for the resource managed system; and

a fourth function group which provides program control capabilities permitting starting, stopping, and configuring of selected ones of the M managed characteristic applications on respective ones of the N hosts in the resource managed system,

wherein;

the first function group includes host monitor functions instantiated by first selected ones of the N hosts which generate first data corresponding to performance of all hosts and network devices in the distributed environment;

the second function group includes application monitoring functions instantiated by corresponding ones of the N hosts which generate second data indicative of performance of the M managed characteristic applications; and

one of the first and the second function groups provides metric functions instantiated by second selected ones of the N hosts which generate performance metrics based on the first and the second data and provides the performance metrics to the third function group.

2. The software as recited in claim 1, wherein the host monitor functions query all of the N hosts and interconnecting network components on a periodic basis to thereby generate the second data.

3. The software as recited in claim 1, wherein the host monitoring functions comprises:

N host monitors instantiated by the N hosts which collect extensive operating system-level data for each of the N hosts; and

a host discovery function employing Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) calls and ping Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) calls to determine when a new host comes on-line and if an operating one of the N hosts stops operating.

4. The software as recited in claim 3, wherein the N host monitors employ operating system-level mechanisms to retrieve information representing the status, the configuration, and the performance on each of the N hosts.

5. The software as recited in claim 4, wherein the retrieved information includes:

operating system version and machine configuration;

CPU configuration, status, and utilization;

memory configuration and usage;

network configuration, status, and utilization;

filesystem configuration, status, and utilization; and

process statuses including CPU, memory, network, and filesystem utilization for each process.

6. The software as recited in claim 3, wherein the host monitoring functions further comprise N history server functions which collect data from the N host monitors, respectively, to thereby maintain status and performance histories on each of the N hosts.

7. The software as recited in claim 1, wherein:

the application monitor function further comprises;

M instrumentation application programming interfaces (APIs) linked to the M copies of the managed characteristic application; and

M instrumentation daemons which receive instrumentation data generated API calls from the M copies of the managed characteristic application and reformat the instrumentation data into instrumentation event messages; and

the first data is generated responsive to the instrumentation event messages.

8. The software as recited in claim 1, wherein the first function group comprises:

host monitor functions, which reside on and collect operating system-level data each of the N hosts;

history server functions, which collect system-level data from the Host Monitor functions, respectively, maintain status and performance histories on each of the N hosts; and

a host discovery function which uses Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) calls and ping Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) calls to determine when new hosts come on-line and if an operating one of the N hosts ceases to function.

9. The software as recited in claim 1, wherein the second function group comprises:

instrumentation API Libraries which are linked with the N copies of the managed characteristic application and provide function call interfaces by which the application copies generate instrumentation data;

instrumentation daemon functions, which reside on each of the N hosts, that read the instrumentation data generated by the N copies of the managed characteristic application, that reformat the data into instrumentation event messages, and that send the event messages to instrumentation collector functions;

the instrumentation collector functions, which are operatively coupled to the instrumentation daemon functions, that forward the received event messages to instrumentation correlator functions and instrumentation broker functions;

the instrumentation correlator functions that provide grammar-driven capabilities for correlating, combining, and reformatting application data into higher-level metrics provided to the third function group; and

the instrumentation broker functions that receive event messages from the instrumentation collector functions and perform task-specific reformatting and data manipulation for driving displays.

10. The software as recited in claim 1, wherein one of the M managed characteristic applications comprises a scalable application.

11. The software as recited in claim 1, wherein one of the M managed characteristic applications comprises a fault tolerant application, where the degree of fault tolerance is selectable by a user.

12. The software as recited in claim 1, wherein one of the M managed characteristic application comprises a selectable priority application.