System, method and program product for centrally managing agents

• US 7,085,764 B2
• Filed: 05/13/2002
• Issued: 08/01/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 05/13/2002
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Bangel, Matthew J., Filiberti, David M., Houston, William M., Martin, James A. Jr., Morin, Eric J.
• Primary Examiner(s): Robinson, Greta L.
• Assistant Examiner(s): Lu, Kuen S.
• Application Number:
  US10/144,640
• Publication Number:
  US 20030212715A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,541 Days
• Field of Search: 707/201, 707/204, 707/203, 707/10, 707/2, 709/202
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/52 Program synchronisation; Mutual exclusion, e.g. by means of semaphores
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1095 Replication or mirroring of data, e.g. scheduling or transport for data synchronisation between network nodes
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99952 Coherency, e.g. same view to multiple users

Abstract

A system, method and program product for centrally managing agents are provided. Specifically, under the present invention, master agents stored in a control database of a control system are scheduled to execute remote agents stored in remote databases of remote systems. Once executed by the master agents, the remote agents will implement functions thereto. By providing centralized management of agents in this manner, agent scheduling conflicts are prevented.

Claims

1. A system for centrally managing agents, comprising:

a control system having a control database;

a plurality of remote systems connected to the control system, wherein each of the plurality of remote systems has a remote database; and

a plurality of master agents in the control database, each of the plurality of master agents being programmed to perform an agent function, wherein the plurality of master agents are adapted to control local functions of the remote databases corresponding to the agent function of each of the plurality of master agents and to help prevent agent scheduling conflicts, and wherein the plurality of master agents are adapted to implement any local function of the remote database that may be performed by an agent of the remote database.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the remote database include remote agents, each remote agent having a remote agent function, and wherein the plurality of master agents are adapted to centrally manage the remote agents by interacting with the remote agents that have remote agent functions corresponding to the agent functions of the plurality of master agents according to predefined scheduling to control the local functions.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein the control system further comprises:

a scheduling system for scheduling implementation of the local functions by adapting the master agents to interact with the remote agents according to the predefined scheduling; and

a grouping system for grouping the master agents and the remote agents.

4. The system of claim 2, wherein the master agents are adapted to modify access control list rules to control access to the data within the remote databases.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein at least one of the local functions comprises cross-system replication of at least a portion of the data within one of the remote databases.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein at least one of the local functions comprises backing up the data within one of the remote databases.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the control system is selected from the group consisting of a server and a devoted client.

8. A system for centrally managing agents, comprising:

a control system having a control database;

a plurality of remote systems connected to the control system wherein each of the plurality of remote systems has a remote database that includes a remote agent having a remote agent function; and

a plurality of master agents in the control database, each of the plurality of master agents being programmed to perform an agent function, wherein the plurality of master agents are scheduled to centrally manage the remote agents that have remote agent functions corresponding to the agent functions of the plurality of master agents to control local processing of data within the remote databases, and wherein the plurality of master agents are adapted to implement any local function of the remote database that may be performed by a remote agent of the remote database.

9. The system of claim 8, wherein the control system comprises:

a scheduling system for scheduling the local processing of data within the remote databases by adapting the master agents to interact with the remote agents; and

a grouping system for grouping the master agents and the remote agents.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein the grouping system allows a plurality of remote agents to be called by a single master agent.

11. The system of claim 8, wherein the master agents are further scheduled to modify access control list rules to control access to the data within the remote databases.

12. The system of claim 8, wherein the processing of data comprises cross-system replication of at least a portion of the data within one of the remote databases.

13. The system of claim 8, wherein the processing of data comprises backing up the data within one of the remote databases.

14. The system of claim 8, wherein the control system is selected from the group consisting of a server and a devoted client.

15. A system for centrally managing agents, comprising:

a control database having a plurality of master agents, each of the plurality of master agents being programmed to perform an agent function;

a scheduling system for scheduling the master agents to centrally manage remote agents, each remote agent having a remote agent function, the remote agents stored in remote databases to implement local functions of the remote databases corresponding to the remote agents that have remote agent functions corresponding to the agent functions of the plurality of master agents; and

a grouping system for grouping the plurality of master agents and the remote agents,

wherein the plurality of master agents are adapted to implement any local function of a remote database that may be performed by an agent of the remote database.

16. The system of claim 15, further comprising an agent programming system for programming the master agents to manage particular remote agents.

17. The system of claim 15, wherein the master agents are scheduled to modify access control list rules to control access to the data within the remote databases.

18. The system of claim 15, wherein at least one of the local functions comprises cross-system replication of at least a portion of the data within one of the remote databases.

19. The system of claim 15, wherein at least one of the local functions comprises backing up the data within one of the remote databases.

20. A method for centrally managing agents, comprising:

providing a control system having a control database of master agents, each of the master agents being programmed to perform an agent function;

providing a plurality of remote systems connected to the control system, wherein each remote system includes a remote database, and wherein each remote database includes a remote agent, each remote agent having a remote agent function; and

scheduling the master agents to centrally manage the remote agents that have remote agent functions corresponding to the agent functions of the master agents to control local functions of the remote system corresponding to the remote agents and to help prevent agent scheduling conflicts,

wherein the master agents are adapted to implement any local function of the remote database that may performed by a remote agent of the remote database.

21. The method of claim 20, further comprising grouping the master agents and the remote agents.

22. The method of claim 20, further comprising programming the master agents to manage particular remote agents.

23. The method of claim 20, wherein the scheduling step comprises scheduling the master agents to modify access control list rules to control access to the data stored within in the remote databases.

24. The method of claim 20, wherein at least one of the local functions comprises cross-system replication of at least a portion of the data within one of the remote databases.

25. The method of claim 20, wherein at least one of the local functions comprises backing up the data within one of the remote databases.

26. A program product stored on a recordable medium for scheduling master agents of a control system, each of the master agents being programmed to perform an agent function, to communicate with remote agents of remote system connected to the control system, each remote agent having a remote function, which when executed, comprises:

program code for scheduling the master agents to centrally manage the remote agents that have remote agent functions corresponding to the agent functions of the master agents to control local processing of data within remote databases; and

program code for grouping the master agents and the remote agents,

wherein the master agents are adapted to implement any local processing within a remote database that maybe performed by an agent of the remote database.

27. The program product of claim 26, further comprising program code for programming the master agents to manage particular remote agents.

28. The program product of claim 26, further comprising program code for scheduling the master agents to modify access control list rules to control access to the data within the remote databases.

29. The program product of claim 26, wherein the processing of data comprises cross-system replication of at least a portion of the data within one of the remote databases.

30. The program product of claim 26, wherein the processing of data comprises backing up the data within one of the remote databases.

31. A system for implementing a function on a remote machine, the system comprising:

at least one remote computer system;

a remote database on each remote computer system for storing remote information, the remote information including;

at least one remote agent, each remote agent being a program that performs a remote function on the remote computer system according to defined scheduling; and

remote data;

a control computer system connected to each of the at least one remote computer system;

a control database implemented on the control computer system, the control database for storing control information, the control information including;

a master agent, the master agent being a program that performs a specific function; and

a grouping rule for grouping the master agent with at least one corresponding remote agent;

an agent control system that allows the at least one corresponding remote agent of the remote database to be centrally managed from the control computer system, the agent control system including;

a grouping system that includes a grouping graphical user interface (GUI) to group in accordance with the grouping rule the master agent with the at least one corresponding remote agent, the master agent adapted to communicate with and execute the at least one corresponding remote agent to perform the remote function programmed into the at least one corresponding remote agent that corresponds to the specific function performed by the master agent;

wherein the control computer system may use the master agent to call the at least one corresponding remote agent to implement any function that can be performed by a remote agent,

and wherein the agent control system helps to prevent conflicts in agent scheduling.

32. The system of claim 31, the system fwther comprising:

remote functional rules included in the remote information that govern execution of the at least one remote agent in the remote function performed by the at least one remote agent;

remote access control list (ACL) rules included in the remote information that govern a permission of an end-user for accessing the remote database to help maintain an integrity of the remote data;

a scheduling rule included in the control information for scheduling execution of the master agent;

a formatting rule included in the control information for governing execution of the master agent;

a scheduling system included in the access control system that includes a scheduling graphical user interface (GUI) to schedule the master agent to communicate with and execute the at least one corresponding remote agent in accordance with the scheduling rule; and

a programming system included in the access control system that includes a programming graphical user interface (GUI) to define in accordance with the formatting rule of the control database at least one of the remote functional rules;

wherein the remote function includes replicating at least some of the remote data in the remote database to a second remote database, backing up a copy of the remote data in the remote database to an alternate destination system, adding to the remote ACL rules, and editing the ACL rules.