Checks for product knowledge management

• US 7,100,083 B2
• Filed: 12/13/2002
• Issued: 08/29/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 08/04/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Oracle America, Inc. (Oracle Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Sun Microsystems Incorporated (Oracle Corporation)
• Inventors: Bingham, Paris E. Jr., Martin, Rex G., Treece, Alan J., Helgren, Matthew J., Little, Mike E.
• Primary Examiner(s): Baderman, Scott
• Assistant Examiner(s): SCHELL, JOSEPH O
• Application Number:
  US10/319,015
• Publication Number:
  US 20040078727A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,355 Days
• Field of Search: 714/26, 714/27, 714/35, 714/21, 706/60, 706/47, 706/48, 706/50, 706/908, 717/117, 717/121
• US Class Current: 714/26
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/2257 using expert systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06N 5/00 Computing arrangements using knowledge-based models
• CPC Class Codes: G06N 5/025 Extracting rules from data

Abstract

A check for a knowledge automation engine to use in detecting product issues on products. A knowledge automation engine may evaluate a check against a fact to detect a product issue on a product and provide a user of the product remediation information. A check may contain a product issue description, a rule to evaluate against a fact in order to detect the product issue, and remediation information to help a user address the product issue if the product issue is detected on the product. Product issues may include product installation validation and known product bugs. Facts used by the knowledge automation engine may include product configuration facts.

Claims

1. A system, comprising:

a knowledge repository configured to store product knowledge for a plurality of products, wherein the product knowledge comprises one or more checks, wherein each check is assigned a plurality of state values, wherein each state value of the plurality of state values is indicative of a particular state selected from a respective set of defined states, wherein at least one set of defined states indicates whether the check is for internal use only or whether the check is available for both internal use and customer use. wherein each check comprises;

a description section, wherein the description section comprises text describing a product issue detectable by the check;

a rule section, wherein the rule section comprises a rule to detect the product issue, wherein the rule is formatted according to a rule language; and

a remediation section, wherein the remediation section comprises information to address the product issue detectable by the check; and

an interface to access the one or more checks in the knowledge repository, wherein the interface is configured to allow a user to search the one or more checks, to determine state values assigned to the one or more checks, and to evaluate the one or more checks to detect a product issue.

2. The system as recited in claim 1, wherein the text describing the product issue detectable by the check is searchable by a user to locate a set of relevant checks to send to a knowledge automation engine from the knowledge repository over a network to detect whether the product issue exists on a particular product.

3. The system as recited in claim 1, wherein the rule section comprises an applicability rule formatted according to rule language and used to evaluate whether the check is relevant to a particular type of product issue.

4. The system as recited in claim 3, wherein the rule section further comprises a condition rule executed if the applicability rule does not fail;

wherein the condition rule uses a fact about a product configuration to detect a product issue on the product.

5. The system as recited in claim 1, further comprising:

a fact collector configured to, in response to a query from a requester, collect one or more raw facts related to a product of the plurality of products in a first format, organize the one or more raw facts in a second format recognizable by the requester, and transmit one or more selected facts organized in the second format to the requester;

a knowledge automation engine configured to;

receive a particular check selected for transmission to the knowledge automation engine from the knowledge repository by an application executing at a product of the plurality of products;

in response to determining that a fact needed to evaluate a rule in the check is not present in a static fact repository, send a query to the fact collector to obtain the fact from the fact collector; and

evaluate the check using at least the obtained fact.

6. The system as recited in claim 1, wherein the remediation section further comprises an analysis section describing how the product issue was detected.

7. The system as recited in claim 1, wherein the remediation section further comprises a recommendation for the product issue including information on how to resolve the product issue detected by the check.

8. The system as recited in claim 1, wherein the remediation section further comprises reference document information including files with additional information related to the product issue detected by the check.

9. The system as recited in claim 1, wherein each check further comprises a product category indicator;

wherein the product category indicator is used to organize the checks in the knowledge repository.

10. The system as recited in claim 1, wherein each check further comprises report assignments;

wherein the report assignments are used to organize output generated by the checks for gathering statistics on checks that have been executed on a product.

11. The system as recited in claim 1, wherein each check further comprises a keyword searchable by a user to locate a set of relevant checks to send to a knowledge automation engine to detect whether one or more product issues exist on a particular product.

12. The system as recited in claim 1, wherein each check is automated by creating program instructions executable by a processor to detect a product issue.

13. The system as recited in claim 1, further comprising a history file to store changes made to a check over a life of the check.

14. The system as recited in claim 1, wherein the rule section comprises a plurality of rules.

15. The system as recited in claim 1, wherein at least one check stored in the knowledge repository comprises a severity level indicator used to determine a number of test cases to be run when the check is tested.

16. The system as recited in claim 1, wherein a particular set of defined states indicates a type of review, selected from among a specified set of types of reviews, being performed on a check.

17. The system as recited in claim 16, wherein the set of types of reviews includes a technical review, a standards review, and a review required because a check was created by a client.

18. The system as recited in claim 1, wherein a particular set of defined states indicates whether (a) a check is being reviewed to determine if it can be automated, (b) the check is awaiting automation by a check automator or (c) an automated version of the check is currently being developed.

19. The system as recited in claim 1, wherein the rule comprises a plurality of executable statements in the rule language including a first statement and a second statement, wherein the first statement is identified in the rule by a statement identifier, wherein the second statement includes a predicate to check an evaluation status of the first statement, and wherein the second statement identifies the first statement using the statement identifier.

20. A system, comprising:

a processor;

memory accessible by the processor and configured to store a check and a plurality of state values assigned to the check, wherein the check comprises;

an applicability rule formatted in a knowledge predicate language as at least one functional statement followed by one or more arguments, wherein the applicability rule is executable by the processor to detect if the check is applicable to a particular type of product issue;

a condition rule formatted in the knowledge predicate language and executable by the processor to detect a product issue; and

a remediation section with information to address the product issue detectable by the condition rule; and

wherein each state value of the plurality of state values is indicative of a particular state selected from a respective set of defined states, wherein at least one set of defined states indicates whether the check is for internal use only or whether the check is available for both internal use and customer use.

21. The system as recited in claim 20, wherein the knowledge predicate language is a typeless language.

22. The system as recited in claim 20, wherein the information in the remediation section is sent to a user of the product to remedy the product issue if the product issue is detected on the product by the check.

23. The system as recited in claim 20, wherein the information in the remediation section is used by the processor to automatically remedy the product issue if the product issue is detected on the product.