Dynamically drilling-down through a health monitoring map to determine the health status and cause of health problems associated with network objects of a managed network environment

• US 7,146,568 B2
• Filed: 08/06/2001
• Issued: 12/05/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 05/29/1998
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Hewlett Packard Enterprise Development LP (Hewlett-Packard Enterprise Company)
• Original Assignee: Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. (HP Inc.)
• Inventors: Richardson, David E.
• Primary Examiner(s): Hailu, Tadesse
• Application Number:
  US09/923,045
• Publication Number:
  US 20020054169A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,947 Days
• Field of Search: 345/810, 345/825, 345853-855, 345/866, 345734-738, 345/747, 709202-204, 709/223, 709/220, 709/224, 709/226, 715/810, 715/825, 715734-738, 715/747
• US Class Current: 715/736
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0893 Assignment of logical groups to network elements
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/22 comprising specially adapted graphical user interfaces [GUI]
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 715/969 Network layout and operation interface

Abstract

User-configurable group views allow an administrator of a managed network, upon noticing that an icon is indicative of a critical event having occurred, as reflected in the color, shape, or other such indicator of the icon, to “drill down” to the network device or service that is the subject of the critical event and to then view an event or trap message associated with the critical event that is stored as a field of the network device or service effected by the critical event.

Claims

1. A method for allowing a user to determine a health status of network objects in a managed network environment, comprising:

displaying a plurality of group view containers each corresponding to a group of network objects sharing at least one user-definable group view attribute, and providing for each group view container an indicator representative of the overall health status of its corresponding group of network objects based on a health status of each of the group'"'"'s network objects;

for each network object in a group of network objects corresponding to a user-selected group view container, displaying a representation of the network object, and providing an indicator representative of a health status of the network object as determined by at least one user-definable health characteristic of the network object;

for each of the at least one health characteristic of a user-selected network object, displaying a representation of the health characteristic, and providing an indicator representative of a health status of the health characteristic;

receiving a user selection to modify one of the plurality of group view containers;

presenting to the user, in response to the user selection, a user interface listing the user-definable group view attributes for the selected group view container; and

receiving via the user interface a user modification of one or more of the listed group view attributes.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

for each user-selected health characteristic, displaying any event or trap message indicative of an event affecting the health status of the user-selected health characteristic.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the event or trap message indicative of an event affecting the health status of a user-selected health characteristic is stored as a field of the network object for which the health characteristic is defined.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the field comprises a field of the network object in an alarm browser used in an Internet application.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein providing a health status indicator of each health characteristic comprises:

causing the health status indicator of the health characteristic to indicate a poor health condition of the health characteristic when performance data of the health characteristic violates a predetermined threshold of the health characteristic.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

storing the at least one health characteristic for each network object in a health characteristic configuration file of the corresponding group view to which the network object belongs.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the health characteristic configuration file corresponding to each group of network objects is a registration file.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the user can dynamically change network objects of a group of network objects by changing one or more of the at least one user-definable group view attribute of that group of network objects.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the at least one health characteristic of a network object comprises one or more of a group consisting of disk utilization, memory utilization, network utilization, and processor utilization.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the at least one of the network object is either a network device or a network service of the managed network environment.

11. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

storing the at least one group view attribute for each group of network objects in a attribute configuration file of the corresponding group to which the network object belongs.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the attribute configuration file corresponding to each group of network objects is a registration file.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein the indicator representative of the overall health status of a corresponding group of network objects comprises either a color or a shape of an icon representing the corresponding group view container.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein the indicator representative of the overall health status of a corresponding group of network objects comprises an audible alarm.

15. The method of claim 1, wherein the indicator representative of the health status of a network object comprises either a color or a shape of a displayed icon of the network object.

16. The method of claim 1, wherein the indicator representative of the health status of a network object comprises an audible alarm.

17. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining context sensitive information of a user-selected group view; and

modifying, in accordance with the determined context information, at least one of a menubar, popup menu, or toolbar included in the user interface when the user-selected group view is selected by the user.

18. A system for allowing a user to determine a health status of network objects in a managed network environment, comprising:

means for displaying a plurality of group view containers each corresponding to a group of network objects sharing at least one user-definable group view attribute, and for providing for each group view container an indicator representative of the overall health status of its corresponding group of network objects based on a health status of each of the group'"'"'s network objects;

means for displaying a representation of the network object, and for providing an indicator representative of a health status of the network object as determined by at least one user-definable health characteristic of the network object for each network object in a group of network objects corresponding to a user-selected group view container;

means for displaying a representation of the at least one health characteristic, and for providing an indicator representative of a health status of the health characteristic, for each health characteristic of a user-selected network object;

means for receiving a user selection to modify one of said plurality of group view containers;

means for presenting to the user, in response to the user selection, a listing the user-definable group view attributes for the selected group view container; and

means for receiving a user modification of one or more of the listed group view attributes.

19. The system of claim 18, further comprising:

means for displaying any event or trap message indicative of an event affecting the health status of the user-selected health characteristic for each user-selected health characteristic.

20. The system of claim 18, wherein the means for providing a health status indicator of each health characteristic comprises:

means for causing the health status indicator of the health characteristic to indicate a poor health condition of the health characteristic when performance data of the health characteristic violates a predetermined threshold of the health characteristic.

21. The system of claim 18, further comprising:

means for storing the at least one health characteristic for each network object in a health characteristic configuration file of the corresponding group view to which the network object belongs.

22. The system of claim 18, wherein the at least one of the network object is either a network device or a network service of the managed network environment.

23. The system of claim 18, further comprising:

means for storing the at least one group attribute for each group of network objects in a attribute configuration file of the corresponding group view to which the network object belongs.

24. The system of claim 18, further comprising:

means for determining context sensitive information of a user-selected group view; and

means for modifying, in accordance with the determined context information, at least one of a menubar, popup menu, or toolbar included in the user interface when the user-selected group view is selected by the user.