Predicting the health of a system that would result from the application of a proposed intervention to an existing system

• US 7,246,229 B2
• Filed: 10/19/2004
• Issued: 07/17/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 10/23/2000
• 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: Kirshenbaum, Evan R., Suermondt, Henri J.
• Primary Examiner(s): Cao; Chun
• Application Number:
  US10/968,547
• Publication Number:
  US 20050055247A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,001 Days
• Field of Search: 713/100
• US Class Current: 713/100
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/008 Reliability or availability analysis
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/60 Software deployment

Abstract

An arrangement for determining a predicted health of a system that would result from an application of a proposed intervention to an existing system. The predicted health is determined by determining a set of modifications involved in the proposed intervention wherein each modification involves one or more components of the existing system. For each modification, a set of component information that pertains to the modification is obtained from a knowledge base. Each set of component information may specify inter-dependencies among the components involved in the modification. For each modification, it is determined whether the inter-dependencies specified in the component information are satisfied. The determination of whether the inter-dependencies are satisfied enables a determination of the predicted health of individual components of the system as well as the predicted health of the overall system.

Claims

1. A system, comprising:

a memory that stores a system health predictor application; and

a plurality of components,

wherein the system health predictor application is configured to interpret component identifiers associated with the plurality of components and to interpret operational commands that represent a proposed intervention to one or more of the components, and

wherein the system health predictor application is further configured to calculate a numeric value that represents the system'"'"'s health if the proposed intervention were to be carried out.

2. The system of claim 1 wherein the system health predictor application is further configured to provide a non-numeric statement regarding the proposed intervention.

3. The system of claim 2 wherein the non-numeric statement comprises a list of components that would be affected by the proposed intervention.

4. The system of claim 2 wherein the non-numeric statement comprises a suggested modification to the proposed intervention.

5. The system of claim 1 wherein the numeric value is based on a weighting scheme applied to the components.

6. The system of claim 1 wherein the numeric value is compared to a threshold health value to determine whether the proposed intervention is to be applied to the system.

7. The system of claim 1 further comprising a knowledge database accessible to the system health predictor application, wherein the knowledge database stores information related to at least one component and wherein the information comprises a component identification, a list of pre-requisite components, and a list of component conflicts.

8. A method, comprising:

representing a proposed intervention associated with a computer system as a component identification and an operational command;

determining a set of modifications to the computer system associated with the proposed intervention; and

calculating a numeric value that represents a health of the computer system if the proposed intervention were to be carried out.

9. The method of claim 8 further comprising determining a list of components that would be affected by the proposed intervention.

10. The method of claim 8 further comprising providing a non-numeric statement that suggests a modification to the proposed intervention.

11. The method of claim 8 wherein calculating the numeric value comprises applying different weights to components of the computer system.

12. The method of claim 8 further comprising comparing the numeric value to a threshold health value to determine whether the proposed intervention is to be applied to the system.

13. The method of claim 8 wherein determining a set of modifications to the computer system comprises accessing information related to at least one component of the computer system.