Help desk systems and methods for use with communications networks

• US 7,281,170 B2
• Filed: 10/29/2002
• Issued: 10/09/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 05/05/2000
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Computer Associates Think Inc. (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Computer Associates Think Inc. (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Inventors: Caron, Jonathan P., Taylor, David T., Bosa, Patrick A.
• Primary Examiner(s): MASKULINSKI, MICHAEL C
• Application Number:
  US10/282,872
• Publication Number:
  US 20030056140A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,806 Days
• Field of Search: 714/27, 714/48, 709/1
• US Class Current: 714/48
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0709 in a distributed system consisting of a plurality of standalone computer nodes, e.g. clusters, client-server systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/079 Root cause analysis, i.e. error or fault diagnosis in a hardware test environment G06F11/22; in a software test environment G06F11/36
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0793 Remedial or corrective actions recovery from an exception in an instruction pipeline G06F9/3861; by retry G06F11/1402; for recovering from a failure of a protocol instance or entity H04L69/40
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0654 using network fault recovery ring fault isolation or reconfiguration in loop networks without recovery actions by a network management system H04L12/437
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5074 Handling of user complaints or trouble tickets
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/50 Testing arrangements

Abstract

A network management system includes a fault diagnosis system, a topology mapper, an impact analyzer and a help desk system. The a help desk system includes a user interaction module, and a fault diagnosis interaction module. The user interaction module is constructed and arranged to automatically communicate with a user. The fault diagnosis interaction module is constructed and arranged to communicate with a fault diagnosis system.

Claims

1. A help desk system for providing help desk support in connection with a network, said help desk system constructed and arranged to automatically initiate an investigation of a network resource in response to receipt of a help desk submission and to automatically provide to a network user a result of said investigation, said help desk system comprising:

a user interaction module constructed and arranged to receive said help desk submission from any network user, a portion of said help desk submission associated with a network resource, and in response to receipt of said help desk submission to automatically initiate an investigation request to investigate a condition of said network resource; and

a fault diagnosis interaction module constructed and arranged to interface with said user interaction module to receive said investigation request therefrom, said fault diagnosis interaction module comprising;

an interface mechanism responsive to said investigation request to automatically send a fault diagnosis request to initiate said investigation of said condition of said network resource with a fault diagnosis system, said interface mechanism to receive a result of said fault diagnosis request from said fault diagnosis system and said interface mechanism responsive to said receipt of said result to automatically identify network users affected by said result and to automatically send an unsolicited message describing the result of said investigation to the identified network users.

2. The help desk system of claim 1, wherein said fault diagnosis system is constructed and arranged to detect a change in said condition of said network resource and automatically provide said change in said condition to said fault diagnosis interaction module.

3. The help desk system of claim 1, wherein said identified network users are notified about the corresponding result without using one of a help desk operator, a help desk administrator, or a network administrator.

4. The help desk system of claim 3 further including a fault impact notification module constructed and arranged to receive said result of said fault diagnosis request from said fault diagnosis interaction module and to determine if said condition of said network resource has an effect on a one or more users of said network, wherein a network user is identified as being affected by said result if said condition of said network resource may affect the network user'"'"'s use of said network.

5. The help desk system of claim 4 further comprising a group administrator module.

6. The help desk system of claim 5 further comprising group membership database files.

7. The help desk system of claim 6 further comprising a database memory.

8. The help desk system of claim 7 further comprising a network administrator interaction module constructed and arranged to communicate with a network administrator.

9. The help desk system of claim 4, further comprising a help desk notification module constructed and arranged to receive from said fault impact notification module a notification of users identified as being affected by said condition of said network resource, and responsive to receipt of said notification to automatically send an unsolicited message containing information associated with said notification to the identified users.

10. The help desk system of claim 1 further including a user group service association module.

11. The help desk system of claim 1, wherein the network resource comprises at least one of a software component a hardware component.

12. The help desk system of claim 1, wherein said unsolicited message is at least one of a ticker-tape notification, an electronic mail message, or an update of a web page being viewed by a user.

13. The help desk system of claim 1, wherein network users affected by said result are identified through an inferencing mechanism.

14. The help desk system of claim 1, wherein at least one network user is not a help desk operator, help desk administrator, or network administrator.

15. In a help desk system, a method of providing help desk support in connection with a network, said help desk system automatically initiating an investigation of a network resource in response to receipt of a help desk request and automatically providing to a network user a result of said investigation, the method comprising the acts of:

receiving, by a user interaction module of said help desk system, a help desk request from any network user, a portion of said help desk request associated with a network resource;

said user interaction module, in response to receipt of said help desk request, automatically sending an investigation request to a fault diagnosis interaction module to initiate an investigation of a condition of said network resource;

said fault diagnosis interaction module, in response to receipt of said investigation request, automatically sending a fault isolation request to a fault diagnosis system to investigate said condition of said network resource;

said fault diagnosis interaction module receiving a result of said fault isolation request from said fault diagnosis system;

said fault diagnosis interaction module, in response to receipt of said result, automatically identifying network users affected by said result and automatically sending an unsolicited message to the identified network users describing the result of said investigation.

16. The method of claim 15 further comprising receiving fault data associated with said result from said fault diagnosis system by said fault diagnosis interaction module, said fault data corresponding to a condition of said network resource.

17. The method of claim 16 further comprising automatically transmitting said fault data received from said fault diagnosis system to said identified network users.

18. The method of claim 17 further comprising automatically providing said fault data to a fault impact notification module.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein said fault impact notification module identifies a network user as being affected by said result if said condition of said network resource may affect the network user'"'"'s use of said network.

20. The method of claim 17 further comprising detecting by said fault diagnosis system a condition corresponding to a correction of a fault and communicating said fault correction from said fault diagnosis system to a fault impact notification module.

21. The method of claim 20 further comprising automatically sending an unsolicited message notifying said identified network users about said fault correction.

22. The method of claim 20 further comprising notifying a network user about said fault correction after receiving a query from said network user.

23. The method of claim 20 further comprising notifying a network user about said fault correction after a network administrator requests a status of said fault from a network administrator interaction module.

24. The method of claim 15, wherein the network resource comprises at least one of a software component or a hardware component.

25. The method of claim 15, wherein said unsolicited message is at least one of a ticker-tape notification, an electronic mail message, or an update of a web page being viewed by a user.

26. The method of claim 15, wherein network users affected by said result are identified through an inferencing mechanism.

27. The method of claim 15, wherein at least one network user is not a help desk operator, help desk administrator, or network administrator.

28. A network management system including a help desk system to provide help desk support in connection with a network under management by said network management system, the network management system comprising:

a help desk system constructed and arranged to respond to a help desk submission to automatically initiate an investigation of a network resource and to automatically send an unsolicited message describing a result of said investigation to network users affected by said result;

a user interaction module of said help desk system constructed and arranged to receive said help desk submission from a network user, a portion of said help desk submission being associated with a network resource, and in response to receiving said help desk submission to automatically initiate an investigation request to investigate a condition of said network resource;

a fault diagnosis interaction module constructed and arranged to interface with said user interaction module to receive said investigation request therefrom, said fault diagnosis interaction module having an interface mechanism responsive to said investigation request to automatically send a fault isolation request to initiate an investigation of said condition of said network resource with a fault diagnosis system, said interface mechanism to receive a result of said fault isolation request from said fault diagnosis system, and said interface mechanism responsive to said receipt of said result to automatically send a fault impact request to determine a consequence of said result;

a fault impact notification module constructed and arranged to interface with said fault diagnosis interaction module to receive said fault impact request therefrom, said fault impact notification module responsive to said fault impact request to take an action to determine a consequence of said result on use of said network by at least one network user; and

a help desk notification module constructed and arranged to receive a notification of a condition of said network resource having an effect on a at least one user'"'"'s use of said network from said fault impact notification module and arranged to automatically send an unsolicited message to said user without using one of a help desk operator, a help desk administrator, or a network administrator, wherein the unsolicited message includes information enabling the user to verify the condition of the network resource included in the result of the fault isolation request.

29. The network management system of claim 28 wherein said fault diagnosis system is constructed to first detect a condition of a network resource and then provide said fault data to said fault diagnosis interaction module based on said condition.

30. The network management system of claim 28, wherein the information enabling the user to verify the condition of the network resource included in the result of the fault isolation request includes an identification of a process and/or a step used to identify the condition of the network resource included in the result of the fault isolation request.

31. The network management system of claim 28 comprising a network administrator interaction module constructed and arranged to provide data to a help desk administrator.

32. The network management system of claim 28 comprising a group administrator module constructed and arranged to provide data designated to users based on a selected user characteristic.

33. The network management system of claim 32, wherein said user characteristic used by said group administrator module is an IP address.

34. The network management system of claim 32, wherein said user characteristic used by said group administrator module is a type of a software agent running on a user system.

35. The network management system of claim 32 comprising a group membership database files providing data to said group administrator module.

36. The network management system of claim 28, wherein the network resource comprises at least one of a software component or a hardware component.

37. The network management system of claim 28, wherein said unsolicited message is at least one of a ticker-tape notification, an electronic mail message, or an update of a web page being viewed by a user.

38. The network management system of claim 28, wherein the at least one user is identified through an inferencing mechanism.

39. The network management system of claim 28, wherein at least one network user is not a help desk operator, help desk administrator, or network administrator.