Management information to object mapping and correlator

• US 7,290,049 B2
• Filed: 08/31/2004
• Issued: 10/30/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 05/08/1998
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Ahmed, Syed N., Osborne, Kenneth M., Menzies, Steven J., Byrisetty, Rajeev
• Primary Examiner(s): SALAD, ABDULLAHI ELMI
• Application Number:
  US10/930,645
• Publication Number:
  US 20050027850A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,155 Days
• Field of Search: 709/223, 709220-222, 709/238, 707/102, 707/103.X, 707/10
• US Class Current: 709/223
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/258 Data format conversion from or to a database
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0213 Standardised network management protocols, e.g. simple network management protocol [SNMP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0233 Object-oriented techniques, for representation of network management data, e.g. common object request broker architecture [CORBA]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/046 comprising network management agents or mobile agents therefor
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99944 Object-oriented database structure
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99946 Object-oriented database structure network

Abstract

A method and system to provide management information of network devices by mapping between SNMP MIB module schema and Common Information Model (CIM) schema. MIB modules are tree-structured lists of objects for describing SNMP network device information, whereas CIM schema employs user-intuitive, object-oriented classes to model such information. A mapping process enumerates the MIB objects and then maps the objects into CIM Managed Object Format (MOF) classes using defined mapping tables. A correlation mechanism is further provided to efficiently determine in real time which MIBs (or portions thereof) and corresponding CIM classes a network device supports.

Claims

1. In a computing environment, a method of determining which object classes are supported by a given network device, comprising:

a) traversing a tree of groups and subgroups to build lexicographically ordered ranges;

b) creating a range table of groups and mutually exclusive ranges of object identifiers corresponding to each group;

c) selecting an object identifier from the range table representing the starting object within a range corresponding to a group within the table;

d) requesting the network device to return its next highest object identifier beyond the selected object identifier;

e) receiving a returned object identifier corresponding to the next highest object identifier;

f) determining whether the returned object identifier falls into a range in the range table, and when so, maintaining information that object classes within a group corresponding to that range is supported; and

g) returning to b) using remaining ranges to provide starting object identifiers until the range table has no untested range entries remaining.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the returned object identifier falls into a range in the table, and further comprising, eliminating that group'"'"'s subsequent entries from the range table and eliminating any prior ranges below the returned object identifier from the range table.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein requesting that the network device to return its next highest object identifier beyond the selected object identifier comprises transmitting at least one SNMP GetNext function.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein traversing trees of groups maintained to create a range table of groups comprises selecting a first group in lexicographical order.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein traversing the trees of groups to create a range table of groups comprises arranging the trees in a lexicographical order from top down and left to right.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein traversing the trees of groups to create a range table of groups comprises tracking a maximum range object identifier under the current group.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein traversing the trees of groups to create a range table of groups comprises selecting a group and determining whether that group is a parent of a subgroup that has not yet been processed in creating the range table.

8. The method of claim 7 wherein a selected group is a parent of a subgroup that has not yet been processed in creating the range table, and wherein traversing the trees of groups to create a range table of groups further comprises, writing into the range table an associated starting range object identifier of the group and an ending range object identifier of the subgroup'"'"'s object identifier.

9. The method of claim 1 further comprising, extracting the marked groups to identify the objects supported by the device.

10. At least one computer-readable medium having computer-executable instructions, which when executed perform the method of claim 1.