Topology for a hierarchy of control plug-ins used in a control system

• US 7,644,161 B1
• Filed: 01/28/2005
• Issued: 01/05/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 01/28/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Hewlett Packard Enterprise Development LP (Hewlett-Packard Enterprise Company)
• Original Assignee: Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. (HP Inc.)
• Inventors: Graupner, Sven, Nitzsche, Tilo
• Primary Examiner(s): Najjar; Saleh
• Assistant Examiner(s): Ashraf; Waseem
• Application Number:
  US11/046,335
• Time in Patent Office: 1,803 Days
• Field of Search: 709/223, 709/226, 709/202, 719/316, 719/318
• US Class Current: 709/226
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/12 Discovery or management of network topologies
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/34 Signalling channels for network management communication
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1001 for accessing one among a plurality of replicated servers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1008 based on parameters of servers, e.g. available memory or workload monitoring of computer activity G06F11/30
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1029 using data related to the state of servers by a load balancer

Abstract

Information from control plug-ins organized in a hierarchy is received. The control plug-ins control an allocation of resources for an application. Relationships between the control plug-ins are determined based on the received information, and a topology of the control plug-ins is generated.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

receiving information from a plurality of control plug-ins organized in a hierarchy, wherein the plurality of control plug-ins control an allocation of resources for at least one application,

wherein the plurality of control plug-ins are operable to communicate information to parent or child control plug-ins in the hierarchy to control the allocation of the resources to the at least one application,

and each control plug-in is software executable by a computer system to implement a policy to control the allocation of the resources to the at least one application;

determining relationships between the plurality of control plug-ins based on the received information; and

generating a topology of the plurality of control plug-ins based on the determined relationships.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein receiving information from a plurality of control plug-ins organized in a hierarchy further comprises:

receiving at least one of a reference to a parent control plug-in and a reference to at least one child control plug-in for each of the plurality of control plug-ins.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein receiving information from a plurality of control plug-ins organized in a hierarchy further comprises:

receiving property information for each of the plurality of control plug-ins.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein receiving property information for each of the plurality of control plug-ins further comprises:

receiving information associated with at least one of a version, a system administrator associated with the control plug-in, and a customer associated with the control plug-in.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining changes in relationships between control plug-ins of the plurality of control plug-ins; and

modifying the topology based on the determined changes in relationships.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein determining changes in relationships between control plug-ins of the plurality of control plug-ins further comprises:

receiving event information subscribed to by control plug-ins; and

determining the changes in relationships based on the event information.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein receiving event information subscribed to by control plug-ins further comprises:

receiving event information associated with an addition or a removal of a control plug-in from the hierarchy.

8. The method of claim 7, further comprising:

receiving event information associated with a removal of a control plug-in from the hierarchy;

removing a representation of the control plug-in from the topology; and

removing representations of all children of the removed control plug-in from the topology.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein generating a topology of the plurality of control plug-ins based on the determined relationships further comprises:

representing each of the plurality of control plug-ins as a node in the topology;

linking each node in the topology based on the determined relationships, such that the topology of nodes mirrors the hierarchy of the plurality of control plug-ins.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

communicating with the plurality of control plug-ins to receive at least one of updated property information and changes to the hierarchy.

11. A system comprising:

a management system receiving information from a plurality of control plug-ins organized in a hierarchy in a control system, wherein the plurality of control plug-ins control an allocation of resources for at least one application,

wherein the plurality of control plug-ins are operable to communicate information to parent or child control plug-ins in the hierarchy to control the allocation of the resources to the at least one application,

and each control plug-in is software executable by a computer system to implement a policy to control the allocation of the resources to the at least one application;

a topology generator in the management system, the topology generator generating a topology of the plurality of control plug-ins based on the received information.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the received information comprises at least one of a reference to a parent control plug-in and a reference to at least one child control plug-in for each of the plurality of control plug-ins.

13. The system of claim 12, wherein the topology comprises a plurality of nodes representing each of the plurality of control plug-ins and links linking each node based on parent-child relationships.

14. The system of claim 11, wherein the topology generator determines changes in relationships between control plug-ins of the plurality of control plug-ins and modifies the topology based on the determined changes in relationships.

15. The system of claim 11, wherein the topology generator determines whether a control plug-in is removed from the hierarchy and removes the corresponding node in the topology and any child nodes of the corresponding node.

16. The system of claim 11, wherein the managements system communicates with the plurality of control plug-ins to receive at least one of property information and information associated with changes in the hierarchy.

17. An apparatus comprising:

means for receiving relationship information for a plurality of control plug-ins organized in a hierarchy in a control system, wherein the plurality of control plug-ins control an allocation of resources for at least one application,

wherein the plurality of control plug-ins are operable to communicate information to parent or child control plug-ins in the hierarchy to control the allocation of the resources to the at least one application,

and each control plug-in is software executable by a computer system to implement a policy to control the allocation of the resources to the at least one application;

means for generating a topology of the hierarchy of control plug-ins based on the received relationship information.

18. The apparatus of claim 17, further comprising:

means for receiving information associated with any changes to the hierarchy of control plug-ins; and

means for modifying the topology to mirror the hierarchy of control plug-ins.

19. A control plug-in embodied on a tangible computer readable storage medium and comprising code, that when executed, causes a computer to perform the following:

storing relationship information for the control plug-in in a data structure, wherein the relationship information comprises at least one of a parent reference to a parent control plug-in and a child reference to a child control plug-in in the hierarchy,

wherein the control plug-in is operable to communicate information to the parent or the child control plug-in in the hierarchy to control an allocation of resources to at least one application,

and each control plug-in is software executable by a computer system to implement a policy to control the allocation of the resources to the at least one application;

a discovery port for receiving the relationship information from at least one of the parent control plug-in and the child control plug-in; and

a maintenance port for transmitting the relationship information to a management system to generate a topology of the hierarchy.

20. The control plug-in of claim 19, wherein the data structure stores property information including attributes for the control plug-in.

21. The control plug-in of claim 20, further comprising a property port for transmitting the property information to the managements system.