Autonomic program error detection and correction

• US 7,689,872 B2
• Filed: 07/01/2003
• Issued: 03/30/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 07/01/2003
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Doyle, Ronald P., Kaminsky, David Louis
• Primary Examiner(s): Beausoliel; Robert
• Assistant Examiner(s): Mehrmanesh; Elmira
• Application Number:
  US10/612,583
• Publication Number:
  US 20050015668A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,464 Days
• Field of Search: 714/26, 714/48
• US Class Current: 714/48
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0706 the processing taking place on a specific hardware platform or in a specific software environment
• 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 11/366 using diagnostics G06F11/0703 takes precedence

Abstract

An autonomic system for diagnosing and correcting error conditions among interrelated components and resources. The system can include one or more commonly formatted log files utilizing standardized naming conventions for the interrelated components and resources. Each of the commonly formatted log files can include an association with one of the interrelated components and resources. An autonomic system administrator can be coupled to each of the interrelated components and resources and can be configured to parse the log files to identify both error conditions arising in associated ones of the interrelated components and resources, and also dependent ones of the interrelated components and resources giving rise to the identified error conditions. Preferably, the autonomic system can further include a codebase of analysis code and code insertion logic coupled to the autonomic system administrator and programmed to insert portions of the analysis code in selected ones of the interrelated components and resources.

Claims

1. A method for autonomically diagnosing and correcting error conditions in a computing system of interrelated components and resources, the method comprising the steps:

for each one of the components, reporting error conditions in a log file using both uniform conventions for naming dependent ones of the interrelated components and resources and also a common error reporting format;

detecting error conditions arising from individual ones of the interrelated components;

responsive to detecting an error condition in a specific one of the components, parsing a log associated with said specific one of the components to determine whether said error condition arose from a fault in one of the interrelated components and resources named in said associated log, and further parsing a log associated with said one of the interrelated components and resources to identify a cause for said fault; and

,

correcting said fault.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising the steps of:

inserting analysis code in said specific one of the components responsive to detecting said error condition, said analysis-code having a configuration for reporting operational data associated with said error condition; and

,

utilizing said reported operational data to identify a cause for said error condition.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising the steps of:

activating dormant analysis code in said specific one of the components responsive to detecting said error condition, said dormant analysis code having a configuration for reporting operational data associated with said error condition; and

,

utilizing said reported operational data to identify a cause for said error condition.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising the steps of:

inserting analysis code in both said specific one of the components and said one of the interrelated components and resources responsive to detecting said error condition, said analysis code having a configuration for reporting operational data for said specific one of the components and said one of the interrelated components and resources; and

,

utilizing said reported operational data to correlate error conditions in each of said specific one of the components and said one of the interrelated components and resources to identify a cause for said error condition.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of inserting analysis code in said specific one of the components responsive to detecting said error condition, said analysis code having a configuration for suspending the operation of said specific one of the components pending resolution of said error condition.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein said correcting step comprises the steps of:

determining from said further parsing step whether said fault in said one of the interrelated components and resources named in said associated log arose from an additional fault in yet another one of the interrelated components and resources; and

,

repeating each of the parsing and correcting steps for said yet another interrelated one the components and resources.

7. A machine readable storage having stored thereon a computer program for autonomically diagnosing and correcting error conditions in a computing system of interrelated components and resources, the computer program comprising a routine set of instructions for causing the machine to perform the steps:

for each one of the components, reporting error conditions in a log file using both uniform conventions for naming dependent ones of the interrelated components and resources and also a common error reporting format;

detecting error conditions arising from individual ones of the interrelated components;

responsive to detecting an error condition in a specific one of the components, parsing a log associated with said specific one of the components to determine whether said error condition arose from a fault in one of the interrelated components and resources named in said associated log, and further parsing a log associated with said one of the interrelated components and resources to identify a cause for said fault; and

,

correcting said fault.

8. The machine readable storage of claim 7, further comprising the steps of:

inserting analysis code in said specific one of the components responsive to detecting said error condition, said analysis code having a configuration for reporting operational data associated with said error condition; and

,

utilizing said reported operational data to identify a cause for said error condition.

9. The machine readable storage of claim 7, further comprising the steps of:

activating dormant analysis code in said specific one of the components responsive to detecting said error condition, said dormant analysis code having a configuration for reporting operational data associated with said error condition; and

,

utilizing said reported operational data to identify a cause for said error condition.

10. The machine readable storage of claim 7, further comprising the steps of:

inserting analysis code in both said specific one of the components and said one of the interrelated components and resources responsive to detecting said error condition, said analysis code having a configuration for reporting operational data for said specific one of the components and said one of the interrelated components and resources; and

,

utilizing said reported operational data to correlate error conditions in each of said specific one of the components and said one of the interrelated components and resources to identify a cause for said error condition.

11. The machine readable storage of claim 7, further comprising the step of inserting analysis code in said specific one of the components responsive to detecting said error condition, said analysis code having a configuration for suspending the operation of said specific one of the components pending resolution of said error condition.

12. The machine readable storage of claim 7, wherein said correcting step comprises the steps of:

determining from said further parsing step whether said fault in said one of the interrelated components and resources named in said associated log arose from an additional fault in yet another one of the interrelated components and resources; and

,

repeating each of the parsing and correcting steps for said yet another interrelated one the components and resources.