Use of attribution to describe management information

• US 7,712,085 B2
• Filed: 09/17/2004
• Issued: 05/04/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 10/23/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: ServiceNow Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: McCollum, Raymond W, Hewardt, Mario, Feuerstein, Corina E, Reistad, Brian
• Primary Examiner(s): Dam; Tuan Q
• Assistant Examiner(s): DAO, THUY CHAN
• Application Number:
  US10/943,452
• Publication Number:
  US 20050091647A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,055 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 717/130
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/20 Software design

Abstract

Architecture that facilitates management of an application or service of a system. A catalog is provided that stores management information which is accessible to determine the status of the application of service. Code of the application or service to be installed on the system is attributed with management information. When installed, the application or service is processed to copy the management information into a manifest, which manifest is further stored in the catalog along with other manifests associated with different applications or services. The management information in a manifest is uniquely identified by a URI, which access to the management information is via the URI, and which leads to the associated application or service.

Claims

1. A method for managing an application or service, including determining or correcting heath of the application or service, the method comprising:

installing application code of an application or service on a computing system;

when installation of the application code is performed, sweeping the application code for markers inserted by a developer of the application or service, wherein the markers denote probes;

for each marker in the application code, copying information into a manifest as management information, wherein the management information copied into the manifest includes;

a specific identification of one or more portions of the application code that are a subset of the application code and that were identified by the developer as portions of the application code used to at least one of determine or correct health of the application or service; and

one or more monitoring rules, wherein the monitoring rules specifically identify when to execute the portions of the application code used to determine or correct health of the application or service;

storing the manifest in the catalog, wherein the catalog stores a plurality of different manifests associated with different applications or services; and

at runtime of the application code of the application or service, determining that at least one of the one or more monitoring rules is satisfied and, in response;

consulting the catalog and identifying the manifest for the application or service from among the plurality of different manifests associated with different applications or services;

identifying, within the manifest corresponding to the application or service, management information identifying the subset of the application code used to determine or correct health of the application; and

performing runtime execution of the subset of the application code used to determine or correct health of the application or service.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the management information copied into the manifest and specifically identifying one or more portions of the application code that are used to determine or correct health of the application includes a uniform resource identifier (URI), and wherein identifying the subset of the application code used to determine or correct health of the application includes identifying the URI.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein sweeping the application code is performed during an authoring phase, and executing the subset of the application code is performed at a runtime phase.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising generating the manifest before storing the manifest in the catalog.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the application code defines an internal state component providing internal state data also used to generate the manifest.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the markers are attribution data, and further include configurable additional operations to be performed, as well as runtime states that are in addition to health data.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein runtime execution of the subset of the application code is performed by a web host accessing the management information at runtime by utilizing an application programming interface (API) dynamic link library (DLL), and wherein the management information is stored remote from the web host.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the catalog is accessible from a remote host.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the catalog is remote from an location where the at least one of the application or service is installed.

10. One or more computer readable media having stored thereon computer executable instructions that, when executed by a processor of a computing system, perform a method for managing an application or service, including determining or correcting heath of the application or service, the method comprising:

installing application code of an application or service on a computing system;

when installation of the application code is performed, sweeping the application code for markers inserted by a developer of the application or service, wherein the markers denote probes;

for each marker in the application code, copying information into a manifest as management information, wherein the management information copied into the manifest includes;

a specific identification of one or more portions of the application code that are a subset of the application code and that were identified by the developer as portions of the application code used to at least one of determine or correct health of the application or service; and

one or more monitoring rules, wherein the monitoring rules specifically identify when to execute the portions of the application code used to determine or correct health of the application or service;

storing the manifest in the catalog, wherein the catalog stores a plurality of different manifests associated with different applications or services; and

at runtime of the application code of the application or service, determining that at least one of the one or more monitoring rules is satisfied and, in response;

consulting the catalog and identifying the manifest for the application or service from among the plurality of different manifests associated with different applications or services;

identifying, within the manifest corresponding to the application or service, management information identifying the subset of the application code used to determine or correct health of the application; and

performing runtime execution of the subset of the application code used to determine or correct health of the application or service.

11. The one or more computer readable media of claim 10, wherein the management information copied into the manifest and specifically identifying one or more portions of the application code that are used to determine or correct health of the application includes a uniform resource identifier (URI), and wherein identifying the subset of the application code used to determine or correct health of the application includes identifying the URI.

12. The one or more computer readable media of claim 10, wherein sweeping the application code is performed during an authoring phase, and executing the subset of the application code is performed at a runtime phase.

13. The one or more computer readable media of claim 10, wherein the method further comprises generating the manifest before storing the manifest in the catalog.

14. The one or more computer readable media of claim 13, wherein the application code defines an internal state component providing internal state data also used to generate the manifest.

15. The one or more computer readable media of claim 10, wherein the markers are attribution data, and further include configurable additional operations to be performed, as well as runtime states that are in addition to health data.

16. The one or more computer readable media of claim 10, wherein runtime execution of the subset of the application code is performed by a web host accessing the management information at runtime by utilizing an application programming interface (API) dynamic link library (DLL), and wherein the management information is stored remote from the web host.

17. The one or more computer readable media of claim 10, wherein the catalog is accessible from a remote host.

18. The one or more computer readable media of claim 10, wherein the catalog is remote from an location where the at least one of the application or service is installed.

19. A method for managing an application or service, including determining or correcting heath of the application or service, the method comprising:

installing application code of an application or service on a computing system;

when installation of the application code is performed, sweeping the application code for markers inserted by a developer of the application or service, wherein the markers denote probes;

for each marker in the application code, generating a first manifest and copying information into the first manifest as management information, wherein generating the first manifest comprises prompting an administrator to choose between accepting default values and customizing the first manifest, and wherein the management information copied into the first manifest includes;

a specific identification of one or more portions of the application code that are a subset of the application code and that were identified by the developer as portions of the application code used to at least one of determine or correct health of the application or service, wherein the specific identification is in the form of a uniform resource identifier (URI) having an administrator namespace and different than internal development names, and wherein health of the application or service comprises information related to each of failure states of the application or service and detecting failure states of the application or service; and

one or more monitoring rules, wherein the monitoring rules specifically identify when to execute the portions of the application code used to determine or correct health of the application or service; and

storing the first manifest in the catalog, wherein the catalog stores a plurality of different manifests associated with different applications or services;

at runtime of the application code of the application or service, determining that at least one of the one or more monitoring rules is satisfied and, in response;

consulting the catalog and identifying the first manifest for the application or service from among the plurality of different manifests associated with different applications or services;

identifying, within the first manifest corresponding to the application or service, URI'"'"'s as management information identifying the subset of the application code used to determine or correct health of the application; and

using the identified URI'"'"'s to perform runtime execution of the subset of the application code used to determine or correct health of the application or service;

for a classic provider that cannot be scanned for attribution of management information, accessing an adaptor through a host dynamic link library (DLL), the adapter providing access to health of the classic provider through a common object model (COM) link, and the health information being provided via a managed object format;

converting the health information in the managed object format into a second manifest for the classic provider;

storing the second manifest in the catalog;

in a validation mode generating a third manifest corresponding to the application or service and comparing the third manifest to the first manifest, wherein comparing the first and third manifests comprises reporting any differences between the first and third manifests, and merging the first and third manifests; and

storing the merged first and third manifests in the catalog.