Methods, systems, and media to correlate errors associated with a cluster

• US 7,725,774 B2
• Filed: 08/03/2007
• Issued: 05/25/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 05/15/2003
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Ward, Calvin Dean
• Primary Examiner(s): Beausoliel; Robert
• Assistant Examiner(s): GUYTON, PHILIP A
• Application Number:
  US11/833,872
• Publication Number:
  US 20080320338A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,026 Days
• Field of Search: 714/4, 714/43, 370/216, 709223-226
• US Class Current: 714/43
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0631 using root cause analysis; using analysis of correlation between notifications, alarms or events based on decision criteria, e.g. hierarchy, tree or time analysis
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/12 Discovery or management of network topologies

Abstract

Methods, systems, and media for correlating error events of a cluster are disclosed. Embodiments may identify systems of a cluster potentially impacted by an error and identify one or more error events associated with those systems. Then, embodiments may select one of the identified error events based upon data associated with the identified error event, disregarding other identified error events generated for the same error or errors symptomatic of the error, to report the error to a maintenance provider via a single error event. Many embodiments may identify one or more error events potentially resulting from the same error by identifying error events within a specified time period of the event that triggered the correlation. Several embodiments correlate the error events in an environment that is substantially independent of the cluster. Further embodiments obtain data that describes system interconnections of the cluster and generate a topology based upon the data.

Claims

1. A method for correlating error events of a cluster, the method comprising:

configuring one or more processors to perform an operation, comprising;

identifying systems of the cluster potentially impacted by an error based upon a topology of the cluster, wherein a first system of the systems of the cluster includes two ports for communicating with other systems of the cluster, wherein the topology of the cluster comprises loop data describing a loop including the first system and a second system in the systems of the cluster via the two ports, wherein identifying the systems of the cluster further comprises identifying the systems coupled with sibling loops of the cluster;

identifying, from the error events, an error event associated with the first system; and

selecting the error event based upon error identification data associated with the error event, wherein selecting the error event comprises comparing the error identification data with the loop data to identify an error in the loop including the first system and the second system in the systems of the cluster, to report the error to a maintenance provider.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

obtaining the loop data from the systems of the cluster to describe an interconnection between the systems and the cluster; and

determining the topology for the cluster based upon the loop data.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein obtaining loop data comprises receiving a loop designation assigned by a first system of the systems to identify the loop of the cluster and a system designation to identify a second system of the systems coupled with the loop.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein determining the topology comprises storing the loop data in a data structure to associate the loop designation with a second loop designation for the loop, wherein the second loop designation is associated with the loop based upon loop data received from the second system.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising forwarding the error events from the systems of the cluster to an environment substantially independent of the cluster to correlate the error events.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein identifying the error event comprises identifying error events that associate the loop with a source of the error, the loop being associated with the error event.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein identifying the error event comprises identifying error events received within a time period of receipt of the error event.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein selecting the error event comprises identifying a second error event of the error events having error identification data associated with a lower priority than a priority for the error identification data associated with the error event.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

providing a dedicated connection between a hardware management console and at least one of the systems of the cluster, wherein each of the error events is transmitted to the hardware management console via the dedicated connection.