System, method and computer readable storage medium for troubleshooting

• US 8,171,344 B2
• Filed: 09/28/2010
• Issued: 05/01/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 03/31/2008
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Fujitsu Limited
• Original Assignee: Fujitsu Limited
• Inventors: Watanabe, Yukihiro, Matsumoto, Yasuhide, Shimada, Kuniaki, Wada, Yuji, Matsubara, Masazumi
• Primary Examiner(s): Beausoliel, Jr., Robert
• Assistant Examiner(s): Lottich, Joshua P
• Application Number:
  US12/892,067
• Publication Number:
  US 20110016355A1
• Time in Patent Office: 581 Days
• Field of Search: 714/26, 714/37
• US Class Current: 714/37
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/2257 using expert systems

Abstract

A troubleshooting system that receivesing as input one or more symptom(s) of trouble of an IT system and outputting a remedy for the symptom, the troubleshooting system including: a first data base to collecting configuration information of the IT system, a second data base to collecting incidents of trouble including symptoms of trouble and remedies for dealing with the symptoms, a first storage unit to deriveing and storeing configuration information of incidents of trouble from the first data base and the second data base using the configuration information as a key, a configuration information similarity degree calculation unit to calculating similarity degrees between input configuration information of the IT system experiencing trouble and configuration information of the incidents of trouble, and an output unit to presenting a remedy for the IT system experiencing the trouble together with the similarity degree.

Claims

1. A troubleshooting system that receives as input one or more symptoms of trouble of an IT system and outputting a remedy for the one or more symptoms, the troubleshooting system comprising:

a first data base to collect configuration information of the IT system,

a second data base to collect incidents of trouble including symptoms of trouble and remedies for dealing with the symptoms,

a first storage unit to derive and store configuration information of incidents of trouble from the first data base and the second data base using the configuration information of the IT system as a key,

a configuration information similarity degree calculation unit to calculate similarity degrees between input configuration information of the IT system experiencing trouble and configuration information of the incidents of trouble,

a second storage unit to derive and store troubleshooting knowledge of the IT system from the first data base and the second data base using the remedy as a key,

a remedy search unit to search through troubleshooting knowledge stored in the second storage unit using a symptom of trouble input from an input unit as a key,

a remedy presentation order determination unit to assign an order to remedies found by the remedy search unit based on the similarity degrees of configuration information calculated by the configuration information similarity degree calculation unit, and

an output unit to present a remedy for the IT system experiencing the trouble together with one of the similarity degrees.

2. The troubleshooting system according to claim 1, wherein the first data base collects configuration information for each layer of the IT system.

3. The troubleshooting system according to claim 1, wherein the system is further provided with:

a cause layer calculation unit to calculate symptom-layer relation information between symptoms of trouble and the layers causing the trouble from the second data base and calculating probabilities of occurrences of layers having the same symptoms in the symptom-layer relation information and

a third storage unit to store the symptom-layer relation information,

the remedy presentation order determination unit to assign an order to remedies found by the remedy search unit from the similarity degrees calculated by the configuration information similarity degree calculation unit and the probabilities of occurrence calculated by the cause layer calculation unit.

4. The troubleshooting system according to claim 3, wherein the cause layer calculation unit finds the probability of occurrence by dividing the number of times of occurrence of the symptoms at the layers having the same symptoms in the symptom-layer relation information by the total number of times of occurrence of the symptoms.

5. The troubleshooting system according to claim 3, wherein the output unit multiplies the similarity degrees and the probabilities of occurrence and presents the found scores.

6. The troubleshooting system according to claim 1, wherein

the similarity degree is found as a correlation between a first matrix expressing input configuration information of the IT system experiencing trouble and a second matrix expressing configuration information linked with remedies in configuration information of the incidents of trouble.

7. The troubleshooting system according to claim 6, wherein the correlation is found using a formula for calculation of the Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient.

8. A troubleshooting method receiving as input one or more symptoms of trouble of an IT system and outputting a remedy for the one or more symptoms, the troubleshooting method comprising:

preparing a first data base collecting configuration information of the IT system;

preparing a second data base collecting incidents of trouble including symptoms of trouble and remedies for dealing with the symptoms;

deriving configuration information of incidents of trouble from the first data base and the second data base using the configuration information of the IT system as a key and storing it in a first storage unit;

calculating configuration information similarity degrees between input configuration information of the IT system experiencing trouble and configuration information of the incidents of trouble;

deriving troubleshooting knowledge of the IT system from the first data base and the second data base using the remedy as a key and storing it in the second storage unit;

searching through troubleshooting knowledge stored in the second storage unit using a symptom of trouble input from an input unit as a key;

assigning an order to remedies found by the searching based on the similarity degrees of configuration information calculated by the calculating; and

presenting a remedy for the IT system experiencing the trouble together with one of the similarity degrees.

9. The troubleshooting method according to claim 8, further comprising:

calculating symptom-layer relation information between symptoms of trouble and the layers causing the trouble from the second data base and calculating probabilities of occurrences of layers having the same symptoms in the symptom-layer relation information; and

storing the symptom-layer relation information in a third storage unit;

wherein the assigning an order to remedies found by the searching from the similarity degrees calculated by the calculating configuration information similarity degrees and the probabilities of occurrence calculated by the calculating symptom-layer relation information.

10. A computer readable, non-transitory medium storing a troubleshooting program making a computer execute a troubleshooting method of receiving as input one or more symptoms of trouble of an IT system and outputting a remedy for the one or more symptoms, the troubleshooting program making the computer execute:

preparing a first data base collecting configuration information of the IT system;

preparing a second data base collecting incidents of trouble including symptoms of trouble and remedies for dealing with the symptoms;

deriving configuration information of incidents of trouble from the first data base and the second data base using the configuration information of the IT system as a key and storing it in a first storage unit;

calculating configuration information similarity degrees between input configuration information of the IT system experiencing trouble and configuration information of the incidents of trouble;

deriving troubleshooting knowledge of the IT system from the first data base and the second data base using the remedy as a key and storing it in the second storage unit;

searching through troubleshooting knowledge stored in the second storage unit using a symptom of trouble input from an input unit as a key;

assigning an order to remedies found by the searching based on the similarity degrees of configuration information calculated by the calculating; and

presenting a remedy for the IT system experiencing the trouble together with one of the similarity degrees.

11. The computer readable, non-transitory medium storing a troubleshooting program according to claim 10, the troubleshooting program further making the computer execute:

calculating symptom-layer relation information between symptoms of trouble and the layers causing the trouble from the second data base and calculating probabilities of occurrences of layers having the same symptoms in the symptom-layer relation information; and

storing the symptom-layer relation information in a third storage unit;

wherein the assigning an order to remedies found by the searching from the similarity degrees calculated by the calculating configuration information similarity degrees and the probabilities of occurrence calculated by the calculating symptom-layer relation information.