Method and system for problem determination using probe collections and problem classification for the technical support services

• US 8,181,069 B2
• Filed: 09/08/2009
• Issued: 05/15/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 09/08/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: GlobalFoundries, Inc.
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Gupta, Manish, Sailer, Anca, Sethi, Manish, Shaikh, Hidayatullah H.
• Primary Examiner(s): Beausoliel, Jr., Robert
• Assistant Examiner(s): Lottich, Joshua P
• Application Number:
  US12/555,337
• Publication Number:
  US 20110060946A1
• Time in Patent Office: 980 Days
• Field of Search: 714/26, 714/32, 714/33, 714/39, 714/45, 714/46, 714/47.1, 714/57
• US Class Current: 714/45
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0709 in a distributed system consisting of a plurality of standalone computer nodes, e.g. clusters, client-server systems
• 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: H04L 41/065 involving logical or physical relationship, e.g. grouping and hierarchies
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/12 Network monitoring probes

Abstract

A system and method for problem determination using probe collections and problem classification for the technical support services monitor and collect data associated with a computer system, raise an alarm based on the monitored and collected data, probe the computer system for additional information, filter the monitored and collected data based on the additional information established from probing, and use the filtered data to label a problem associated with the raised alarm.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method for problem determination using probe collections and problem classification for technical support services, comprising:

monitoring and collecting, by a processor, data associated with a running computer system;

raising an alarm, automatically by the processor, based on the monitored and collected data;

probing the computer system for additional information associated with the alarm based on a probe plan including composite probes and control flow, data transformations and flow with decision control flow, stored in a shared repository, the shared repository being updatable by a community of probe developers wherein the community is enabled to provide instructions for querying the computer system by way of one or more probes stored in the shared repository;

filtering the monitored and collected data based on the additional information established from probing, the filtering including filtering out one or more replies from one or more components of the computer system running flawlessly and localizing one or more failing resources; and

using the filtered data to label a problem associated with the raised alarm.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of using the filtered data includes matching the filtered data against labeled patterns.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the labeled patterns are generated using a classification process.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of probing includes automatically executing a probe of said one or more probes.

5. The method of claim 4, further including using a probe descriptor and data associated with the computer system to instantiate the probe of said one or more probes, wherein the probe descriptor includes a generic descriptor and the data associated with the computer system is obtained by querying a configuration management database storing information related to a plurality of IT environments, wherein the data associated with the computer system is used as one or more probe parameters.

6. The method of claim 1, further including manually raising an alarm.

7. A non-transitory program storage device readable by a machine, tangibly embodying a program of instructions executable by the machine to perform a method for problem determination using probe collections and problem classification for technical support services, comprising:

monitoring and collecting, by a processor, data associated with a running computer system;

raising an alarm, automatically by the processor, based on the monitored and collected data;

probing the computer system for additional information associated with the alarm based on a probe plan including composite probes and control flow, data transformations and flow with decision control flow, stored in a shared repository, the shared repository being updatable by a community of probe developers wherein the community is enabled to provide instructions for querying the computer system by way of one or more probes stored in the shared repository;

filtering the monitored and collected data based on the additional information established from probing, the filtering including filtering out one or more replies from one or more components of the computer system running flawlessly and localizing one or more failing resources; and

using the filtered data to label a problem associated with the raised alarm.

8. The program storage device of claim 7, wherein the step of using the filtered data includes matching the filtered data against labeled patterns.

9. The program storage device of claim 8, wherein the labeled patterns are generated using a classification process.

10. The program storage device of claim 7, wherein the step of probing includes automatically executing a probe of said one or more probes.

11. The program storage device of claim 10, further including using a probe descriptor and data associated with the computer system to instantiate the probe of said one or more probes, wherein the probe descriptor includes a generic descriptor and the data associated with the computer system is obtained by querying a configuration management database storing information related to a plurality of IT environments, wherein the data associated with the computer system is used as one or more probe parameters.

12. The program storage device of claim 7, further including manually raising an alarm.

13. A system for problem determination using probe collections and problem classification for technical support services, comprising:

a processor;

a monitoring and data collection processing module operable to monitor and collect data associated with a computer system, the monitoring and data collection module further operable to raise an alarm based on the monitored and collected data;

a probe platform operable to execute on the processor and further operable to probe the computer system for additional information based on a probe plan including composite probes and control flow, data transformations and flow with decision control flow, stored in a shared repository, the shared repository being updatable by a community of probe developers wherein the community is enabled to provide instructions for querying the computer system by way of one or more probes stored in the shared repository, the probe platform further operable to filter the monitored and collected data based on the additional information established from probing, the filtering including filtering out one or more replies from one or more components of the computer system running flawlessly and localizing one or more failing resources; and

a classifier module operable to use the filtered data and automatically label a problem associated with the raised alarm.

14. The system of claim 13, wherein the computer system includes a computer system infrastructure having a plurality of subsystems connected by local and wide area networks.

15. The system of claim 13, wherein the classifier module is operable to match the filtered data against labeled patterns.

16. The system of claim 15, wherein the classifier module is operable to generate the labeled patterns using a classification process.

17. The system of claim 13, wherein the probe platform is operable to automatically execute a probe of said one or more probes.

18. The system of claim 17, further including a probe descriptor plan database storing a plurality of probe descriptors.

19. The system claim 18, further including configuration management database storing data associated with the computer system.

20. The system of claim 19, wherein the probe platform is operable to instantiate the probe of said one or more probes using one of more of the probe descriptors and the configuration management database data, wherein the probe descriptor includes a generic descriptor and the data associated with the computer system is obtained by querying the configuration management database storing information related to a plurality of IT environments, wherein the data associated with the computer system is used as one or more probe parameters to the generic descriptor.