Method and system for managing computer systems

• US 8,301,580 B2
• Filed: 03/12/2010
• Issued: 10/30/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 04/10/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: IpVenture, Inc.
• Original Assignee: IpVenture, Inc.
• Inventors: Das, Saumitra, Sokolov, Stepan, Chiu, Bill “Yuan-Chi”
• Primary Examiner(s): Gaffin, Jeffrey A
• Assistant Examiner(s): BUSS, BENJAMIN J
• Application Number:
  US12/661,244
• Publication Number:
  US 20100192005A1
• Time in Patent Office: 963 Days
• Field of Search: 706 45- 48, 706 50- 51, 706 59- 61, 706/902, 714/18, 714/26, 714/31, 714/48, 714/E11.025, 705304-305
• US Class Current: 706/61
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3604 Software analysis for verifying properties of programs byte-code verification G06F9/44589
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3612 by runtime analysis performance monitoring G06F11/3466
• CPC Class Codes: G06N 5/00 Computing arrangements using knowledge-based models
• CPC Class Codes: G06N 5/025 Extracting rules from data
• CPC Class Codes: G06N 5/043 Distributed expert systems; Blackboards
• CPC Class Codes: G06N 5/046 Forward inferencing; Production systems
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0213 Standardised network management protocols, e.g. simple network management protocol [SNMP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/046 comprising network management agents or mobile agents therefor
• 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 41/16 using machine learning or artificial intelligence
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/22 comprising specially adapted graphical user interfaces [GUI]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0817 by checking functioning

Abstract

A management system for a computer system is disclosed. The computer system operates or includes various products (e.g., software products) that can be managed in a management system or collectively by a group of management systems. Typically, the management system operates on a computer separate from the computer system being managed. The management system can make use of a knowledge base of causing symptoms for previously observed problems at other sites or computer systems. In other words, the knowledge base can built from and shared by different users across different products to leverage knowledge that is otherwise disparate. The knowledge base typically grows over time. The management system can use its ability to request information from the computer system being managed together with the knowledge base to infer a problem root cause in the computer system being managed. The computer system being managed can also request the management system to process its knowledge base for possible problem cause analysis. The management system can also continually identify persisting problem causing symptoms.

Claims

1. A method for isolating a root cause of a software problem in an enterprise computer system supporting a plurality of software products, said method comprising:

forming a knowledge base from causing symptoms and experienced problems provided by a disparate group of contributing users, the knowledge base being stored in a data storage device; and

examining the knowledge base with respect to the software problem to isolate the cause of the software problem to one of the software products,

wherein the knowledge base includes a plurality of separate knowledge domains, each of the knowledge domains being a logically separate piece of knowledge which can be installed and uninstalled as desired.

2. A method as recited in claim 1,

wherein said knowledge base is shared and used by a plurality of different organizations to manage their computer systems, the different organizations having the same or different product configurations on their computer systems.

3. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein the knowledge base further includes corrective actions for certain software problems.

4. A method as recited in claim 3, wherein said method further comprises:

automatically performing a correction operation to attempt correction of the software problem, the correction operation being associated with one of the corrective actions within the knowledge base that is suitable for use with the software problem.

5. A method as recited in claim 3, wherein the causing symptoms pertain to resources of the software products.

6. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein a repeating symptom cause can be ignored until after the cause ceases to exist at least once.

7. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein the knowledge base contains information pertaining to problems regarding a plurality of different software products, the information including the symptoms and experienced problems provided by the disparate group of contributing users, and the information including at least one collection of rules.

8. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein said examining comprises utilizing the knowledge domains and at least one collection of rules to isolate the cause of the software problem to one of the different software products.

9. A method as recited in claim 8, wherein information within the knowledge base is updated based on contributions submitted by the disparate group of personal contributors.

10. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein information in said knowledge base is described using thresholds on resource information and relationships between resource information from the different software products.

11. A method as recited in claim 10, wherein at least a portion of the information in the knowledge base was provided by a plurality of users through use of one or more graphical user interfaces.

12. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein the update to said knowledge base is built from and shared by different users across different products to leverage knowledge.

13. A method as recited in claim 12, wherein the knowledge base further includes corrective actions for certain software problems.

14. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein said method comprises:

receiving update data associated with an update to the knowledge base; and

incorporating the update data into the previously received knowledge base at the enterprise computer system.

15. A method for isolating a root cause of a software problem in an enterprise computer system supporting a plurality of software products, said method comprising:

forming a knowledge base from causing symptoms and experienced problems provided by a disparate group of contributing users, the knowledge base being stored in a data storage device; and

examining the knowledge base with respect to the software problem to isolate the cause of the software problem to one of the software products,

wherein when an additional product is used within the computer system, an additional knowledge module is obtained and included within the knowledge base so as to potentially diagnose problems associated with the plurality of different software products as well as the additional product.

16. A non-transitory computer readable medium including at least computer program code stored therein for isolating a root cause of a problem in an enterprise computer system supporting a plurality of products, said computer readable medium comprising:

computer program code for accessing a knowledge base that is formed from causing symptoms and experienced problems provided by a disparate group of contributing users, the knowledge base being stored in a data storage device; and

computer program code for examining the knowledge base with respect to the problem to isolate the cause of the problem to one of the products,

wherein when an additional product is used within the computer system, an additional knowledge module is obtained and included within the knowledge base so as to potentially diagnose problems associated with the plurality of different software products as well as the additional product.

17. A non-transitory computer readable medium including at least computer program code stored therein for isolating a root cause of a problem in an enterprise computer system supporting a plurality of products, said computer readable medium comprising:

computer program code for accessing a knowledge base that is formed from causing symptoms and experienced problems provided by a disparate group of contributing users, the knowledge base being stored in a data storage device; and

computer program code for examining the knowledge base with respect to the problem to isolate the cause of the problem to one of the products,

wherein the knowledge base includes at least information pertaining to problems regarding a plurality of different hardware or software products, the information including the symptoms and experienced problems provided by the disparate group of contributing users, and the information including at least one collection of rules,

wherein the knowledge base includes a plurality of separate knowledge domains, each of the knowledge domains being a logically separate piece of knowledge which can be installed and uninstalled as desired, and

wherein said examining comprises utilizing the knowledge domains and the at least one collection of rules to isolate the cause of the problem to one of the different hardware or software products.