Management of actions based on priority levels and calendar entries

• US 8,494,931 B2
• Filed: 07/08/2010
• Issued: 07/23/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 07/08/2010
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Hintermeister, Gregory Richard, Lection, David Bruce, Seid, Alan David, Calacaterra, Jeffrey Alan
• Primary Examiner(s): Iwarere, Seye
• Application Number:
  US12/832,865
• Publication Number:
  US 20120011035A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,111 Days
• Field of Search: 705/34
• US Class Current: 705/34
• 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 11/0793 Remedial or corrective actions recovery from an exception in an instruction pipeline G06F9/3861; by retry G06F11/1402; for recovering from a failure of a protocol instance or entity H04L69/40
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/109 Time management, e.g. calendars, reminders, meetings or time accounting
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/1093 Calendar-based scheduling for persons or groups

Abstract

A management application implemented in a computational device maintains priorities corresponding to a plurality of resources coupled to the computational device. Indications for actions to be performed corresponding to occurrences of events are stored to a calendar, wherein the calendar is configurable by a user. A selected indication for an action to be performed is stored to the calendar. In response to an occurrence of an event associated with a selected resource, a priority of the selected resource is determined. The action is performed, based on at least the determined priority of the selected resource and the selected indication for the action stored in the calendar, wherein different actions are performed in response to occurrences of a selected event at different times.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

maintaining, by a management application implemented in a computational device, priorities corresponding to a plurality of resources coupled to the computational device;

storing, to a calendar implemented in the computational device, indications for actions to be performed corresponding to occurrences of events, wherein the calendar is configurable by a user;

storing, to the calendar, a selected indication for an action to be performed;

in response to an occurrence of an event associated with a selected resource, determining, by the computational device, a priority of the selected resource; and

performing the action, based on at least the determined priority of the selected resource and the selected indication for the action stored in the calendar, wherein different actions are performed based on factors that affect policies to generate the different actions that are performed, wherein the factors include a time factor corresponding to a time of day, and a related resources factor in which one resource'"'"'s priority is increased based on another resource'"'"'s priority, and wherein different policies are maintained for a test system, a production system, and to transition the test system to the production system.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the indication for the action indicates which action is to be performed or how the action is to be performed, and wherein the action is a notification action, the method further comprising:

indicating at least an electronic communication address of the user in the calendar, to notify the user during a selected time period; and

indicating, an alternate user to send the notification action if the user is unavailable during the selected time period, the method further comprising;

in response to an occurrence of an event during the selected time period and unavailability of the user during the selected time period, sending the notification action to the alternate user, wherein the method further comprises;

maintaining customer contract information details in the calendar; and

in response to exceeding contracted customer services for a customer, sending a notification to the customer for additional payments in response to an occurrence of an event associated with a resource owned or leased by the customer.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the selected resource is a first resource, wherein the first resource is of a higher priority than a second resource, wherein the event is a failure event, the method further comprising:

in response to the failure event associated with the first resource, continuing to maintain the first resource and sending a telephonic message to an administrator indicating the failure event associated with the first resource; and

in response to another failure event associated with the second resource, suspending operation of the second resource and sending an electronic mail to report the suspending of the operation of the second resource.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein:

the plurality of resources include a server, a client, a storage device, an operating system, and a network;

the priorities are maintained in a resource priority data structure maintained in the computational device;

a selected plurality of resources are grouped into a resource group, wherein all resources of the resource group have the same priority; and

actions to be performed are determined based on a plurality of predetermined policies stored in the computational device, wherein different actions are performed in response to a selected event associated with the selected resource based on a relationship of the selected resource to other resources.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein:

a first policy is used to notify an administrator at any time in response to an event in the production system; and

a second policy is used to notify an administrator at selected times in response to an event in the test system.

15. The method of claim 14, the method further comprising:

maintaining additional policies for approval of costs that are to be charged to a customer.

5. A system, comprising:

a memory; and

a processor coupled to the memory, wherein the processor performs operations, the operations comprising;

maintaining, by a management application, priorities corresponding to a plurality of resources;

storing, to a calendar, indications for actions to be performed corresponding to occurrences of events, wherein the calendar is configurable by a user;

storing, to the calendar, a selected indication for an action to be performed;

in response to an occurrence of an event associated with a selected resource, determining a priority of the selected resource; and

performing the action, based on at least the determined priority of the selected resource and the selected indication for the action stored in the calendar, wherein different actions are performed based on factors that affect policies to generate the different actions that are performed, wherein the factors include a time factor corresponding to a time of day, and a related resources factor in which one resource'"'"'s priority is increased based on another resource'"'"'s priority, and wherein different policies are maintained for a test system, a production system, and to transition the test system to the production system.

6. The system of claim 5, wherein the indication for the action indicates which action is to be performed or how the action is to be performed, and wherein the action is a notification action, the operations further comprising:

indicating at least an electronic communication address of the user in the calendar, to notify the user during a selected time period; and

indicating, an alternate user to send the notification action if the user is unavailable during the selected time period, the operations further comprising;

in response to an occurrence of an event during the selected time period and unavailability of the user during the selected time period, sending the notification action to the alternate user, wherein the operations further comprise;

maintaining customer contract information details in the calendar; and

in response to exceeding contracted customer services for a customer, sending a notification to the customer for additional payments in response to an occurrence of an event associated with a resource owned or leased by the customer.

7. The system of claim 5, wherein the selected resource is a first resource, wherein the first resource is of a higher priority than a second resource, wherein the event is a failure event, the operations further comprising:

in response to the failure event associated with the first resource, continuing to maintain the first resource and sending a telephonic message to an administrator indicating the failure event associated with the first resource; and

in response to another failure event associated with the second resource, suspending operation of the second resource and sending an electronic mail to report the suspending of the operation of the second resource.

8. The system of claim 5, wherein:

the plurality of resources include a server, a client, a storage device, an operating system, and a network;

the priorities are maintained in a resource priority data structure;

a selected plurality of resources are grouped into a resource group, wherein all resources of the resource group have the same priority; and

actions to be performed are determined based on a plurality of predetermined policies, wherein different actions are performed in response to a selected event associated with the selected resource based on a relationship of the selected resource to other resources.

16. The system of claim 5, wherein:

a first policy is used to notify an administrator at any time in response to an event in the production system; and

a second policy is used to notify an administrator at selected times in response to an event in the test system.

17. The system of claim 16, the operations further comprising:

maintaining additional policies for approval of costs that are to be charged to a customer.

9. A computer program product, the computer program product comprising:

a computer readable storage medium having computer readable program code embodied therewith, the computer readable program code configured to perform operations, the operations comprising;

maintaining, by a management application implemented in a computational device, priorities corresponding to a plurality of resources coupled to the computational device;

storing, to a calendar, indications for actions to be performed corresponding to occurrences of events, wherein the calendar is configurable by a user;

storing, to the calendar, a selected indication for an action to be performed;

in response to an occurrence of an event associated with a selected resource, determining a priority of the selected resource; and

performing the action, based on at least the determined priority of the selected resource and the selected indication for the action stored in the calendar, wherein different actions are performed based on factors that affect policies to generate the different actions that are performed, wherein the factors include a time factor corresponding to a time of day, and a related resources factor in which one resource'"'"'s priority is increased based on another resource'"'"'s priority, and wherein different policies are maintained for a test system, a production system, and to transition the test system to the production system.

10. The computer program product of claim 9, wherein:

a first policy is used to notify an administrator at any time in response to an event in the production system; and

a second policy is used to notify an administrator at selected times in response to an event in the test system.

11. The computer program product of claim 9, wherein the indication for the action indicates which action is to be performed or how the action is to be performed, and wherein the action is a notification action, the operations further comprising:

indicating at least an electronic communication address of the user in the calendar, to notify the user during a selected time period; and

indicating, an alternate user to send the notification action if the user is unavailable during the selected time period, the operations further comprising;

in response to an occurrence of an event during the selected time period and unavailability of the user during the selected time period, sending the notification action to the alternate user, wherein the operations further comprise;

maintaining customer contract information details in the calendar; and

in response to exceeding contracted customer services for a customer, sending a notification to the customer for additional payments in response to an occurrence of an event associated with a resource owned or leased by the customer.

12. The computer program product of claim 9, wherein the selected resource is a first resource, wherein the first resource is of a higher priority than a second resource, wherein the event is a failure event, the operations further comprising:

in response to the failure event associated with the first resource, continuing to maintain the first resource and sending a telephonic message to an administrator indicating the failure event associated with the first resource; and

in response to another failure event associated with the second resource, suspending operation of the second resource and sending an electronic mail to report the suspending of the operation of the second resource.

13. The computer program product of claim 9, wherein:

the plurality of resources include a server, a client, a storage device, an operating system, and a network;

the priorities are maintained in a resource priority data structure maintained in the computational device;

a selected plurality of resources are grouped into a resource group, wherein all resource of the resource group have the same priority; and

actions to be performed are determined based on a plurality of predetermined policies stored in the computational device, wherein different actions are performed in response to a selected event associated with the selected resource based on a relationship of the selected resource to other resources.

18. The computer program product of claim of claim 10, the operations further comprising:

maintaining additional policies for approval of costs that are to be charged to a customer.