Supporting apparatus and supporting method

• US 8,578,210 B2
• Filed: 06/18/2009
• Issued: 11/05/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 09/12/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Fujitsu Limited
• Original Assignee: Fujitsu Limited
• Inventors: Shimada, Kuniaki, Matsumoto, Yasuhide, Watanabe, Yukihiro, Wada, Yuji, Matsubara, Masazumi, Morimoto, Kenji, Otsuka, Hiroshi
• Primary Examiner(s): Kramer, James
• Assistant Examiner(s): MILES, NEIL D
• Application Number:
  US12/487,364
• Publication Number:
  US 20100070795A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,601 Days
• Field of Search: 714/26
• US Class Current: 714/26
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0213 Standardised network management protocols, e.g. simple network management protocol [SNMP]
• 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 67/125 involving control of end-device applications over a network
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/40 for recovering from a failure of a protocol instance or entity, e.g. service redundancy protocols, protocol state redundancy or protocol service redirection management of faults, events, alarms or notifications in data switching networks H04L41/06

Abstract

A supporting apparatus includes a configuration-information storage unit having stored therein dependencies among devices in association with a list of the devices. When information about a device where a failure has occurred is input, a dependency among devices including the faulty device is obtained from the configuration-information storage unit. Based on the obtained dependency among devices including the faulty device and information about the faulty device, learning data with the dependency and a cause of failure being associated with each other is created. Then, based on the created learning data, a solution procedure indicative of a procedure for specifying the cause of failure is generated by using, for example, algorithm ID3.

Claims

1. A non-transitory computer readable storage medium containing instructions that, when executed by a computer, cause the computer to perform:

obtaining, from a configuration-information storage unit that stores therein dependencies that are indicative of a user side and a provider side among devices in association with a list of the devices, a dependency that is indicative of the user side and the provider side among devices including a faulty device;

creating, based on the obtained dependency among the devices including the faulty device and information about the faulty device, learning data including the dependency and a cause of failure which are associated with each other;

generating, based on the created learning data, a solution procedure indicative of a procedure for specifying the cause of failure; and

specifying a device serving as the provider side, which is a source, as the cause of failure among devices among which the faulty device has the dependency, based on the solution procedure, wherein

the generating includes generating the solution procedure based on the learning data created in a pseudo manner at the creating and previous learning data that indicates a case of a failure that has actually occurred in the past in a configured device and that is not identical to the learning data created in a mechanical manner based on the dependencies of configuration information.

2. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium according to claim 1, wherein the generating includes generating the solution procedure by using the created learning data and the previous learning data at a predetermined ratio.

3. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium according to claim 1, wherein the generating includes generating the solution procedure by using only the previous learning data when the number of pieces of the previous learning data is greater than a predetermined value, and by using a piece of the previous learning data which is identical to a piece of the created learning data and to which a weight is applied.

4. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium according to claim 1, wherein the generating includes generating the solution procedure by using the previous learning data to which a weight is applied according to the number of times of referring to the created learning data.

5. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium according to claim 1, wherein

the configuration-information storage unit has further stored therein a dependency among a plurality of layers in a prescribed device, and

the generating includes

obtaining a dependency in the prescribed device as a cause of failure in the generated solution procedure from the configuration-information storage unit;

and

further generating a solution procedure indicative of a procedure for specifying a cause of failure in the prescribed device based on the obtained dependency in the prescribed device and information about the prescribed device.

6. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium according to claim 1, wherein

the configuration-information storage unit has further stored therein a connection form in the list of the devices,

the obtaining includes obtaining the dependency among the device including the faulty device and the connection form from the configuration-information storage unit, and

the creating includes creating, based on the dependency among the device including the faulty device and the obtained connection form and based on the information about the faulty device, the learning data including the dependency and the cause of failure which are associated with each other.

7. A supporting apparatus comprising:

a configuration-information storage unit that stores therein dependencies that are indicative of a user side and a provider side among devices in association with a list of the devices;

a dependency obtaining unit that obtains a dependency that is indicative of the user side and the provider side among devices including a faulty device from the configuration-information storage unit;

a learning-data creating unit that creates, based on the obtained dependency among the devices including the faulty device and information about the faulty device, learning data including the dependency and a cause of failure which are associated with each other;

a solution-procedure generating unit that generates, based on the created learning data, a solution procedure indicative of a procedure for specifying the cause of failure; and

a device specifying unit that specifies a device serving as the provider side, which is a source, as the cause of failure among devices among which the faulty device has the dependency, based on the solution procedure, wherein

the solution-procedure generating unit generates the solution procedure based on the learning data created in a pseudo manner by the learning-data creating unit and previous learning data that indicates a case of a failure that has actually occurred in the past in a configured device and that is not identical to the learning data created in a mechanical manner based on the dependencies of configuration information.

8. The supporting apparatus according to claim 7, wherein the solution-procedure generating unit generates the solution procedure by using the created learning data and the previous learning data at a predetermined ratio.

9. The supporting apparatus according to claim 7, wherein the solution-procedure generating unit generates the solution procedure by using only the previous learning data when the number of pieces of the previous learning data is greater than a predetermined value, and by using a piece of the previous learning data which is identical to a piece of the created learning data and to which a weight is applied.

10. The supporting apparatus according to claim 7, wherein

the configuration-information storage unit has further stored therein a dependency among a plurality of layers in a prescribed device, and

the solution-procedure generating unit obtains a dependency in the prescribed device as a cause of failure in the generated solution procedure from the configuration-information storage unit, and further generates a solution procedure indicative of a procedure for specifying a cause of failure in the prescribed device based on the obtained dependency in the prescribed device and information about the prescribed device.

11. The supporting apparatus according to claim 7, wherein

the configuration-information storage unit has further stored therein a connection form in the list of the devices,

the solution-procedure generating unit obtains the dependency among the device including the faulty device and the connection form from the configuration-information storage unit, and

the learning-data creating unit creates, based on the dependency among the device including the faulty device and the obtained connection form and based on the information about the faulty device, the learning data including the dependency and the cause of failure which are associated with each other.

12. A supporting method comprising:

obtaining, from a configuration-information storage unit that stores therein dependencies that are indicative of a user side and a provider side among devices in association with a list of the devices, a dependency that is indicative of the user side and the provider side among devices including a faulty device;

creating, based on the obtained dependency among the devices including the faulty device and information about the faulty device, learning data including the dependency and a cause of failure which are associated with each other;

generating, based on the created learning data, a solution procedure indicative of a procedure for specifying the cause of failure; and

specifying a device serving as the provider side, which is a source, as the cause of failure among devices among which the faulty device has the dependency, based on the solution procedure, wherein

the generating includes generating the solution procedure based on the learning data created in a pseudo manner at the creating and previous learning data that indicates a case of a failure that has actually occurred in the past in a configured device and that is not identical to the learning data created in a mechanical manner based on the dependencies of configuration information.

13. The supporting method according to claim 12, wherein the generating includes generating the solution procedure by using the created learning data and the previous learning data at a predetermined ratio.

14. The supporting method according to claim 12, wherein the generating includes generating the solution procedure by using only the previous learning data when the number of pieces of the previous learning data is greater than a predetermined value, and by using a piece of the previous learning data which is identical to a piece of the created learning data and to which a weight is applied.

15. The supporting method according to claim 12, wherein the generating includes generating the solution procedure by using the previous learning data to which a weight is applied according to the number of times of referring to the created learning data.

16. The supporting method according to claim 12, wherein

the configuration-information storage unit has further stored therein a dependency among a plurality of layers in a prescribed device, and

the generating includes

obtaining a dependency in the prescribed device as a cause of failure in the generated solution procedure from the configuration-information storage unit;

and

further generating a solution procedure indicative of a procedure for specifying a cause of failure in the prescribed device based on the obtained dependency in the prescribed device and information about the prescribed device.

17. The supporting method according to claim 12, wherein

the configuration-information storage unit has further stored therein a connection form in the list of the devices,

the obtaining includes obtaining the dependency among the device including the faulty device and the connection form from the configuration-information storage unit, and

the creating includes creating, based on the dependency among the device including the faulty device and the obtained connection form and based on the information about the faulty device, the learning data including the dependency and the cause of failure which are associated with each other.