Presence aware notification for information technology management

• US 8,671,146 B2
• Filed: 02/28/2007
• Issued: 03/11/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 02/28/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Dilillo, Gerardo, Rizzi, Lorenzo, Raghavan, Arun D., Herscher, Adam
• Primary Examiner(s): Nguyen, Thuong
• Application Number:
  US11/680,417
• Publication Number:
  US 20080209280A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,568 Days
• Field of Search: 709/206, 709/224, 709/226, 709/230, 709/202, 455/405, 455/414, 370/230, 370/236
• US Class Current: 709/206
• 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 11/0748 in a remote unit communicating with a single-box computer node experiencing an error/fault remote testing G06F11/2294
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0769 Readable error formats, e.g. cross-platform generic formats, human understandable formats
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/30 Monitoring
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/046 comprising network management agents or mobile agents therefor
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/069 using logs of notifications; Post-processing of notifications
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/00 Arrangements for monitoring or testing data switching networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/54 Presence management, e.g. monitoring or registration for receipt of user log-on information, or the connection status of the users

Abstract

Systems and methods for information technology (IT) management, utilizing presence aware notification, are disclosed. In an implementation, the method includes receiving availability or online status of one or more users at an IT management server. The IT management server queries a monitoring database for one or more alerts. The one or more alerts are sent to the one or more users based on respective availability or online status.

Claims

1. A server comprising:

a memory;

one or more processors operatively coupled to the memory; and

a monitoring console executable by the one or more processors and configured to query a monitoring database for alert notifications, and to select a user of a plurality of users to receive one of the alert notifications based on online presence information of the plurality of users and on a number of alerts currently being handled by individual ones of the plurality of users, wherein the user is a least-loaded user of a subset of the plurality of users who are determined, based on the online presence information, to be available to receive the one of the alert notifications.

2. The server of claim 1, wherein the alert notifications describe error conditions of applications on one or more remote client devices.

3. The server of claim 1, wherein the alert notifications originate from one or more agents installed in one or more remote client devices.

4. The server of claim 1, wherein the monitoring console is configured to receive the presence information from devices of the plurality of users.

5. The server of claim 1, further comprising a communication module executable by the one or more processors and configured to initiate a communication session between the server and a device of the selected user.

6. The server of claim 1, wherein the monitoring console is further executable and configured to select the user to receive the one of the alert notifications based on the user currently processing no alerts.

7. A method comprising:

receiving, by one or more processors, availability status of a plurality of users;

invoking, by the one or more processors, a monitoring database that provides alerts regarding error conditions of one or more computing devices; and

sending, by the one or more processors, an alert notification regarding one of the error conditions to a device associated with a user of the plurality of users, the sending of the alert based on availability of the user and a number of other alerts being handled by the user, wherein the user is a least-loaded user of a subset of the plurality of users who are determined, based on the availability status, to be available to receive the alert notification.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the receiving includes populating user availability information.

9. The method of claim 7, wherein the invoking includes querying the monitoring database to provide the alert notification.

10. The method of claim 7, wherein the sending includes sending the alert notification to the device as one or more of an electronic mail message, a text message, an instant message, and an SMS (short message service) message.

11. The method of claim 7, further comprising initiating a communication session with the device.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the initiating the communication session is based on the availability of the user.

13. One or more computer-readable storage devices comprising a plurality of programming instructions executable by one or more processors to:

receive availability status of a plurality of users;

receive alerts regarding an error condition of one or more computing devices of a monitored network; and

send an alert notification regarding the error condition to a device of a user of the plurality of users based on availability of individual ones of the plurality of users and based on a number of alerts currently being handled by individual ones of the plurality of users, wherein the user is a least-loaded user determined to be available, based on the availability status, to receive the one of the alert notifications.

14. The one or more computer-readable storage devices of claim 13, wherein the plurality of programming instructions are further executable by the one or more processors to send the alert notification via an instant message session initiated to the device of the user.

15. The one or more computer-readable storage devices of claim 14, wherein the alert notification is sent to the device of the user in a manner that depends on a capability of the device of the user.