Method and system for generic application liveliness monitoring for business resiliency

• US 8,671,180 B2
• Filed: 06/02/2008
• Issued: 03/11/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 02/09/2006
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Baskey, Michael Edward, Chang, Chun-Shi, Huynh, Lap Thiet, Joseph, Dinakaran, Sahu, Sambit, Verma, Dinesh Chandra, Williams, Michael D.
• Primary Examiner(s): SERRAO, RANODHI N
• Application Number:
  US12/131,344
• Publication Number:
  US 20080228873A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,108 Days
• Field of Search: 709/223, 709/224, 719/328, 719/329
• US Class Current: 709/224
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/04 Processing captured monitoring data, e.g. for logfile generation
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0805 by checking availability
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/50 Testing arrangements

Abstract

A system and method for monitoring liveliness includes a management device which has an application layer where applications are executed. A connection monitor is located other than on the application layer, and the connection monitor is configured to receive requests from clients and deliver the requests to components on the application layer. The components include a generic application monitor which responds to liveliness monitor requests from the clients for all applications monitored, and one or more applications which response to requests to that application.

Claims

1. A method for determining liveliness of a monitored application, comprising:

creating, by a processor, a set of exchange messages;

creating a sequence of exchange messages;

validating the sequence of exchange messages by sending and receiving messages to/from a connection monitor, wherein the connection monitor operates at a network stack level;

forming reply messages, using a message responder, to send back in response to liveliness requests from application monitors; and

determining whether to route the liveliness requests using a request router from the connection monitor to at least one of the message responder or to the monitored application depending on a set of policies, wherein the message responder and monitored application operate at an application layer on the same device as the connection monitor.

2. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the set of exchange messages and the sequence of messages are determined in accordance with policies.

3. The method as recited in claim 2, further comprising updating the policies in accordance with changes in applications being monitored.

4. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein creating a set of exchange messages includes generating the exchange messages from a set of message templates.

5. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the sequence of messages are generated from a set of sequence templates.

6. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the request router is located within the network stack of a device running the monitored application.

7. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the message responder runs on a port different from the port on which the monitored application runs.

8. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the request router makes routing decisions on the basis of predetermined policies.

9. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein monitoring requests includes heartbeat requests from more than one application.

10. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein forming reply messages includes checking Operating System statistics to deter mine the liveliness of the monitored application.

11. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein forming reply messages includes checking network statistics of packets sent and received by an application to determine that the network statistics are within acceptable limits.

12. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein forming reply messages includes checking that an operating system associated with the monitored application is active.

13. The method as recited in claim 1, further comprising monitoring requests for all applications by using a same generic application liveliness responder to handle all requests to monitor.

14. A computer program product for determining liveliness of an application comprising a computer readable program stored on a non-transitory computer useable medium, wherein the computer readable program when executed on a computer causes the computer to perform the steps of:

creating a set of exchange messages;

creating a sequence of exchange messages;

validating the sequence of exchange messages by sending and receiving messages to/from a connection monitor, wherein the connection monitor operates at a network stack level;

forming reply messages, using a message responder, to send back in response to liveliness requests from application monitors; and

determining whether to route the liveliness requests using a request router from the connection monitor to at least one of the message responder or to the monitored application depending on a set of policies, wherein the message responder and monitored application operate at an application layer on the same device as the connection monitor.