Management of runtime events in a computer environment using a containment region

• US 8,677,174 B2
• Filed: 12/28/2007
• Issued: 03/18/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 12/28/2007
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Bobak, Mythili K., McConnell, Tim A., Swanson, Michael D.
• Primary Examiner(s): Baderman, Scott
• Assistant Examiner(s): KUDIRKA, JOSEPH R
• Application Number:
  US11/965,902
• Publication Number:
  US 20090172687A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,272 Days
• Field of Search: 714/15, 714/20, 714/21, 714/38.1, 714/47.1, 714/48, 714/49, 714/2, 705/7.11, 705/7.27, 703/22
• US Class Current: 714/2
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling

Abstract

The scope and impact of an event, such as a failure, are identified. A Containment Region is used to identify the resources affected by the event. It is also used to aggregate resource state for those resources. This information is then used to manage one or more aspects of a customer'"'"'s environment. This management may include recovery from a failure.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method of facilitating management of an Information Technology (IT) environment, said computer-implemented method comprising:

dynamically forming, by a processor at runtime based on an occurrence of an event, a resource set, the dynamically forming comprising;

determining, during a first time interval, an impacted set of resources impacted by the event, the first time interval based on a quantitative business goal defined by a customer for a customer-defined business application, the customer-defined business application executed using one or more resources of the impacted set of resources, and the determining comprising;

using a set of trigger conditions and one or more impact pairings to determine one or more resources to be included in the impacted set of resources, the one or more resources to be included in the impacted set of resources including at least one of one or more resources causing the event and one or more resources negatively impacted from a resource causing the event, and wherein an impact pairing of the one or more impact pairings includes an express statement that explicitly specifies a first resource, a first defined property of the first resource, a second resource paired with the first resource, and a second defined property of the second resource, the second defined property expressly specifying how the second resource is impacted based on the first resource and the first defined property;

gathering states for resources of the impacted set of resources to obtain current states for the resources, the gathering being performed during a second time interval that enables achieving the quantitative business goal, and wherein the gathering includes, for at least one resource of the impacted set of resources, evaluating one or more trigger conditions of one or more impact pairings for the at least one resource to determine real-time applicability of the one or more impact pairings; and

based on the gathered states, including, in the resource set, at least one of one or more resources of the impacted set of resources and an indication of at least one impact pairing based on the evaluating indicating real-time applicability.

2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the resource set is a containment region implemented as a plurality of data structures, the plurality of data structures including a containment region data structure that includes various information relating to the containment region, a reason-for-inclusion data structure that includes one or more reasons that a specific resource is under evaluation as potentially impacted, implicated, or perpetrated by the event represented by the containment region, a pairings used data structure that includes one or more impact pairings that caused a resource to be in the impacted set of resources, and a states data structure that includes states of resources associated with the containment region.

3. The computer-implemented method of claim 2, further comprising:

selecting an available containment region data structure to be used for the containment region;

initializing the states data structure based on the impacted set of resources;

initializing the pairings used data structure based on at least one of the impact pairings and the evaluating of one or more trigger conditions; and

updating an indicator in the containment region data structure to indicate a reporting error phase.

4. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining whether the resource set is to be formed, wherein the determining whether the resource set is to be formed includes;

monitoring an operational state of resources in a customer-defined grouping of resources for state changes;

based on a state change for a resource in the customer-defined grouping of resources, assessing the state change based on one or more impact pairing rules and an aggregated state of the customer-defined grouping of resources; and

based on the assessing indicating a change in overall state for the customer-defined grouping of resources, determining that the resource set is to be formed.

5. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the gathering further comprises:

determining whether a resource of the impacted set of resources has an aggregated state associated therewith;

based on the resource having the aggregated state, evaluating the aggregated state; and

updating, based on the evaluating, the resource set to include the aggregated state.

6. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising determining at least one of the first time interval or the second time interval, wherein the determining comprises:

checking whether a dynamic, a fixed, or a customer-specified routine is to be used to determine the at least one of the first time interval or the second time interval; and

determining the at least one of the first time interval or the second time interval based on the routine to be used.

7. The computer-implemented method of claim 6, wherein the checking indicates the dynamic routine is to be used, and wherein the determining the at least one of the first time interval or the second time interval comprises:

projecting a projected time for recovery operation execution based on one or more operation timings; and

calculating the at least one of the first time interval or the second time interval based on an average time to gather resource state, an average time to build a recovery process, and the projected time.

8. The computer-implemented method of claim 6, wherein the checking indicates the fixed routine is to be used, and wherein the determining the first time interval comprises using an average of resource state query times for a selected group of resources, and the determining the second time interval comprises using a largest time for a resource to respond to a query for state for one or more resources associated with the resource set.

9. The computer-implemented method of claim 6, wherein the checking indicates the customer-specified routine is to be used, and the determining the first time interval comprises using a selected recovery time objective, and the determining the second time interval comprises using a longest response time to a query for resource state.

10. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the event comprises a state change event in which a property of a resource has changed, or a lifecycle event in which a resource instance or resource type has been created or deleted.

11. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the event comprises a plurality of correlated events, and wherein the plurality of correlated events are determined by one or more relationships selected based on real-time data of the IT environment.

12. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the event comprises a plurality of failure events, and wherein the dynamically forming comprises correlating the plurality of failure events to include resources common to the plurality of failure events in the resource set.

13. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the resource set is a containment region, and wherein the determining comprises determining whether a resource is to be part of a containment region being newly formed or part of an existing containment region.

14. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein a first occurrence of the event causes creation of a new resource set, the new resource set to be dynamically formed.

15. A system for facilitating management of an Information Technology (IT) environment, said system comprising:

a memory; and

a processor in communications with the memory, wherein the computer system is configured to perform a method, said method comprising;

dynamically forming, by a processor at runtime based on an occurrence of an event, a resource set, the dynamically forming comprising;

determining, during a first time interval, an impacted set of resources impacted by the event, the first time interval based on a quantitative business goal defined by a customer for a customer-defined business application, the customer-defined business application executed using one or more resources of the impacted set of resources, and the determining comprising;

using a set of trigger conditions and one or more impact pairings to determine one or more resources to be included in the impacted set of resources, the one or more resources to be included in the impacted set of resources including at least one of one or more resources causing the event and one or more resources negatively impacted from a resource causing the event, and wherein an impact pairing of the one or more impact pairings includes an express statement that explicitly specifies a first resource, a first defined property of the first resource, a second resource paired with the first resource, and a second defined property of the second resource, the second defined property expressly specifying how the second resource is impacted based on the first resource and the first defined property;

gathering states for resources of the impacted set of resources to obtain current states for the resources, the gathering being performed during a second time interval that enables achieving the quantitative business goal, and wherein the gathering includes, for at least one resource of the impacted set of resources, evaluating one or more trigger conditions of one or more impact pairings for the at least one resource to determine real-time applicability of the one or more impact pairings; and

based on the gathered states, including, in the resource set, at least one of one or more resources of the impacted set of resources and an indication of at least one impact pairing based on the evaluating indicating real-time applicability.

16. The system of claim 15, wherein the resource set is a containment region implemented as a plurality of data structures, the plurality of data structures including a containment region data structure that includes various information relating to the containment region, a reason-for-inclusion data structure that includes one or more reasons that a specific resource is under evaluation as potentially impacted, implicated, or perpetrated by the event represented by the containment region, a pairings used data structure that includes one or more impact pairings that caused a resource to be in the impacted set of resources, and a states data structure that includes states of resources associated with the containment region.

17. The system of claim 15, wherein the method further comprises:

determining whether the resource set is to be formed, wherein the determining whether the resource set is to be formed includes;

monitoring an operational state of resources in a customer-defined grouping of resources for state changes;

based on a state change for a resource in the customer-defined grouping of resources, assessing the state change based on one or more impact pairing rules and an aggregated state of the customer-defined grouping of resources; and

based on the assessing indicating a change in overall state for the customer-defined grouping of resources, determining that the resource set is to be formed.

18. A computer program product for facilitating management of an Information Technology (IT) environment, said computer program product comprising:

a non-transitory computer readable storage medium readable by a processing circuit and storing instructions for execution by the processing circuit for performing a method comprising;

dynamically forming, by a processor at runtime based on an occurrence of an event, a resource set, the dynamically forming comprising;

determining, during a first time interval, an impacted set of resources impacted by the event, the first time interval based on a quantitative business goal defined by a customer for a customer-defined business application, the customer-defined business application executed using one or more resources of the impacted set of resources, and the determining comprising;

using a set of trigger conditions and one or more impact pairings to determine one or more resources to be included in the impacted set of resources, the one or more resources to be included in the impacted set of resources including at least one of one or more resources causing the event and one or more resources negatively impacted from a resource causing the event, and wherein an impact pairing of the one or more impact pairings includes an express statement that explicitly specifies a first resource, a first defined property of the first resource, a second resource paired with the first resource, and a second defined property of the second resource, the second defined property expressly specifying how the second resource is impacted based on the first resource and the first defined property;

gathering states for resources of the impacted set of resources to obtain current states for the resources, the gathering being performed during a second time interval that enables achieving the quantitative business goal, and wherein the gathering state includes, for at least one resource of the impacted set of resources, evaluating one or more trigger conditions of one or more impact pairings for the at least one resource to determine real-time applicability of the one or more impact pairings; and

based on the gathered states, including, in the resource set, at least one of one or more resources of the impacted set of resources and an indication of at least one impact pairing based on the evaluating indicating real-time applicability.

19. The computer program product of claim 18, wherein the resource set is a containment region implemented as a plurality of data structures, the plurality of data structures including a containment region data structure that includes various information relating to the containment region, a reason-for-inclusion data structure that includes one or more reasons that a specific resource is under evaluation as potentially impacted, implicated or perpetrated by the event represented by the containment region, a pairings used data structure that includes one or more impact pairings that caused a resource to be in the impacted set of resources, and a states data structure that includes states of resources associated with the containment region.

20. The computer program product of claim 18, wherein the method further comprises:

determining whether the resource set is to be formed, wherein the determining whether the resource set is to be formed includes;

monitoring an operational state of resources in a customer-defined grouping of resources for state changes;

based on a state change for a resource in the customer-defined grouping of resources, assessing the state change based on one or more impact pairing rules and an aggregated state of the customer-defined grouping of resources; and

based on the assessing indicating a change in overall state for the customer-defined grouping of resources, determining that the resource set is to be formed.