Assembly and output of user-defined groupings

• US 8,893,050 B2
• Filed: 01/12/2009
• Issued: 11/18/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 01/12/2009
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Bogner, Matthew Robert, Noll, Dietmar
• Primary Examiner(s): Abdul-Ali, Omar
• Assistant Examiner(s): KEATON, SHERROD L
• Application Number:
  US12/352,474
• Publication Number:
  US 20100180230A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,136 Days
• Field of Search: 715/810, 715/764, 715/735, 715/854, 715/853
• US Class Current: 715/853
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0481 based on specific properties of the displayed interaction object or a metaphor-based environment, e.g. interaction with desktop elements like windows or icons, or assisted by a cursor's changing behaviour or appearance

Abstract

A method in one embodiment includes determining which elements of a storage environment or system have been selected for addition to a group, each of the elements being associated with a tier; adding the selected elements to the group; determining whether a parent of each of the selected elements has also been selected, the parent of each of the selected elements being in a higher tier than the element; adding the parent to the group as an element if the parent of any of the selected elements has not been selected; associating the elements in the group into subgroups; generating a view of at least some of the elements in the group, the view representing the tier of the elements in the view, the elements being spatially organized by subgroup; and outputting the view. Additional systems, methods and computer program products are also disclosed.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

determining, using a processor of a computer, which elements of a storage environment or system have been selected for addition to a group, each of the elements being independently associated with a tier;

adding the selected elements to the group as elements of the group;

determining whether a parent of each of the selected elements has also been selected, the parent of each of the selected elements being in a higher tier than the element;

adding the parent to the group as an element of the group when the parent of any of the selected elements has not been selected;

determining whether an element associated with one or more of the selected elements which gives context to the one or more of the selected elements has also been selected;

adding the element which gives the context as an element of the group when the element that gives the context has not been selected;

associating the elements in the group into subgroups;

generating a view of at least some of the elements in the group, the view representing;

a tier of each of the elements in the view; and

the elements spatially organized by subgroup wherein each element associated with one or more of the selected elements which gives context to the one or more of the selected elements is indicated with a visual marker to aide in distinguishing between explicit and implicit members of the group; and

outputting the view;

wherein the elements include at least one of virtual machines and hypervisors, wherein the view comprises a hybrid map layout combining a hub spoke map with a collapsible grouping showing relationships between each subgroup thereof, and wherein each of the subgroups is collapsible in the map layout.

2. A method as recited in claim 1, further comprising allowing a user to select the elements for addition to the group.

3. A method as recited in claim 2, further comprising detecting the elements of the storage environment or system.

4. A method as recited in claim 3, further comprising outputting a representation of the elements in the storage environment or system, the user selecting the one or more elements from the representation.

5. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein determining whether the parent of each of the selected elements has also been selected includes analyzing all parents of the selected elements in each successively higher tier above the tiers of the respective elements until a highest tier is reached, wherein each tier is a level and/or node of the system configured to include at least one of:

one or more elements and one or more lower tiers.

6. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein the elements include at least one of data storage devices, storage pools, and data volumes, wherein subgroups are spatially, organized by class of elements within the subgroups, wherein elements are allowed to belong in one or more groups and/or subgroups thereof and/or one or more tiers wherein the hybrid map layout is configured to display elements in each group, subgroup and/or tier to which the element belong,

wherein the hybrid map layout is configured to be manipulated by a user to group arbitrary sets of entities together such that all possible permutations of group members is displayable.

7. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein the elements include at least one of network attached storage (NAS) and a storage area network (SAN) storage subsystem, and wherein a nested view of several hierarchically-tiered groups of hardware and/or software elements of a storage environment or system is output, lower-tiered groups being nested in the higher-tiered groups associated therewith.

8. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein the elements include a hypervisor, wherein the view includes a hub and spoke map connecting the subgroups with containment notions to represent various tiers of each of the elements in the view, wherein containment is conditional upon lower level tiers being a member of the group, wherein each of the subgroups is collapsible;

and further comprising receiving a user selection of one of the elements from the view and generating a second view of at least some of the elements associated with the element selected from the view, and automatically adding unselected elements that give context to other elements to the group.

9. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein the elements in the group are organized into subgroups by class;

and further comprising determining how many elements are in each subgroup within each class; and

displaying, for each class, numerical representations of how many elements are in each subgroup within the class near labels corresponding to each subgroup within the class when the view is collapsed.

10. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein the view includes elements associated with a particular tier and elements of a lower tier having a parent in the particular tier that was not selected by the user.

11. A method as recited in claim 10, wherein the elements of the lower tier having the parent in the particular tier that was not selected by the user are shown in a subgroup of elements associated with the parent that was not selected by the user.

12. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein the view includes a hybrid map layout combining a hub and spoke map with a collapsible grouping showing relationships between classes and tiers of elements within the group.

13. A method as recited in claim 12, wherein each of the subgroups is expandable in the view when initially output in order to provide additional information about elements within the subgroups, and collapsible once expanded to hide the additional information about elements within the subgroups.

14. A method as recited in claim 1, further comprising receiving a user selection of one of the elements from the view and generating a second view of at least some of the elements associated with the element selected from the view, wherein the at least some of the elements associated with the element selected from the view are spatially organized by subgroup in the second view, wherein a numerical representation of how many elements are in each subgroup is displayed near a label for each subgroup when the second view is collapsed.

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

a non-transitory computer usable medium having computer usable program code embodied therewith, the computer usable program code comprising;

computer usable program code configured to determine which elements of a storage environment or system have been selected for addition to a group, each of the elements being associated with a tier;

computer usable program code configured to add the selected elements to the group;

computer usable program code configured to determine whether a parent of each of the selected elements has also been selected, the parent of each of the selected elements being in a higher tier than the element;

computer usable program code configured to add the parent to the group as an element when the parent of any of the selected elements has not been selected;

computer usable program code configured to associate the elements in the group into subgroups by class;

computer usable program code configured to determine how many elements are in each subgroup within each class;

computer usable program code configured to generate a view of at least some of the elements in the group, the view representing the tier of the elements in the view, the elements being spatially organized within each class by subgroup; and

computer usable program code configured to output the view, wherein, for each class, numerical representations of how many elements are in each subgroup within the class are displayed near labels corresponding to each subgroup within the class when the view is collapsed, and wherein each unselected parent is indicated with a visual marker to aide in distinguishing between explicit and implicit members of the group;

wherein the elements include at least one of virtual machines and hypervisors, wherein the view comprises a hybrid map layout combining a hub spoke map with a collapsible grouping showing relationships between each subgroup thereof, and wherein each of the subgroups is collapsible in the map layout.

16. A method, comprising:

outputting a nested view of several hierarchically-tiered groups of hardware and software elements of a storage environment or system, lower-tiered groups being nested in the higher-tiered groups associated therewith, wherein the groups are expandable when initially displayed, and collapsible thereafter, wherein numerical representations of how many elements are in each lower-tiered group are displayed near a label for each lower-tiered group when an associated upper-tier group is collapsed;

detecting a selection of one of the elements by a user;

outputting additional information about the selected one of the elements;

receiving an instruction from the user to collapse or expand one of the groups;

updating the view to show tile one of the groups in an expanded or collapsed state; and

outputting the updated view;

wherein the elements include at least one of virtual machines and hypervisors, wherein the view comprises a hybrid map layout combining a hub spoke map with a collapsible grouping showing relationships between each subgroup thereof, and wherein each of the subgroups is collapsible in the map layout.

17. A method as recited in claim 16, wherein the view includes a hub and spoke map connecting the groups, wherein the elements include a hypervisor, wherein the upper-tier groups are classes of the hardware and software elements of the storage environment or system.

18. A method as recited in claim 16, wherein the view includes elements associated with a particular tier and elements of a lower tier having a parent in the particular tier that was not preselected, and further comprising receiving a user selection of one of the elements from the view and generating a second view of at least some of the elements associated with the element selected from the view, and automatically adding unselected elements that give context to other elements to the one of the groups.

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

a non-transitory computer usable medium having computer usable program code embodied therewith, the computer usable program code comprising;

computer usable program code configured to output a view of several preselected hardware and software elements of a storage environment or system, each of the elements being associated with a tier, the elements being organized into subgroups in the view, wherein the subgroups are collapsible, wherein the elements include a hypervisor, wherein the elements include at least one of network attached storage (NAS) and a storage area network (SAN) storage subsystem;

computer usable program code configured to detect a selection of one of the elements by a user;

computer usable program code configured to output additional information about the selected one of the elements;

computer usable program code configured to receive an instruction from the user to collapse or expand one of the subgroups;

computer usable program code configured to automatically add unselected elements, that give context to at least one of the selected elements, to the one of the subgroups, wherein the automatically added elements include parents of the at least one of the selected elements that were not previously selected and elements in a same class as the at least one of the selected elements; and

wherein each unselected element that gives context to the at least one of the selected elements is indicated with a visual marker to aide in distinguishing between explicit and implicit members of the group;

computer usable program code configured to update the view to show the one of the subgroups in an expanded or collapsed state;

computer usable program code configured to output the updated view as a hub and spoke map connecting the subgroups; and

computer usable program code configured to receive a user selection of one of the elements from the view and generate a second view of at least some of the elements associated with the element selected from the view;

wherein the elements include at least one of virtual machines and hypervisors, wherein the view comprises a hybrid map layout combining a hub spoke map with a collapsible grouping showing relationships between each subgroup thereof, and wherein each of the subgroups is collapsible in the map layout.