Automated product knowledge catalog

• US 8,935,380 B2
• Filed: 09/22/2006
• Issued: 01/13/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 09/22/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Sun Microsystems Incorporated (Oracle Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Oracle America, Inc. (Oracle Corporation)
• Inventors: Arnott, Michael S., Martin, Rex G.
• Primary Examiner(s): ALGIBHAH, HAMZA N
• Application Number:
  US11/534,569
• Publication Number:
  US 20080077603A1
• Time in Patent Office: 3,035 Days
• Field of Search: 709/224
• US Class Current: 709/224
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/577 Assessing vulnerabilities and evaluating computer system security

Abstract

A product catalog is associated with a rules service allowing administrators to conduct examinations of a computer system'"'"'s health. Rules services establish a set of rules to be run against a particular computer system and thereafter invoke a rules engine. The rules service accesses a product catalog to supply product reference data regarding each component of interest in the computer system. The product reference data supplies to the rules service structure and characteristics of the component'"'"'s telemetry data as well as factors to consider with regard to component interaction. Once supplied with the product reference and input data the rules service conducts the analysis. When reference data is not available or fails to match parsed input data, a search is conducted to identify and retrieve reference data matching the structure and characteristics of the parsed input data. Upon finding a match the product catalog is updated with the new information.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method for performing risk analysis of a computer system including a plurality of components, comprising:

in memory, storing a product catalog storing product reference data for the components of the computer system;

with a computer device, running a rules service engine for applying rules to the computer system;

identifying one of the rules to the rules service engine, wherein the identified rule is associated with a set of components for analysis of the identified rule;

using the rules service engine to communicate with the product catalog to retrieve a set of contributing factors associated with each of the components in the set of analysis components;

collecting input data from the set of analysis components in the computer system;

executing the identified rule based on the collected input data and based on the set of contributing factors; and

prior to the collecting of the input data, determining the set of contributing factors is incomplete for a particular component in the set of analysis components with regard to data needed to perform the executing of the identified rule and, in response, accessing one or more referential sources to identify data associated with the particular component,

wherein the executing of the identified rule is further based on the identified data from the referential sources.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the contributing factors includes at least one of the following data types operating system version supported by a component, telemetry information expected from a component, or whether a component is explorer compatible.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising prior to executing the identified rule, operating the rules service engine to access a reference database to obtain additional information associated with at least one component in the set of analysis components needed for running the rule, wherein the executing of the identified rule is further based on the additional information.