Systems and methods for remote monitoring in a computer network

• US 9,122,600 B2
• Filed: 12/23/2013
• Issued: 09/01/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 12/22/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: CommVault Systems Incorporated
• Original Assignee: CommVault Systems Incorporated
• Inventors: Gokhale, Parag, Kottomtharayil, Rajiv, Kavuri, Srinivas, Prahlad, Anand, Brower, Robert Keith Jr., Meade, Jared, Reddy, Suresh Parpatakam
• Primary Examiner(s): SCHELL, JOSEPH O
• Application Number:
  US14/139,241
• Publication Number:
  US 20140195863A1
• Time in Patent Office: 617 Days
• Field of Search: 714/15, 714/26, 714/31, 714/48, 714/57
• US Class Current: 1/1
• 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 11/0751 Error or fault detection not based on redundancy power supply failures G06F1/30; network fault management H04L41/06
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0769 Readable error formats, e.g. cross-platform generic formats, human understandable formats
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0781 Error filtering or prioritizing based on a policy defined by the user or on a policy defined by a hardware/software module, e.g. according to a severity level
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/079 Root cause analysis, i.e. error or fault diagnosis in a hardware test environment G06F11/22; in a software test environment G06F11/36
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0793 Remedial or corrective actions recovery from an exception in an instruction pipeline G06F9/3861; by retry G06F11/1402; for recovering from a failure of a protocol instance or entity H04L69/40
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1402 Saving, restoring, recovering or retrying
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/214 Database migration support
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/604 Tools and structures for managing or administering access control systems

Abstract

Systems and methods for providing automated problem reporting in elements used in conjunction with computer networks are disclosed. The system comprises a plurality of elements that perform data migration operations and a reporting manager or monitor agent which monitors the elements and data migration operations. Upon detection of hardware or software problems, the reporting manager or monitor agent automatically communicates with elements affected by the problem to gather selected hardware, software, and configuration information, analyzes the information to determine causes of the problem, and issues a problem report containing at least a portion of the selected information. The problem report is communicated to a remote monitor that does not possess access privileges to the elements, allowing automated, remote monitoring of the elements without compromising security of the computer network or elements.

Claims

1. A method of error reporting in a computer network, the method comprising:

monitoring, with one or more first devices, one or more data migration operations that migrates data within a storage system, wherein the one or more first devices have access privileges to migrated data;

detecting, with the one or more first devices, an error associated with a failed performance of the one or more data migration operations;

receiving, with one or more second devices that do not possess access privileges to the migrated data, diagnostic information, wherein the diagnostic information comprises information about the failed performance of the one or more data migration operations;

consulting, with the one or more second devices, an index to determine error response instructions based at least in part on the diagnostic information; and

providing, with the one or more second devices, the error response instructions to the one or more first devices.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the one or more first devices assemble the diagnostic information into a report and provide the report to the one or more second devices.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the one or more data migration operations comprises a storage resource management operation.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the one or more data migration operations comprises a hierarchical storage management operation.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein detecting the error includes receiving at least one error message.

6. The method of claim 1 further comprising requesting at least a portion of the diagnostic information, wherein the diagnostic information requested is determined based at least in part on information in the index.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein the one or more second devices prioritize an error report, wherein the error report is provided to the one or more second devices as part of an ordered queue of error reports.

8. The method of claim 1 wherein monitoring the one or more data migration operations comprises monitoring at least one of the following types of information:

file type distribution, file size distribution, distribution of access time, distribution of modification time, distribution by owner, capacity of storage media, asset reporting by host, disk, or partition, and availability of resources, disks, hosts, and applications.

9. The method of claim 1 wherein the one or more second devices generate an error report based upon selection criteria provided by an administrator.

10. The method of claim 1 wherein the one or more second devices generate an error report without human intervention.

11. An automated data migration system, the system comprising:

one or more first devices that monitor one or more data migration operations that migrates data within a storage system;

wherein the one or more first devices detect an error associated with a failed performance of the one or more data migration operations;

one or more second devices that do not possess access privileges to the migrated data, wherein the one or more second devices receive diagnostic information from the one or more first devices, wherein the diagnostic information comprises information about the failed performance of the one or more data migration operations;

wherein the one or more second devices are in communication with an index that comprises error response instructions associated with the diagnostic information; and

wherein the one or more second devices provide the error response instructions to the one or more first devices.

12. The system of claim 11 wherein the one or more first devices assemble the diagnostic information into a report and provide the report to the one or more second devices.

13. The system of claim 11 wherein the one or more data migration operations comprises a storage resource management operation.

14. The system of claim 11 wherein the one or more data migration operations comprises a hierarchical storage management operation.

15. The system of claim 11 wherein the one or more first devices detect the error by receiving at least one error message.

16. The system of claim 11 wherein the one or more second devices request at least a portion of the diagnostic information, wherein the diagnostic information requested is determined based at least in part on information in the index.

17. The system of claim 11 wherein the one or more second devices prioritize an error report, wherein the error report is provided to the one or more second devices as part of an ordered queue of error reports.

18. The system of claim 11 wherein the one or more first devices monitor the one or more data migration operations by monitoring at least one of the following types of information:

file type distribution, file size distribution, distribution of access time, distribution of modification time, distribution by owner, capacity of storage media, asset reporting by host, disk, or partition, and availability of resources, disks, hosts, and applications.

19. The system of claim 11 wherein the one or more second devices generate an error report based upon selection criteria provided by an administrator.

20. The system of claim 11 wherein the one or more second devices generate an error report without human intervention.