Eliminating execution of jobs-based operational costs of related reports

• US 9,336,504 B2
• Filed: 11/25/2013
• Issued: 05/10/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 11/25/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Fankhauser, Michael, Haber, Marc N., Halberstadt, Benjamin, Hecker, Roger K.
• Primary Examiner(s): Puente, Emerson
• Assistant Examiner(s): Chen, Zhi
• Application Number:
  US14/088,501
• Publication Number:
  US 20150150015A1
• Time in Patent Office: 897 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/254 Extract, transform and load [ETL] procedures, e.g. ETL data flows in data warehouses
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/4881 Scheduling strategies for dispatcher, e.g. round robin, multi-level priority queues
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5011 the resources being hardware resources other than CPUs, Servers and Terminals
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/0631 Resource planning, allocation, distributing or scheduling for enterprises or organisations
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/0637 Strategic management or analysis, e.g. setting a goal or target of an organisation; Planning actions based on goals; Analysis or evaluation of effectiveness of goals
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/0639 Performance analysis of employees; Performance analysis of enterprise or organisation operations

Abstract

Optimizing operational costs in a computing environment includes identifying high-cost jobs that are executed to generate one or more reports in the computing environment, identifying one or more reports the generation of which is dependent on the execution of the high-cost jobs, and culling at least a first job from among the high-cost jobs, in response to determining that a benefit achieved from the reports that depend on the first job does not justify costs associated with generating the reports.

Claims

1. A method for optimizing operational costs in a computing environment, the method comprising:

identifying, via a computer processor, high-cost jobs from among a plurality of jobs that are executed by one or more computing devices in the computing environment to generate one or more reports in the computing environment, the high-cost jobs determined as a function of resource usage of resources in the computing environment;

identifying, via the computer processor, one or more reports in the generation of which is dependent on the execution of the high-cost jobs; and

culling, via the computer processor, at least a first job from among the high-cost jobs, in response to determining that a benefit achieved from the report that depend on the first job does not justify costs associated with generating the reports, wherein costs associated with generating the report are calculated based on aggregated cost of all of the individual jobs on which the report depends;

wherein cost of the individual job is determined by following;

a) if the job is not executing during the highest peak of resource usage, then its individual cost is zero; and

b) if the job is executing during the highest peak of resource usage but is needed by other reports too, then its individual cost is zero; and

c) if the job is executing during the highest peak of resource usage and is needed only by a particular report, then the job cost is added to the report'"'"'s individual cost.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

culling at least the first job and a second job from among the high-cost jobs, in response to determining that the benefit achieved from a first report depending on the first job and the second job does not justify aggregated costs associated with the first job and the second job.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the high-cost jobs are identified based on monitoring peak usage periods and calculating resource usage for the plurality of jobs running during the peak usage periods.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the resource usage comprises at least one of CPU usage, data storage usage, memory usage, and network bandwidth usage.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein a cost benefit analysis is performed for a report based on a weight assigned to the report and a cost calculated for the report.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein a data lineage report is used to identify the jobs associated with the report.

7. The method of claim 5, wherein the jobs associated with the report are executed to support data analysis and data storage in one or more databases used for generating the report.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the jobs comprise extract, transform and load (ETL) jobs.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the reports comprise business intelligence (BI) reports.

10. A system comprising:

a logic unit for identifying high-cost jobs from among a plurality of jobs that are executed to generate one or more reports in a computing environment, the high-cost jobs determined as a function of resource usage;

a logic unit for identifying one or more reports the generation of which is dependent on the execution of the high-cost jobs; and

a logic unit for culling at least a first job from among the high-cost jobs, in response to determining that a benefit achieved from the report that depend on the first job does not justify costs associated with generating the reports, wherein costs associated with generating the report are calculated based on aggregated cost of all of the individual jobs on which the report depends;

wherein cost of the individual job is determined by following;

a) if the job is not executing during the highest peak of resource usage, then its individual cost is zero; and

b) if the job is executing during the highest peak of resource usage but is needed by other reports too, then its individual cost is zero; and

c) if the job is executing during the highest peak of resource usage and is needed only by a particular report, then the job cost is added to the report'"'"'s individual cost.

11. The system of claim 10, further comprising:

a logic unit for culling at least the first job and a second job from among the high-cost jobs, in response to determining that the benefit achieved from a first report depending on the first job and the second job does not justify aggregated costs associated with the first job and the second job.

12. The system of claim 10, wherein the high-cost jobs are identified based on monitoring peak usage periods and calculating resource usage for the plurality of jobs running during the peak usage periods.

13. The system of claim 12, wherein the resource usage comprises at least one of CPU usage, data storage usage, memory usage, and network bandwidth usage.

14. A computer program product comprising a non-transitory computer readable storage medium having a computer readable program, wherein the computer readable program when executed on a computer causes the computer to:

identify high-cost jobs from among a plurality of jobs that are executed to generate one or more reports in a computing environment, the high-cost jobs determined as a function of resource usage;

identify one or more reports in the generation of which is dependent on the execution of the high-cost jobs; and

cull at least a first job from among the high-cost jobs, in response to determining that a benefit achieved from the report that depend on the first job does not justify costs associated with generating the reports, wherein costs associated with generating the report are calculated based on aggregated cost of all of the individual jobs on which the report depends;

wherein cost of the individual job is determined by following;

a) if the job is not executing during the highest peak of resource usage, then its individual cost is zero; and

b) if the job is executing during the highest peak of resource usage but is needed by other reports too, then its individual cost is zero; and

c) if the job is executing during the highest peak of resource usage and is needed only by a particular report, then the job cost is added to the report'"'"'s individual cost.

15. The computer program product of claim 14, wherein at least the first job and a second job are culled from among the high-cost jobs, in response to determining that the benefit achieved from a first report depending on the first job and the second job does not justify aggregated costs associated with the first job and the second job.

16. The computer program product of claim 14, wherein the high-cost jobs are identified based on monitoring peak usage periods and calculating resource usage for the plurality of jobs running during the peak usage periods.

17. The computer program product of claim 16, wherein the resource usage comprises at least one of CPU usage, data storage usage, memory usage, and network bandwidth usage.