Automated application discovery and analysis system and method

• US 9,361,598 B2
• Filed: 01/22/2014
• Issued: 06/07/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 03/12/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Global SAAS Solutions Pte Limited
• Original Assignee: ION Management Solutions Incorporated
• Inventors: Bird, Stephen Anthony
• Primary Examiner(s): Hwa, Shyue Jiunn
• Application Number:
  US14/160,887
• Publication Number:
  US 20140136251A1
• Time in Patent Office: 867 Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/287 Visualization; Browsing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/289 Object oriented databases
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/063 Operations research, analysis or management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/0635 Risk analysis of enterprise or organisation activities
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06375 Prediction of business process outcome or impact based on a proposed change

Abstract

An application modeling system for automating the discovery, mapping and monitoring of a plurality of elements within an IT Infrastructure that supports specific applications and business services, spanning not only network elements, hosts, and software, but also users, company structures and business processes they support. The system includes: collector modules for collecting relationship, modeling and status information from both IT and non-IT specific sources, creating data objects representing application components in the modeling database and gathering pertinent data about activities occurring in the end-to-end IT infrastructure; a modeling database for consolidating information gathered by the collector modules; correlator modules for automating determination of complex relationships between data objects stored in the modeling database to create application models of individual applications in the context of business process and IT service delivery; visualizer modules for viewing application structures end-to-end and predicting the impacts of element failures on the delivery of business services.

Claims

1. A system for use with the plurality of network-connected elements, the system comprising:

a communication device connected to the plurality of network-connected elements;

a non-transitory memory device having a database and computer-executable instructions included thereon, the database including a data model of the network-connected elements, the data model defining a plurality of relationships between the network-connected elements, and a plurality of user interfaces having a predetermined arrangement of data elements visible to a user; and

a controller including;

a plurality of collectors, each collector configured to actively collect data from a predefined one of the plurality of network-connected elements and to normalize the collected data by converting the data to a common data format compatible with the data model, the plurality collectors being further configured to automatically identify at least one unique application structure as a function of a common model and a set of non-specific predefined policies, including the structure of the plurality of network-connected elements including the IT systems, IT elements, non-IT elements, users, business objects and non-technological services used by the plurality of network-connected elements;

a plurality of correlators, each correlator configured to integrate the normalized data into the data model; and

a plurality of visualizers, each visualizer configured to extract the normalized data from the data model as a function of one of the plurality of predefined user interfaces, the one of the user interface representing the extracted normalized data arranged in relation to the predefined role of the user utilizing the user interface.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein at least one of the plurality of collectors is further configured to collect a particular data type from the network-connected elements in the system.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein at least one of the plurality of collectors is further configured to register the presence of a condition on a network-connected element and collect the data associated with the condition.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein at least one of the plurality of correlators is further configured to utilize a predetermined rule in order to integrate the normalized data into the data model.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the data model further includes a plurality of data objects, each data object including at least two units of normalized data found within the data model.

6. The system of claim 5, wherein the system includes a plurality of data models.

7. The system of claim 6, wherein the plurality of data models share at least one unit of normalized data.

8. The system of claim 6, wherein the plurality of data models share at least one data object.

9. The system of claim 6, wherein at least one of the plurality of user interfaces is configured to display a plurality of data models as a function of the respective user interface.

10. The system of claim 5, wherein at least one of the plurality of user interfaces is configured to display a plurality of data objects as a function of the respective user interface.

11. The system of claim 1, wherein each network-connected element comprises a piece of network hardware such as a desktop computer, a laptop computer, a workstation computer, a network router, a network switch, and a firewall.

12. The system of claim 1, wherein the system includes a second non-transitory memory device having a second database and second computer-executable instructions included thereon, the second database including a plurality of network-connected elements comprising units of interrelated data.

13. The system of claim 1, wherein at least one of the plurality of user interfaces is configured to display the data model.

14. A method of utilizing a system for use with the plurality of network-connected elements, the system comprising a communication device connected to the plurality of network-connected elements;

a non-transitory memory device having a database and computer-executable instructions included thereon, the database including a data model of the network-connected elements, the data model defining a plurality of relationships between the network-connected elements, and a plurality of user interfaces having a predetermined arrangement of data elements visible to a user; and

a controller including a plurality of collectors, a plurality of correlators, and a plurality of visualizers, the method comprising the steps of;

actively collecting, through one of the plurality of collectors, data from a predefined one of the plurality of network-connected elements, the collecting step including the step of automatically identifying at least one unique application structure as a function of a common model and a set of non-specific predefined policies, including the structure of the plurality of network-connected elements including the IT systems, IT elements, non-IT elements, users, business objects and non-technological services used by the plurality of network-connected elements;

normalizing the collected data by converting the data to a common data format compatible with the data model;

integrating, through one of the plurality of correlators, the normalized data into the data model; and

extracting, through one of the plurality of visualizers, the normalized data from the data model as a function of one of the plurality of predefined user interfaces, the one of the user interface representing the extracted normalized data arranged in relation to the predefined role of the user utilizing the user interface.

15. The method of claim 14, the method further including the step of collecting, through one of the plurality of collectors, a particular data type from the network-connected elements in the system.

16. The method of claim 14, wherein at least one of the plurality of collectors is further configured to register the presence of a condition on a network-connected element and collect the data associated the condition.

17. The method of claim 14, wherein at least one of the plurality of correlators is further configured to utilize a predetermined rule in order to integrate the normalized data into the data model.

18. The method of claim 14, wherein the data model further includes a plurality of data objects, each data object including at least two units of normalized data found within the data model.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein the system includes a plurality of data models.

20. The method of claim 19, wherein the plurality of data models share at least one unit of normalized data.

21. The method of claim 19, wherein the plurality of data models share at least one data object.

22. The method of claim 19, the method further including the step of displaying, through one of the plurality of user interfaces, a plurality of data models as a function of the respective user interface.

23. The method of claim 18, the method further including the step of displaying, through one of the plurality of user interfaces, a plurality of data objects as a function of the respective user interface.

24. The method of claim 14, wherein each network-connected element comprises a piece of network hardware such as a desktop computer, a laptop computer, a workstation computer, a network router, a network switch, and a firewall.

25. The method of claim 14, wherein the system includes a second non-transitory memory device having a second database and second computer-executable instructions included thereon, the second database including a plurality of network-connected elements comprising units of interrelated data.

26. The method of claim 14, the method further including the step of displaying, through one of the plurality of user interfaces, the data model.