System, method, and computer program product for monitoring computer system infrastructure and assets

• US 9,612,932 B2
• Filed: 06/20/2014
• Issued: 04/04/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 12/20/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: NetApp, Inc.
• Original Assignee: NetApp, Inc.
• Inventors: Joshi, Aashay, Gilboa, Ran, Horn, Ophir
• Primary Examiner(s): DAILEY, THOMAS J
• Application Number:
  US14/310,994
• Publication Number:
  US 20150180744A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,019 Days
• Field of Search: None
• 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 11/2028 eliminating a faulty processor or activating a spare
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3006 where the computing system is distributed, e.g. networked systems, clusters, multiprocessor systems multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/46; allocation of resources G06F9/50
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3051 Monitoring arrangements for monitoring the configuration of the computing system or of the computing system component, e.g. monitoring the presence of processing resources, peripherals, I/O links, software programs verification or detection of system hardware configuration G06F11/2247
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/323 Visualisation of programs or trace data
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/328 Computer systems status display G06F11/327 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3409 for performance assessment
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3452 Performance evaluation by statistical analysis
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3466 Performance evaluation by tracing or monitoring
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/865 Monitoring of software
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/60 Software deployment
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/65 Updates security arrangements therefor G06F21/57
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/71 Version control security arrangements therefor G06F21/57; Configuration management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0631 Item recommendations
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/147 for predicting network behaviour
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/22 comprising specially adapted graphical user interfaces [GUI]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/00 Arrangements for monitoring or testing data switching networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/04 Processing captured monitoring data, e.g. for logfile generation
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/045 for graphical visualisation of monitoring data
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/065 related to network devices
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0894 : Packet rate
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/34 : involving the movement of software or configuration parameters network booting or remote initial program loading [RIPL] G06F9/4416
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/75 : Indicating network or usage conditions on the user display

Abstract

A method performed by a monitoring tool in a computer system, the method including: displaying a user interface including information regarding a first resource; running a correlation algorithm to determine whether other resources in the computer system show correlation for one or more performance metrics; selecting one or more other resources as suggestions based on results of the correlation algorithm; displaying selected resources in a list with the base resource and render a graph of performance metrics over time with performance data of the base resource and the suggested resources overlaid; and overlaying further performance data on the graph for a resource searched for, and selected by, the human user.

Claims

1. A computer program product having a non-transitory computer readable medium tangibly recording computer program logic for monitoring performance of a computer system deployed in a networked storage system using a plurality of performance metrics associated with a plurality of resources of the computer system, the computer system in communication with a performance monitoring tool, the computer program product comprising:

code to gather performance metric data for the plurality of resources;

code to display a user interface by the monitoring tool, the user interface including performance metric data of a first resource identified as a base resource from among the plurality of resources of the computer system;

code to select one and more of the plurality of performance metrics associated with the first resource displayed at the user interface;

code to identify a subset of other resources from among the plurality resources of the computer system based on a determined a correlation value for the selected performance metrics, of the first resource and the other resources;

code to select a second resource from the subset of the other resources based on the correlation value for the selected performance metrics of the first resource and the second resource;

code to render one or more graphs of performance metric data over time of the first and second resources overlaid on the user interface based on the selected performance metrics using visual cues to distinguish between performance metric data of the first resource and the second resource;

code to display at the user interface an indicator of the second resource in a list with an indicator of the first resource, and within the list a correlation value for performance metric data of the second resource with respect to performance metric data of the first resource;

code to receive search data at the user interface for a third resource that is not included in the subset of the other resources from a human user, wherein the search data is a query term; and

code to overlay performance metric data on a graph for the third resource with graphs for the first resource and the second resource.

2. The computer program product of claim 1, wherein the first and second resources are selected from the list consisting of:

a server;

a virtual server;

a Host Bus Adapter (HBA);

a switch;

a storage array;

a virtual volume; and

a storage controller.

3. The computer program product of claim 1, wherein the code to determine correlation values comprises:

code to run a correlation algorithm to determine correlation values of the performance metric data of the first resource with performance metric data of the other resources.

4. The computer program product of claim 3, wherein the code to run a correlation algorithm comprises:

code to eliminate results of ones of the resources that show insignificant activity.

5. The computer program product of claim 3, wherein the correlation algorithm comprises selecting the second resource based on its Pearson'"'"'s population correlation coefficients with respect to the performance metric data of the first resource.

6. The computer program product of claim 1, wherein the performance metric data of the first resource refers to a first performance metric, and wherein the performance metric data of the second resource refers to a second performance metric, the first and second performance metrics being different.

7. The computer program product of claim 6, wherein the first and second performance metrics are selected from a list consisting of:

latency;

Input/Output Operations Per Second (IOPS);

data throughput;

Central Processing Unit (CPU) usage;

memory usage; and

Internet Protocol (IP) usage.

8. A method for monitoring performance of a computer system deployed in a networked storage system using a plurality of performance metrics associated with a plurality of resources of the computer system, the computer system in communication with a performance monitoring tool, the method comprising:

gathering performance metric data by the performance monitoring tool for the plurality of performance metrics of the plurality of resources;

displaying a user interface by the monitoring tool, the user interface including performance metric data of a first resource identified as a base resource from among the plurality of resources of the computer system;

selecting one and more of the plurality of performance metrics displayed at the user interface and associated with the first resource;

identifying a subset of other resources from among the plurality resources of the computer system based on a correlation value determined for the selected performance metrics of the first resource and the other resources;

selecting a second resource from the subset of the other resources based on the correlation value for the selected performance metrics of the first resource and the second resource;

rendering one or more graphs of performance metric data over time of the first and second resources overlaid on the user interface based on the selected performance metrics using visual cues to distinguish between performance metric data of the first resource and the second resource;

displaying at the user interface an indicator of the second resource in a list with an indicator of the first resource, and within the list a correlation value for performance metric data of the second resource with respect to performance metric data of the first resource;

receiving search data via the user interface for a third resource that is not included in the subset of the other resources from a user, wherein the search data is a query term; and

overlaying performance metric data at the user interface on a graph for the third resource with graphs for the first resource and the second resource.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the first and second resources are selected from the list consisting of:

a server;

a virtual server;

a Host Bus Adapter (HBA);

a switch;

a storage array;

a virtual volume; and

a storage controller.

10. The method of claim 8, wherein a correlation algorithm is used to determine correlation values of the performance metric data of the first resource with performance metric data of the other resources.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the correlation algorithm eliminates results of resources that show insignificant activity.

12. The method of claim 10, wherein the correlation algorithm selects the second resource based on its Pearson'"'"'s population correlation coefficients with respect to the performance metric data of the first resource.

13. The method of claim 8, wherein performance metric data of the first resource refers to a first performance metric, and wherein performance metric data of the second resource refers to a second performance metric, the first and second performance metrics being different.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the first and second performance metrics are selected from a list consisting of:

latency;

Input/Output Operations Per Second (IOPS);

data throughput;

Central Processing Unit (CPU) usage;

memory usage; and

Internet Protocol (IP) usage.

15. A system comprising:

a processor; and

a memory accessible by the processor and storing computer-readable instructions, the processor performing the following actions by executing the instructions for;

gathering performance metric data by a performance monitoring tool for a plurality of performance metrics for a plurality of resources of a computer system deployed in a networked storage system, the computer system in communication with the performance monitoring tool;

displaying a user interface by the monitoring tool, the user interface including performance metric data of a first resource identified as a base resource from among the plurality of resources of the computer system;

selecting one and more of the plurality of performance metrics displayed at the user inter-face and associated with the first resource;

identifying a subset of other resources from among the plurality resources of the computer system based on a correlation value determined for the selected performance metrics of the first resource and the other resources;

selecting a second resource from the subset of the other resources based on the correlation value for the selected performance metrics of the first resource and the second resource;

rendering one or more graphs of performance metric data over time of the first and second resources overlaid on the user interface based on the selected performance metrics using visual cues to distinguish between performance metric data of the first resource and the second resource;

displaying at the user interface an indicator of the second resource in a list with an indicator of the first resource, and within the list a correlation value for performance metric data of the second resource with respect to performance metric data of the first resource;

receiving search data via the user interface for a third resource that is not included in the subset of the other resources from a user, wherein the search data is a query term; and

overlaying performance metric data at the user interface on a graph for the third resource with graphs for the first resource and the second resource.

16. The system of claim 15, wherein the processor and memory are included in a client computer running an application that monitors a network storage system, the network storage system in communication with the client computer over a network.

17. The system of claim 15, wherein the processor and memory are included in a server computer running an application that monitors a network storage system, the network storage system in communication with the server computer over a network.

18. The system of claim 15, wherein a correlation algorithm is used to determine correlation values of the performance metric data of the first resource with performance metric data of the other resources.

19. The system of claim 18, wherein the correlation algorithm eliminates results of resources that show insignificant activity.

20. The system of claim 18, wherein the correlation algorithm selects the second resource based on its Pearson'"'"'s population correlation coefficients with respect to the performance metric data of the first resource.