UNIFIED MANAGEMENT PLATFORM IN A COMPUTER NETWORK

• US 20090307597A1
• Filed: 03/09/2009
• Published: 12/10/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 03/07/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Quest Software, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Dell Software, Inc. (Dell Technologies Inc.)
• Inventors: Bakman, Alexander
• Granted Patent: US 8,935,701 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/736
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/008 Reliability or availability analysis
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3409 for performance assessment
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3442 for planning or managing the needed capacity
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3447 Performance evaluation by modeling
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3466 Performance evaluation by tracing or monitoring
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/815 Virtual middleware or OS functionality using virtual machines to implement generic software techniques for error detection or fault masking G06F11/1484
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/024 using relational databases for representation of network management data, e.g. managing via structured query language [SQL]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/145 involving simulating, designing, planning or modelling of a network
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/147 for predicting network behaviour
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/149 for prediction of maintenance
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/22 comprising specially adapted graphical user interfaces [GUI]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0876 Network utilisation, e.g. volume of load or congestion level

Abstract

A method, system and apparatus for a unified management platform in a computer network such as in a virtualized computer environment, is provided.

Claims

1. A method for unified management in a computer network, the method comprising:

initializing a unified management platform (UMP);

initializing a database;

determining utilization information relating to at least one resources in a computing environment;

storing in the database, the utilization information;

determining zero or more active applets provided by the UMP;

processing at least one function associated with at least one of the active applets;

generating information relating to the at least one of the resources, upon processing of the functions;

storing in the database, the generated information relating to the active applets; and

selectively providing the utilization information to the active applets for at least one of managing, analyzing and modeling of the at least one of the resources,

wherein the method is computer implemented

3. The method of claim 1, wherein an applet comprises at least one application for determining and providing information relating to at least one of the resources, wherein the information is indicative of zero or more of bottleneck, capacity, modeling, chargeback, and inventory information.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the at least one of the resources comprises a virtual resource associated with at least one of CPU, memory, storage and network input/output.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the UMP comprises at least one internal management function common to the applets.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising providing the information related to any of the active applets via at least one of a report and a display.

7. The method of claim 6, further comprising providing the information related to the at least on of the resources associated with any of the active applets.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein the UMP comprises the database.

2. The method of claim 2, wherein the database comprises information relating to the at least one of the resources, and wherein the database and UMP are common to the zero or more active applets.

8. A graphical user interface (GUI) for a unified management platform (UMP) in a virtual computer network, the GUI comprising:

a first frame comprising at least one user selectable display item associated with at least one applet, wherein upon receiving selection of the display item, a function corresponding to the applet associate with the display item is performed,

wherein the first frame provides a selection of at least one of a user selectable object item and a user selectable resource item,

wherein a database is linked to the at least one applet, and

wherein the GUI is computer implemented.

9. The GUI of claim 8, wherein an electronic document comprises the GUI.

10. The GUI of claim 9, wherein the electronic document comprises at least one of a browser, a window frame GUI, and a word processing document.

11. The GUI of claim 8, wherein the selection of the object item comprises a selection of at least one of a cluster, a host, a pool and a virtual machine (VM) object.

12. The GUI of claim 8, wherein the selection of the resource item comprises a selection of at least one of a CPU, a memory, and a storage resource.

13. The GUI of claim 12, wherein the selection of the resource item further comprises selection of at least one operation associated with the resource item.

15. A unified management platform (UMP) in a computing environment comprising:

a database common to zero or more active applets; and

a system for selectively executing management functions common to the applets, and storing in the database historical information indicative of usage and functions performed by the applications,

wherein upon initialization, the system access the historical information making the historical information available for the active applications.

16. The UMP of claim 15, wherein the applets perform a function for at least one of managing, modeling, predicting, allocating and utilizing resources and bottlenecks in a computing system, managing, predicting and displaying of capacity, allocating and utilizing of resources, and evaluating actual and potential performance-degrading resource shortages in a virtualized computer environment.

17. A common database comprising:

data comprising information indicative of historical activity of at least one application in a virtual environment platform;

storage for accommodating new activity information of at least one application active in the virtual environment platform, wherein the information indicative of the historical is updated based on the new activity information; and

an output providing accessibility to the data upon initialization,

wherein a new application active in the virtual environment upon the initialization has access to the data.

18. The database of claim 17, wherein the data further comprises information indicative of at least one of resource utilization, capacity and bottlenecks in the virtual environment platform.

19. The database of claim 17, wherein the data further comprises modeling, chargeback, and inventory information.

20. The database of claim 17, wherein at least one of the historic and new activity information comprises at least one of memory, processing, I/O and other resource utilization.