PROCESS AND SYSTEM FOR COMPREHENSIVE IT DISCOVERY WITHOUT CREDENTIALS

• US 20100319060A1
• Filed: 06/16/2009
• Published: 12/16/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 06/16/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Tacci, Michael, Lee, Steve, Baker, John K., Boettcher, Robert P., Kane, Timothy P. SR., Aiken, Louis E., Walker, Anthony G.D., Pfitzmann, Birgit M., Joukov, Nikolai A., Devarakonda, Murthy V., Vogl, Norbert G., Bhattacharya, Kamal, Markley, Matthew A.
• Granted Patent: US 9,778,953 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 726/7
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/50 Allocation of resources, e.g. of the central processing unit [CPU]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/10 for controlling access to devices or network resources

Abstract

A method and system for discovering dependencies, configurations and utilizations among IT resources are disclosed. A discovery team writes a prediscovery script without requesting credentials and sends it to a system administrator (SA) who already has necessary credentials to execute the prediscovery script. Then, the SA reviews the prediscovery script and executes the prediscovery script on a target server. While or after executing the prediscovery script, the target server generates a result of an execution of the prediscovery script and provides the result to an analysis system. The analysis system analyzes and parses the result and generates a user-friendly data (e.g., graph or spreadsheet) that represents the result. Then, the analysis system provides the user-friendly data to the discovery team. The analysis system does not require credentials and does not directly communicate with the target server except receiving the result of the executed prediscovery script from the target server.

Claims

1. A method for discovering dependencies, configurations and utilizations among IT resources comprising:

executing at least one prediscovery script on at least one target server;

providing at least one result of the executed prediscovery script to an analysis system to parse and analyze the at least one result to generate data; and

providing the data to a user, the data representing one or more of;

the dependencies, the configurations and the utilizations among the IT resources,

wherein the analysis system does not require user credentials and does not directly communicate with the at least one target server except receiving the at least one result of the executed prediscovery script from the at least one target server.

2. The method according to claim 1, further comprising:

writing the at least one prediscovery script; and

sending the at least one prediscovery script to at least one user who has necessary credentials to execute the at least one prediscovery script,

wherein the at least one prediscovery script is written only once and then the least one prediscovery script is sent to the at least one user to execute the at least one prediscovery script in the at least one target server.

3. The method according to claim 2, wherein the at least one prediscovery script is written in one or more scripting languages:

Bourne and Kom shell, C shell, MS-DOS batch, Perl, Python, REXX, Javascript, Ruby, VBScript and Tcl.

4. The method according to claim 2, further comprising:

receiving, by the at least one user, the at least one prediscovery script, the at least one user verifying that an execution of the at least one prediscovery script is harmless on the at least one target server; and

providing, by theat least one user, the at least one prediscovery script to the at least one target server to generate the at least one result of the executed prediscovery script.

5. The method according to claim 2, further comprising:

obtaining a list of the at least one user who receives the at least one prediscovery script; and

obtaining a list of the at least one target server where the at least one prediscovery script is executed.

6. The method according to claim 5, further comprising:

sending the at least one prediscovery script to a user managing an outside target server, which is not on the list of the at least one target server, to request an execution of the at least one prediscovery script in the outside target server, if the data indicates there is a dependency on the outside target server.

7. The method according to claim 2, wherein the at least one user can adjust a level of credentials when re-executing the at least one prediscovery script in the at least one target server based on the at least one result of the executed prediscovery script.

8. The method according to claim 2, further comprising:

providing a server for receiving and answering questions from the at least one user.

9. The method according to claim 1, wherein the at least one prediscovery script comprises requests for one or more of:

a request to determine currently running processes, a request to determine network statistics, a request for collecting configuration files in the IT resources, a request to enhance or reduce the collected configuration files, a request to determine the dependencies of the IT resources, a request to determine the configurations of the IT resources, a request to determine the utilizations of the IT resources and a request for collecting log files.

10. The method according to claim 1, further comprising:

storing the result of the executed prediscovery script or the data in a database.

11. The method according to claim 1, wherein the data is utilized in one or more of:

an availability assessment of the IT resources, a reliability assessment of the IT resources, an availability improvement of the IT resources, a reliability improvement of the IT resources, an optimization of the IT resources, a server consolidation, a consolidation of the IT resources, a server migration, a migration of the IT resources, a virtualization of the IT resources, a recovery planning of the IT resources, a stale data elimination in the IT resources, an elimination of unused software in the IT resources, auditing of the IT resources and a compliance assessment and improvement of the IT resources.

23. A computer readable medium embodying computer program instructions being executed by a processor for causing a computer to perform method steps for discovering dependencies, configurations and utilizations among IT resources, said method steps comprising the steps of claim 1.

24. A method of deploying a computer program product including programs of instructions in a computer readable medium for discovering dependencies, configurations and utilizations among IT resources, wherein, when the programs of instructions are executed by at least one processor, the computer program product performs the steps of claim 1.

12. A system for discovering dependencies, configurations and utilizations among IT resources comprising:

at least one target server for executing at least one prediscovery script; and

an analysis system for receiving at least one result of the executed prediscovery script from the at least one target server and for parsing and analyzing the at least one result to generate data, said analysis system providing the data to a user, the data representing one or more of;

the dependencies, the configurations and the utilizations among the IT resources,

wherein the analysis system does not require user credentials and does not directly communicate with the at least one target server except receiving the at least one result of the executed prediscovery script from the at least one target server.

13. The system according to claim 12, further comprising:

means for writing the at least one prediscovery script;

means for sending the at least one prediscovery script to at least one user who has necessary credentials to execute the at least one prediscovery script.

14. The system according to claim 13, wherein the at least one prediscovery script is written in one or more scripting languages:

Boume and Kom shell, C shell, MS-DOS batch, Perl, Python, REXX, Javascript, Ruby, VBScript and Tcl.

15. The system according to claim 13, wherein further comprising:

means for receiving, by the at least one user, the at least one prediscovery script, the at least one user verifying that an execution of the at least one prediscovery script is harmless on the at least one target server; and

means for providing, by the at least one user, the at least one prediscovery script to the at least one target server to generate the at least one result of the executed prediscovery script.

16. The system according to claim 13, further comprising:

means for obtaining a list of the at least one user who receive the at least one prediscovery script; and

means for obtaining a list of the at least one target server where the at least one prediscovery script is executed.

17. The system according to claim 16, further comprising:

means for sending the at least one prediscovery script to a user managing an outside target server, which is not on the list of the at least one target server, to request an execution of the at least one prediscovery script in the outside target server, if the data indicates there is a dependency on the outside target server.

18. The system according to claim 13, wherein the at least one user can adjust a level of credentials when re-executing the prediscovery script in the target server based on the result of the executed prediscovery script.

19. The system according to claim 13, further comprising:

a server for receiving and answering questions from the at least one user.

20. The system according to claim 12, wherein the at least one prediscovery script comprises requests for one or more of:

a request to determine currently running processes, a request to determine network statistics, a request for collecting configuration files in the IT resources, a request to enhance or reduce the collected configuration files, a request to determine the dependencies of the IT resources, a request to determine the configurations of the IT resources, a request to determine the utilizations of the IT resources and a request for collecting log files.

21. The system according to claim 12, further comprising:

a database for storing the result of the executed prediscovery script or the data.

22. The system according to claim 12, wherein the data is utilized in one or more of:

an availability assessment of the IT resources, a reliability assessment of the IT resources, an availability improvement of the IT resources, a reliability improvement of the IT resources, an optimization of the IT resources, a server consolidation, a consolidation of the IT resources, a server migration, and a migration of the IT resources, a virtualization of the IT resources, a recovery planning of the IT resources, stale data elimination in the IT resources, an elimination of unused software in the IT resources, auditing of the IT resources and a compliance assessment and improvement of the IT resources.