Displaying Information Technology Conditions with Heat Maps

• US 20150310645A1
• Filed: 12/04/2012
• Published: 10/29/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 12/04/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Micro Focus LLC (Open Text Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. (HP Inc.)
• Inventors: Baumecker, Klaus
• Granted Patent: US 10,121,268 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/327 Alarm or error message display
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 17/00 Digital computing or data processing equipment or methods, specially adapted for specific functions information retrieval, database structures or file system structures therefor G06F16/00
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/048 Interaction techniques based on graphical user interfaces [GUI]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/30 Arrangements for executing machine instructions, e.g. instruction decode for executing microinstructions G06F9/22
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 11/001 Texturing; Colouring; Generation of texture or colour inpainting G06T5/77
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 11/206 Drawing of charts or graphs
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 11/60 Editing figures and text; Combining figures or text
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 3/00 Geometric image transformations in the plane of the image
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/22 comprising specially adapted graphical user interfaces [GUI]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/045 for graphical visualisation of monitoring data

Abstract

Displaying information technology conditions with heat maps includes determining a severity value of current issues for each configuration item in an information technology system; generating a graph of the configuration items that visually depicts topological relationships between the configuration items, the graph having a heat map overlay; and assigning pixel colors for each configuration item in the heat map overlay according to their severity value.

Claims

1. A computer program product for displaying information technology conditions with heat maps, comprising:

a tangible computer readable storage medium, said tangible computer readable storage medium comprising computer readable program code embodied therewith, said computer readable program code comprising program instructions that, when executed, causes a processor to;

determine a severity value of current issues for each configuration item in an information technology system;

generate a graph of said configuration items that visually depicts topological relationships between said configuration items, said graph comprising a heat map overlay; and

assign pixel colors for each configuration item in said heat map overlay according to their severity value.

2. The computer program product of claim 1, further comprising computer readable program code to, when executed, cause said processor to cause a topological area of said information technology system to appear as a hot spot when a cluster of topologically proximate configuration items have a high severity value.

3. The computer program product of claim 1, wherein said pixel colors are selected from a color spectrum where a first color on a first end of said color spectrum represents a high severity value and a second color on a second end of said color spectrum represents a low severity value.

4. The computer program product of claim 1, further comprising computer readable program code to, when executed, cause said processor to assign said pixel colors in real time.

5. The computer program product of claim 1, wherein said topological relationships are physical topological relationships.

6. The computer program product of claim 1, wherein said topological relationships are logical topological relationships.

7. The computer program product of claim 1, further comprising computer readable program code to, when executed, cause said processor to display heat map changes over time.

8. The computer program product of claim 1, wherein said severity value is based on response times, error rates, failures rates, or combinations thereof.

9. A system for displaying information technology conditions with heat maps, comprising:

a monitoring engine to identify current issues of configuration items in an information technology system;

a graphing engine to generate a graph of said configuration items in their topological relationships; and

a heat map engine to;

overlay a heat map overlay on said graph;

locate a corresponding position of said configuration items in said heat map overlay;

assign severity pixel colors for each configuration item with said current issues in said heat map overlay according to a severity value; and

assign a second pixel color for each configuration item without said current issues in said heat map overlay.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein said heat map engine assigns said severity pixel colors and said second pixel colors in real time.

11. The system of claim 9, wherein said topological relationships are physical topological relationships.

12. The system of claim 9, wherein said topological relationships are logical topological relationships.

13. The system of claim 9, wherein said heat map engine displays heat map changes over time.

14. A method for displaying information technology conditions with heat maps, comprising:

determining a severity value of current issues for each configuration item in an information technology system;

generating a graph of said configuration items that visually depicts topological relationships between said configuration items;

overlaying a heat map overlay on said graph;

locating a corresponding position of said configuration items in said heat map overlay; and

assigning pixel colors for each configuration item in said heat map overlay according to said severity value associated with each configuration item.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein assigning pixel colors for each configuration item in said heat map overlay includes assigning said pixel colors in real time.