Method and System for Determining Compatibility of Computer Systems

• US 20200328930A1
• Filed: 11/19/2019
• Published: 10/15/2020
• Est. Priority Date: 04/21/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Cirba, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Cirba IP Inc. (Cirba, Inc.)
• Inventors: HILLIER, Andrew D., YUYITUNG, Tom
• Granted Patent: US 10,951,459 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/022 Multivendor or multi-standard integration
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0853 by actively collecting configuration information or by backing up configuration information
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0873 Checking configuration conflicts between network elements

Abstract

Compatibility and consolidation analyses can be performed on a collection of systems to evaluate the 1-to-1 compatibility of every source-target pair, evaluate the multi-dimensional compatibility of specific transfer sets, and to determine the best consolidation solution based on various constraints including the compatibility scores of the transfer sets. The analyses can be done together or be performed independently. These analyses are based on collected system data related to their technical configuration, business factors and workloads. Differential rule sets and workload compatibility algorithms are used to evaluate the compatibility of systems. The technical configuration, business and workload related compatibility results are combined to create an overall compatibility assessment. These results are visually represented using color coded scorecard maps

Claims

1. (canceled)

2. A system for determining placement of a source system on a target system, the system configured to execute operations causing the system to:

collect data for a collection of systems, the collection of systems comprising a plurality of source systems and a plurality of target systems;

evaluate compatibility between any one of the plurality of source systems and any one of the plurality of target systems by evaluating one or more rules that operate against attributes or data relating to the source and target systems being evaluated;

evaluate compatibility between any two or more of the plurality of source systems by evaluating one or more rules that operate against attributes or data relating to the two or more source systems;

evaluate compatibility between any one of the plurality of source systems and any one of the plurality of target systems by evaluating the impact on resource utilization of the target system of placing that source system on that target system, in combination with any other source systems, either already placed on that target system, or being evaluated for placement onto that target system;

determine a placement of at least one source system of the collection of systems on at least one target system of the collection of systems by employing the evaluating operations on any one or more of the systems of the collection of systems; and

issue instructions to place the at least one source system on the at least one target system in accordance with the determining.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein the source system being placed on the target system is a new system that is not yet running on a target system in the collection of systems.

4. The system of claim 3, wherein the new system is forward consolidated onto an existing target system in the collection of systems.

5. The system of claim 3, wherein the rules relating to the source and target systems or the rules relating to the two source systems are user-defined.

6. The system of claim 5, further configured to factor in user-entered attributes of any of the systems in the collection of systems.

7. The system of claim 3, wherein the rule-based compatibility analysis evaluates technical considerations.

8. The system of claim 7, wherein the technical considerations comprise an evaluation of operating system, OS version, patches, application settings, or hardware devices.

9. The system of claim 3 wherein the rule-based compatibility analysis evaluates business considerations.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein the business considerations comprise an evaluation of physical location, organization department, data segregation requirements, owner, service level agreements, maintenance windows, hardware lease agreements, or software licensing agreements.

11. The system of claim 3, wherein the rule-based compatibility analysis evaluates both technical and business considerations.

12. The system of claim 2, wherein the rules relating to the source and target systems or the rules relating to the two source systems are user-defined.

13. The system of claim 12, further configured to factor in user-entered attributes of any of the systems in the collection of systems.

14. The system of claim 12, wherein the rule-based compatibility analysis evaluates technical considerations.

15. The system of claim 14, wherein the technical considerations comprise an evaluation of operating system, OS version, patches, application settings, or hardware devices.

16. The system of claim 12 wherein the rule-based compatibility analysis evaluates business considerations.

17. The system of claim 16, wherein the business considerations comprise an evaluation of physical location, organization department, data segregation requirements, owner, service level agreements, maintenance windows, hardware lease agreements, or software licensing agreements.

18. The system of claim 12, wherein the rule-based compatibility analysis evaluates both technical and business considerations.

19. The system of claim 18, wherein the source system being placed on the target system is a new system that is not yet running on a target system in the collection of systems

20. The system of claim 2, wherein the rule-based compatibility analysis evaluates technical considerations.

21. The system of claim 20, wherein the technical considerations comprise an evaluation of operating system, OS version, patches, application settings, or hardware devices.

22. The system of claim 2, wherein the rule-based compatibility analysis evaluates business considerations.

23. The system of claim 22, wherein the business considerations comprise an evaluation of physical location, organization department, data segregation requirements, owner, service level agreements, maintenance windows, hardware lease agreements, or software licensing agreements.

24. The system of claim 2, wherein the rule-based compatibility analysis evaluates both technical and business considerations.

25. The system of claim 2, wherein resource utilization data used in evaluating the impact on the resource utilization of the target system of placing that source on that target comprises CPU utilization, memory usage, disk space used, disk I/O throughput or network I/O throughput.

26. The system of claim 25, wherein benchmarks are used to normalize CPU utilization data between source and target systems in order to account for differing CPU performance for different systems.

27. The system of claim 2, wherein the system is located remotely from the collection of systems.

28. The system of claim 2, wherein the placement takes into account a pre-existing source-target transfer set, and any placements are incremental to the transfer set.

29. The system of claim 2, wherein the target system onto which the source system is placed is a new system.

30. A computer implemented method for placing a source system on a target system, the method comprising:

collecting data for a collection of systems, the collection of systems comprising a plurality of source systems and a plurality of target systems;

evaluating compatibility between any one of the plurality of source systems and any one of the plurality of target systems by evaluating one or more rules that operate against attributes or data relating to the source and target systems being evaluated;

evaluating compatibility between any two or more of the plurality of source systems by evaluating one or more rules that operate against attributes or data relating to the two or more source systems;

evaluating compatibility between any one of the plurality of source systems and any one of the plurality of target systems by evaluating the impact on resource utilization of the target system of placing that source system on that target system, in combination with any other source systems, either already placed on that target system, or being evaluated for placement onto that target system;

determining a placement of at least one source system of the collection of systems on at least one target system of the collection of systems by employing the evaluating operations on any one or more of the systems of the collection of systems; and

issuing instructions to place the at least one source system on the at least one target system in accordance with the determining.

31. The method of claim 30, wherein the source system being placed on the target system is a new system that is not yet running on a target system in the collection of systems.

32. The method of claim 31, wherein the new system is forward consolidated onto an existing target system in the collection of systems.

33. The method of claim 31, wherein the rules relating to the source and target systems or the rules relating to the two source systems are user-defined.

34. The method of claim 33, further comprising factoring in user-entered attributes of any of the systems in the collection of systems.

35. The method of claim 31, wherein the rule-based compatibility analysis evaluates technical considerations.

36. The method of claim 35, wherein the technical considerations comprise an evaluation of operating system, OS version, patches, application settings, or hardware devices.

37. The method of claim 31 wherein the rule-based compatibility analysis evaluates business considerations.

38. The method of claim 37, wherein the business considerations comprise an evaluation of physical location, organization department, data segregation requirements, owner, service level agreements, maintenance windows, hardware lease agreements, or software licensing agreements.

39. The method of claim 31, wherein the rule-based compatibility analysis evaluates both technical and business considerations.

40. The method of claim 30, wherein the rules relating to the source and target systems or the rules relating to the two source systems are user-defined.

41. The method of claim 40, further comprising factoring in user-entered attributes of any of the systems in the collection of systems.

42. The method of claim 40, wherein the rule-based compatibility analysis evaluates technical considerations.

43. The method of claim 42, wherein the technical considerations comprise an evaluation of operating system, OS version, patches, application settings, or hardware devices.

44. The method of claim 40 wherein the rule-based compatibility analysis evaluates business considerations.

45. The method of claim 44, wherein the business considerations comprise an evaluation of physical location, organization department, data segregation requirements, owner, service level agreements, maintenance windows, hardware lease agreements, or software licensing agreements.

46. The method of claim 40, wherein the rule-based compatibility analysis evaluates both technical and business considerations.

47. The method of claim 46, wherein the source system being placed on the target system is a new system that is not yet running on a target system in the collection of systems

48. The method of claim 30, wherein the rule-based compatibility analysis evaluates technical considerations.

49. The method of claim 48, wherein the technical considerations comprise an evaluation of operating system, OS version, patches, application settings, or hardware devices.

50. The method of claim 30, wherein the rule-based compatibility analysis evaluates business considerations.

51. The method of claim 50, wherein the business considerations comprise an evaluation of physical location, organization department, data segregation requirements, owner, service level agreements, maintenance windows, hardware lease agreements, or software licensing agreements.

52. The method of claim 30, wherein the rule-based compatibility analysis evaluates both technical and business considerations.

53. The method of claim 30, wherein resource utilization data used in evaluating the impact on the resource utilization of the target system of placing that source on that target comprises CPU utilization, memory usage, disk space used, disk I/O throughput or network I/O throughput.

54. The method of claim 53, wherein benchmarks are used to normalize CPU utilization data between source and target systems in order to account for differing CPU performance for different systems.

55. The method of claim 30, wherein the method is implemented remotely from the collection of systems.

56. The method of claim 30, wherein the placement takes into account a pre-existing source-target transfer set, and any placements are incremental to the transfer set.

57. The method of claim 30, wherein the target system onto which the source system is placed is a new system.

58. A non-transitory computer readable medium comprising computer-executable instructions for placing a source system on a target system, comprising instructions for:

collecting data for a collection of systems, the collection of systems comprising a plurality of source systems and a plurality of target systems;

evaluating compatibility between any one of the plurality of source systems and any one of the plurality of target systems by evaluating one or more rules that operate against attributes or data relating to the source and target systems being evaluated;

evaluating compatibility between any two or more of the plurality of source systems by evaluating one or more rules that operate against attributes or data relating to the two or more source systems;

evaluating compatibility between any one of the plurality of source systems and any one of the plurality of target systems by evaluating the impact on resource utilization of the target system of placing that source system on that target system, in combination with any other source systems, either already placed on that target system, or being evaluated for placement onto that target system;

determining a placement of at least one source system of the collection of systems on at least one target system of the collection of systems by employing the evaluating operations on any one or more of the systems of the collection of systems; and

issuing instructions to place the at least one source system on the at least one target system in accordance with the determining.