International Business Machines Corporation

Juergen P Schneider

Thomas Lumpp

Andrew Neil Trossman

Ming Chen

Ana Claudia Biazetti

Reinhard Theodor Buendgen

Jeffrey S Lucash

Chun-Shi Chang

Isabell Schwertle

Markus Mueller

Wolfgang Schaeberle

Thomas Graser

Walter Schueppen

John K Alex

Rong-Sheng Lee

David B Petersen

Peter Richard Badovinatz

Michael Paul Clarke

Gregory D Laib

John E Dinger

Torsten Teich

Metin Feridun

Georg Ochs

Norbert Lenz

Anthony Bussani

Bernd Jostmeyer

Bernd Dowedeit

Jeremias Werner

Georg Bildhauer

Martin Henke

Alexander Terekhov

Roland Haibl

Thomas Starz

Matthias Haeussler

Carlos Cesar Ferreira Araujo

Wolfgang Kuechlin

Carsten Sinz

A method for enhancing a service delivery system with a multi-staged broker may be provided. The multi-staged broker may be suited for a placement of a service. The delivery system accesses at least two infrastructure systems offering services for deploying service resources. The at least two infrastructure systems are operated by different service providers. The method comprises collecting static and dynamic capabilities of the two infrastructure computing systems, combining the static capabilities and the dynamic capabilities for determining a first most suitable infrastructure system for deploying a service requiring a computing environment satisfying attribute values of a service capability profile, deploying the service on the first most suitable infrastructure system. The method comprises also receiving an event indicative of a change, reassessing most suitable infrastructure system and repeating the combining for determining a second most suitable infrastructure system, and redeploying the service on the second most suitable infrastructure system.

Hybrid cloud broker with static and dynamic capability matching

A method for dynamically creating of a high availability policy based upon entries in a configuration management database (CMDB) and a best practices template can be provided. The method can include directing resource discovery in a CMDB for a selected application to discover components and dependencies of the selected application. The method also can include mapping the components and dependencies discovered for the selected application in the CMDB to a best practices template specifying a parameterized high availability topology for the selected application. Finally, the method can include storing the best practices template with mapped components and dependencies as a high availability policy for the selected application.

Dynamic high availability policy creation based upon entries in a configuration management database (CMDB) and a best practices template

A method for dynamically creating a high availability policy based upon entries in a configuration management database (CMDB) and a best practices template can be provided. The method can include directing resource discovery in a CMDB for a selected application to discover components and dependencies of the selected application. The method also can include mapping the components and dependencies discovered for the selected application in the CMDB to a best practices template specifying a parameterized high availability topology for the selected application. Finally, the method can include storing the best practices template with mapped components and dependencies as a high availability policy for the selected application.

An autonomic computing system and method determine that a desired end state cannot be reached, determine that an acceptable sub-state can be reached using at least one of priority ratings, conditional relationship specifications, and alternative relationship specifications, and place the computing system in an acceptable sub-state. The priority ratings can contain an attribute assigned to a policy definition that determines a sequence for applying the policy definition. The attribute can be 'mandatory', a numerical value, or 'not required'. The conditional relationship specifications have policy definitions that are applied when the state of a specified resource meets a predetermined requirement. An alternative relationship specification has policy definitions and/or conditional relationship specifications that are applied when the state of a specified resource does not meet a predetermined requirement.

Policy driven autonomic computing-programmatic policy definitions

A method, apparatus, and computer instructions are provided for a common cluster model for configuring, managing, and operating different clustering technologies in a data center. The common cluster model supports peer cluster domains and management server cluster domains. Each cluster domain may have one or more cluster nodes. For each cluster domains, one or more cluster resources may be defined. These resources may depend on one another and may be grouped into a resource group. A set of cluster domain and cluster resources logical device operations are provided to configure, manage, and operate cluster domains and its associated resources.

Common cluster model for configuring, managing, and operating different clustering technologies in a data center

A mechanism is provided for determining an incident of a resource in a computing environment. An event pertaining to the resource is processed by a system automation module. The event is represented as an associated event data having parameters of a target state, a target state prior to the event, a current state, and a current state prior to the event. First, the target state is compared to the target state prior to the event to assure that the target state is steady. Wherein a determination that the event is an incident cannot be made after comparing the target state and the current state, the system automation module compares the current state to the current state prior to the event. Upon determining that the event is an incident, the event data is marked and stored in a repository.

Determining availability parameters of resource in heterogeneous computing environment

One aspect of the present invention provides a workflow model to effectively respond to outage events within an IT infrastructure. This workflow model enables a combination of manual and automated processing to effectively deploy a flexible, plannable, and testable recovery to outages and problems encountered within IT infrastructure settings. In one embodiment, a shared processing context is created to accompany the operations of the workflow, thereby collecting useful data in one location related to events and status information during the outage and the outage response. Within the workflow, analysis of the outage event is performed, an appropriate recovery plan is selected, the selected recovery plan is implemented, and recovery to the outage event is completed. Data collected within the processing context can be analyzed to obtain post mortem analysis and continuous service improvements. Accordingly, the improvements can be implemented within the IT infrastructure directly or within the appropriate recovery plan.

Workflow model for coordinating the recovery of IT outages based on integrated recovery plans

The present invention provides a system and method for automatically managing IT-resources in a heterogeneous environment on each level of resource abstraction and resource hierarchy by using the concept of the resource-reference object. The resource-reference object represents the link to a referenced resource on a lower level in the hierarchy and may include a priority value assigned by the respective level of hierarchy as well as all information to build a remote request to that referenced resource which may be a single resource or a resource group. Concurrently each resource-reference object itself is accessible from the higher level of hierarchy as an own resource by additional providing a name and a desired state which can differ from desired state of the referenced resource as well as making it externally visible. Resource-reference objects can be grouped to resource groups on the higher level of hierarchy, wherein those resource groups are addressable as own resource-reference object from the next higher level of hierarchy. By using the inventive concept of the resource-reference object conflicts between different levels of hierarchies in the system management are resolved by a conflict resolution method using the priority assigned to the resource reference object by the respective level of hierarchy.

System and method for automatically managing IT-resources in a heterogeneous environment

A system and associated method for determining a recovery time for a resource in a heterogeneous computing environment comprising interdependent resources. A graph for the resource representing all sequence dependencies and all group relations are created. The recovery time may be a cumulative startup time or a cumulative shutdown time of the resource considering interdependencies of the resource to other resources. The recovery time for all support resources having sequence dependencies with the resource is calculated and each node representing the support resources are removed from the graph. Then the recovery time for all member resources left in the graph that have group relations with the resource is calculated per a group type of the resource. The recovery time for the resource is a sum of the recovery time of all support resources, the recovery time of all member resources, and a unit recovery time of the resource.

Determining recovery time for interdependent resources in heterogeneous computing environment

A method, apparatus, and computer instructions are provided for expressing high availability (H/A) cluster demand based on probability of breach. When a failover occurs in the H/A cluster, event messages are sent to a provisioning manager server. The mechanism of embodiments of the present invention filters the event messages and translates the events into probability of breach data. The mechanism then updates the data model of the provision manager server and makes a recommendation to the provisioning manager server as to whether reprovisioning of new node should be performed. The provisioning manager server makes the decision and either reprovisions new nodes to the H/A cluster or notifies the administrator of detected poisoning problem.

Method and apparatus for expressing high availability cluster demand based on probability of breach

A method, system and program product is provided for dynamically integrating Backend System instances into a J2EE application server environment during runtime without having to restart the J2EE application server environment. The system comprises a deployment descriptor for deploying a J2C Connector into the J2EE application server environment and a Join/Leave manager. The manager implements an interface for detecting the Backend System instances, and an interface for providing access data and status information about the Backend System instances to the application. In addition, at least one node is enabled to run an application or its subcomponent for adding access data to, and deleting it from a storage media.

Method, system and program product for dynamically integrating backend systems into a J2EE application server environment

An apparatus and computer instructions are provided for expressing high availability (H/A) cluster demand based on probability of breach. When a failover occurs in the H/A cluster, event messages are sent to a provisioning manager server. The mechanism of embodiments of the present invention filters the event messages and translates the events into probability of breach data. The mechanism then updates the data model of the provision manager server and makes a recommendation to the provisioning manager server as to whether reprovisioning of new node should be performed. The provisioning manager server makes the decision and either reprovisions new nodes to the H/A cluster or notifies the administrator of detected poisoning problem.

Apparatus expressing high availability cluster demand based on probability of breach

A system and method for enhancing event correlation with exploitation of external data is presented. A correlation engine receives events and selects a correlation rule that corresponds to the events. The correlation rule includes an event selection, a trigger condition, and a correlation conclusion. The correlation engine uses the event selection to access external data and select events based upon the external data. In turn, the correlation engine monitors the selected events and checks whether they meet the correlation rule's trigger condition. When the events meet the correlation rule's trigger condition, the correlation engine performs an action based upon the correlation rule's correlation condition.

System and method for enhancing event correlation with exploitation of external data

A system and procedure for controlling and monitoring programs in a computer network system. An important advantage of the present invention is that a user interface for controlling and monitoring the programs in the computer network system remains unchanged when compared to the user interface of single computers. The computer network simulates a single computer. The system administrator controls and monitors the programs in the computer network system as in a single computer. The user interface is independent of the computer, i.e. the system administrator only needs to call one computer in the computer network system. The selection of the computer in the computer network system is carried out by automatic addressing. This computer is responsible for centralized control and monitoring in the whole computer network. The selection is made dynamically, i.e. other computers or several computers at the same time can take over the these central functions (dynamic centralization).

Growing community of inventors

Althenesttlt, Germany

Juergen P Schneider