Method and apparatus for cause analysis involving configuration changes

Abstract

A technique determines which configuration change(s) caused an application invocation failure of a computer application without the need for a knowledge database. To determine which configuration change is the most likely cause, the cause analysis program () checks other computers () that have experienced the same configuration changes. The cause analysis program checks and counts the application invocation results before and after each configuration change is done. If the same configuration changes are found in the other computers, the program checks whether each configuration change caused or cured the same problem in that computer. The program counts the similar cases for all of the computers. Subsequently, the program calculates the ratio of those instances involving a change from success to failure and the ratio of those instances involving a change from failure to success out of all instances for each configuration change.