Method and system for managing computer systems

Abstract

A management system for a computer system is disclosed. The computer system operates or includes various products (e.g., software products) that can be managed in a management system or collectively by a group of management systems. Typically, the management system operates on a computer separate from the computer system being managed. The management system can make use of a knowledge base of causing symptoms for previously observed problems at other sites or computer systems. In other words, the knowledge base can built from and shared by different users across different products to leverage knowledge that is otherwise disparate. The knowledge base typically grows over time. The management system can use its ability to request information from the computer system being managed together with the knowledge base to infer a problem root cause in the computer system being managed. The computer system being managed can also request the management system to process its knowledge base for possible problem cause analysis. The management system can also continually identify persisting problem causing symptoms.

What is claimed is:  
     
         1 . A management system for at least one computer system, comprising: 
 a plurality of agents residing within managed nodes of a plurality of different products used within the computer system; and    a manager for said management system, said manager being operable across the different products.    
     
     
         2 . A management system as recited in  claim 1 , wherein said management system further comprises a knowledge base.  
     
     
         3 . A management system as recited in  claim 2 , 
 wherein a plurality of different users across multiple organizations contribute to the information within said knowledge base, and    wherein said knowledge based is shared and used by a plurality of different organizations to manage their computer systems, the different organizations having the same or different product configurations on their computer systems.    
     
     
         4 . A management system as recited in  claim 2 , wherein said knowledge base is updated by contributions from other users, and an update to said knowledge base is distributed to said manager via the Internet.  
     
     
         5 . A management system as recited in  claim 2 , wherein said knowledge base contains information pertaining to the different products.  
     
     
         6 . A management system as recited in  claim 5 , wherein the information pertaining to the different products includes at least rules.  
     
     
         7 . A management system as recited in  claim 6 , wherein said manager further comprises an inference engine that evaluate the rules.  
     
     
         8 . A management system as recited in  claim 2 , wherein the information in said knowledge base is described using thresholds on resource information.  
     
     
         9 . A management system as recited in  claim 2 , wherein the information in said knowledge base is described using thresholds on resource information and relationships between resource information from the different products.  
     
     
         10 . A management system as recited in  claim 2 , wherein the information in said knowledge base is provided thereto by a plurality of different persons located at different positions.  
     
     
         11 . A management system as recited in  claim 10 , wherein the different persons provide the information to said knowledge base through use of graphical user interfaces.  
     
     
         12 . A management system as recited in  claim 2 , wherein said agents provide said manager with only symptom information that is relevant to that identified within the knowledge base as a possible known causing symptom for previously observed problems.  
     
     
         13 . A management system as recited in  claim 12 , wherein each of the different products being managed has at least one application component, and 
 wherein the symptom information pertains to resource information form the application component of the different products.    
     
     
         14 . A management system as recited in  claim 1 , wherein said manager determines which of at least one of the different products a problem arises.  
     
     
         15 . A management system as recited in  claim 14 , wherein after said manager determines which of at least one of the different products the problem arises, initiates a reporting and/or corrective action.  
     
     
         16 . A management system as recited in  claim 1 , wherein said management system performs just-in-time or near real-time diagnosis of which of at least one of the different products a problem arises or is likely to arise.  
     
     
         17 . A management system as recited in  claim 1 , wherein said management system operates on a separate computer that is connected to the computer system being managed.  
     
     
         18 . A management system as recited in  claim 1 , wherein said management system is for a plurality of computer systems, and 
 wherein said manager is central and operable across the different products on the different computer systems.    
     
     
         19 . A management system as recited in  claim 1 , wherein said knowledge base is updated by contributions from other users, and an update to said knowledge base is distributed to said manager through knowledge data files.  
     
     
         20 . A management system in  claim 1 , wherein the managed nodes can be managed by more than one of said management systems.  
     
     
         21 . A method for managing an enterprise computer system, said method comprising: 
 receiving a fact pertaining to a condition of one of a plurality of different products that are operating in the enterprise computer system;    asserting the fact with respect to an inference engine, the inference engine using rules based on facts;    retrieving updated facts from the inference engine from those of the rules that are dependent on the fact that has been asserted; and    performing an action in view of the updated facts.    
     
     
         22 . A method as recited in  claim 21 , wherein the action in at least one of a corrective action or a debug data acquisition.  
     
     
         23 . A method as recited in  claim 22 , wherein the corrective action or the debug action further asserts at least one fact with respect to the inference engine.  
     
     
         24 . A method as recited in  claim 21 , wherein said method further comprises: 
 making a log entry.    
     
     
         25 . A method as recited in clam  24 , wherein said method further comprises: 
 retrieving log data from the log entry; and    generating a report from the log data.    
     
     
         26 . A method as recited in  claim 25 , wherein said method further comprises: 
 determining a report delivery method; and    delivering the report using the determined report delivery method.    
     
     
         27 . A method as recited in  claim 21 , wherein the inference engine obtains resource information from the different products to process rules based on at least one fact already asserted.  
     
     
         28 . A method as recited in  claim 21 , wherein the different products send resource information to the inference engine to process rules that depend on at least one fact representing the resource information.  
     
     
         29 . A method for isolating a root cause of a software problem in an enterprise computer system supporting a plurality of software products, said method comprising: 
 forming a knowledge base from causing symptoms and experienced problems provided by a disparate group of contributors; and    examining the knowledge base with respect to the software problem to isolate the cause of the software problem to one of the software products.    
     
     
         30 . A method as recited in  claim 29 , wherein the knowledge base further includes corrective actions for certain software problems.  
     
     
         31 . A method as recited in  claim 30 , wherein said method further comprises: 
 automatically performing a correction operation to attempt correction of the software problem, the correction operation being associated with one of the corrective actions within the knowledge base that is suitable for use with the software problem.    
     
     
         32 . A method as recited in  claim 29 , wherein the causing symptoms pertain to resources of the software products.  
     
     
         33 . A method as recited in  claim 29 , wherein a repeating symptom cause can be ignored till after the cause ceases to exist at least once.