Claims
- 1. A computer-based method for generating a topology associated with a computing environment, the method comprising the steps of:
identifying components in the computing environment and their dependencies, wherein identification comprises computing and traversing at least a portion of a model representative of an existence of one or more relationships associated with at least a portion of the components of the computing environment and which is capable of accounting for a full lifecycle associated with at least one component of the computing environment; and presenting the one or more identified components in a topological representation based on the one or more relationships associated with the one or more identified components.
- 2. The method of claim 1, wherein the computing environment comprises a distributed computing environment.
- 3. The method of claim 1, wherein the computing environment comprises an autonomic computing environment.
- 4. The method of claim 1, wherein the identifying step further comprises identifying, for a given component, which other components depend on the given component and which other components the given component depends on.
- 5. The method of claim 1, wherein the identifying step further comprises performing one or more status verification procedures in a stepwise manner.
- 6. The method of claim 1, wherein the identifying step further comprises performing one or more status verification procedures in a combined manner.
- 7. The method of claim 1, wherein the model is in a form comprising a functional categorization, a structural categorization and an operational categorization.
- 8. The method of claim 7, wherein the identifying step further comprises computing the operational categorization of the model based on at least one input criterion.
- 9. The method of claim 8, wherein the at least one input criterion comprises at least one of a name of a given component, a host associated with the given component, a direction of the traversal, a depth of the traversal, a path of the traversal and at least one filtering criterion.
- 10. The method of claim 7, wherein the topological representation comprises a functional plane, a structural plane and an operational plane respectively corresponding to at least a portion of the functional categorization, the structural categorization and the operational categorization of the model.
- 11. The method of claim 10, wherein the topological representation comprises one or more presentation elements annotated with status information.
- 12. The method of claim 11, wherein the status information is generated via one or more status procedures.
- 13. The method of claim 12, wherein the one or more status procedures comprise at least one of a component inspection procedure, a component exercising procedure, a component heartbeat detection procedure and a component status indication procedure.
- 14. The method of claim 11, further comprising the step of propagating at least a portion of the status information from one plane to at least another plane.
- 15. The method of claim 11, wherein the status information is generated for a single component.
- 16. The method of claim 11, wherein the status information is generated for more than one component substantially concurrently.
- 17. The method of claim 10, wherein the functional plane represents component functionality.
- 18. The method of claim 10, wherein the structural plane represents static dependency relationships of the components.
- 19. The method of claim 10, wherein the operational plane represents a runtime status of the components.
- 20. The method of claim 19, wherein the operational plane further represents dynamic bindings associated with the components.
- 21. The method of claim 1, wherein a component is one of a service, an application, middleware, hardware, a device driver, an operating system and a system associated with the computing environment.
- 22. Apparatus for generating a topology associated with a computing environment, the apparatus comprising:
at least one processor operative to: (i) identify components in the computing environment and their dependencies, wherein identification comprises computing and traversing at least a portion of a model representative of an existence of one or more relationships associated with at least a portion of the components of the computing environment and which is capable of accounting for a full lifecycle associated with at least one component of the computing environment; and (ii) present the one or more identified components in a topological representation based on the one or more relationships associated with the one or more identified components; and memory, coupled to the at least one processor, operative to store at least a portion of results associated with the identifying and presenting operations.
- 23. The apparatus of claim 22, wherein the computing environment comprises a distributed computing environment.
- 24. The apparatus of claim 22, wherein the computing environment comprises an autonomic computing environment.
- 25. The apparatus of claim 22, wherein the identifying step further comprises identifying, for a given component, which other components depend on the given component and which other components the given component depends on.
- 26. The apparatus of claim 22, wherein the identifying operation further comprises performing one or more status verification procedures in a stepwise manner.
- 27. The apparatus of claim 22, wherein the identifying operation further comprises performing one or more status verification procedures in a combined manner.
- 28. The apparatus of claim 22, wherein the model is in a form comprising a functional categorization, a structural categorization and an operational categorization.
- 29. The apparatus of claim 28, wherein the identifying operation further comprises computing the operational categorization of the model based on at least one input criterion.
- 30. The apparatus of claim 29, wherein the at least one input criterion comprises at least one of a name of a given component, a host associated with the given component, a direction of the traversal, a depth of the traversal, a path of the traversal and at least one filtering criterion.
- 31. The apparatus of claim 28, wherein the topological representation comprises a functional plane, a structural plane and an operational plane respectively corresponding to at least a portion of the functional categorization, the structural categorization and the operational categorization of the model.
- 32. The apparatus of claim 31, wherein the functional plane represents component functionality.
- 33. The apparatus of claim 31, wherein the structural plane represents static dependency relationships of the components.
- 34. The apparatus of claim 31, wherein the operational plane represents a runtime status of the components.
- 35. The apparatus of claim 34, wherein the operational plane further represents dynamic bindings associated with the components.
- 36. The apparatus of claim 31, wherein the topological representation comprises one or more presentation elements annotated with status information.
- 37. The apparatus of claim 36, wherein the status information is generated via one or more status procedures.
- 38. The apparatus of claim 37, wherein the one or more status procedures comprise at least one of a component inspection procedure, a component exercising procedure, a component heartbeat detection procedure and a component status indication procedure.
- 39. The apparatus of claim 36, further comprising the operation of propagating at least a portion of the status information from one plane to at least another plane.
- 40. The apparatus of claim 36, wherein the status information is generated for a single component.
- 41. The apparatus of claim 36, wherein the status information is generated for more than one component substantially concurrently.
- 42. The apparatus of claim 22, wherein a component is one of a service, an application, middleware, hardware, a device driver, an operating system and a system associated with the computing environment.
- 43. An article of manufacture for generating a topology associated with a computing environment, comprising a machine readable medium containing one or more programs which when executed implement the steps of:
identifying components in the computing environment and their dependencies, wherein identification comprises computing and traversing at least a portion of a model representative of an existence of one or more relationships associated with at least a portion of the components of the computing environment and which is capable of accounting for a full lifecycle associated with at least one component of the computing environment; and presenting the one or more identified components in a topological representation based on the one or more relationships associated with the one or more identified components.
CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS
[0001] The present application is related to the concurrently-filed U.S. patent applications respectively identified as: attorney docket no. YOR920020096US1 entitled: “Methods And Apparatus For Root Cause Identification and Problem Determination in Distributed Systems;” attorney docket no. YOR920020097US1 entitled: “Methods And Apparatus For Managing Dependencies in Distributed Systems;” attorney docket no. SOM920020004US1 entitled: “Methods And Apparatus For Impact Analysis and Problem Determination;” and attorney docket no. SOM920020005US1 entitled: “Methods And Apparatus For Dependency-based Impact Simulation and Vulnerability Analysis;” the disclosures of which are incorporated by reference herein.