Abstract:
Embodiments of the present invention address deficiencies of the art in respect to resource mapping in a change configuration and systems monitoring solution and provide a novel and non-obvious method, system and computer program product for predictively mapping automatically discovered resources in a monitored system with a manually specified resource for the monitored system. In an embodiment of the invention, a resource mapping method for application dependency and discovery can be provided. The method can include automatically discovering resources in a monitored system, manually specifying a resource in the monitored system, filtering the automatically discovered resources to a set of resources likely to match the manually specified resource, and mapping the manually specified resource to a resource in the filtered set of resources.

Description:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
       [0001]    1. Field of the Invention 
         [0002]    The present invention relates to the field of enterprise computing and network administration, and more particularly to the operation and management of a configuration management database (CMDB). 
         [0003]    2. Description of the Related Art 
         [0004]    The task of modern network administration differs significantly from that of days gone by. Not just a decade ago, network administration primarily entailed the addition and deletion of network users, the management of print queues, and the supervision and operation of daily backup procedures. Most if not all resources required by network applications remained present in the network itself, and few if any network applications depended upon the operation of other, co-executing applications. 
         [0005]    Much has changed since the early days of network computing. Today, enterprise computing permeates the electronic landscape. While some enterprise applications remain largely stand-alone, most rely in some respect on a co-existing enterprise application or a soft enterprise resource, such as a database application, Web application server, or other cooperating component. Thus, the administration of the network has advanced far beyond user and print queue administration and daily backup routines. Today, the inter-dependencies among network components present a significant challenge to the network administrator. In this regard, the management of a single network component can depend upon the state of a multiplicity of other network components. 
         [0006]    Changing components or configuration settings with a network architecture requires careful consideration of the potential impact of a given change. System changes generally are known to be the source of architectural missteps in even the simplest of network structures. As system complexity increases, however, the number of errors caused by a configuration change increases exponentially. The advent of the configuration management database (CMDB) acts to remediate the foregoing problem and creates an opportunity to help identify and prevent potential errors. 
         [0007]    A CMDB is a unified or federated repository of information related to all the components of an information system. A CMDB provides a view to the information technology manager of an organization in order to understand the relationships between the components of the information system. The CMDB further facilitates the monitoring and management of the configuration of the components of the information system. The CMDB can be populated both with automatically discovered resources, as well as manually specified resources. 
         [0008]    Notably, advanced forms of change configuration and systems monitoring solutions perform automated discovery of resources to compliment the manual entry of known resources. Oftentimes, however, duplicate entries of resources can arise where the end user manually specifies a resource coincidentally automatically discovered. As such, change configuration and systems monitoring solutions providing a two-pane mapping interface through which manually specified resources can be mapped manually to automatically discovered resources. To the extent that the list of automatically discovered resources is extensive, however, it can be difficult to readily identify duplicate entries. 
       BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
       [0009]    Embodiments of the present invention address deficiencies of the art in respect to resource mapping in a change configuration and systems monitoring solution and provide a novel and non-obvious method, system and computer program product for predictively mapping automatically discovered resources in a monitored system with a manually specified resource for the monitored system. In an embodiment of the invention, a resource mapping method for application dependency and discovery can be provided. The method can include automatically discovering resources in a monitored system, manually specifying a resource in the monitored system, filtering the automatically discovered resources to a set of resources likely to match the manually specified resource, and mapping the manually specified resource to a resource in the filtered set of resources. 
         [0010]    In another embodiment of the invention, an application dependency and discovery data processing system can be provided. The system can include a CMDB, an application dependency and discovery server coupled to the CMDB, a discovery engine coupled to the application dependency and discovery server and configured to automatically discover resources in a communicatively linked monitored system, and predictive resource mapping logic coupled to the discovery engine. The logic can include program code enabled to filter the automatically discovered resources to a set of resources likely to match a manually specified resource, to map the manually specified resource to a resource in the filtered set of resources, and to store the mapping in the CMDB. 
         [0011]    In one aspect of the embodiment, the program code of the predictive resource mapping logic can include program code enabled to filter the automatically discovered resources to a set of resources correlating to a manually specified resource according to criteria selected from the group consisting of a similar set of respective system lists, product information, resource names and resource tags. In another aspect of the embodiment, the system can include a two-pane view rendered by the predictive resource mapping logic. The view can include one pane presenting the manually specified resource and a second pane presenting the filtered set of resources. 
         [0012]    Additional aspects of the invention will be set forth in part in the description which follows, and in part will be obvious from the description, or may be learned by practice of the invention. The aspects of the invention will be realized and attained by means of the elements and combinations particularly pointed out in the appended claims. It is to be understood that both the foregoing general description and the following detailed description are exemplary and explanatory only and are not restrictive of the invention, as claimed. 
     
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE SEVERAL VIEWS OF THE DRAWINGS 
         [0013]    The accompanying drawings, which are incorporated in and constitute part of this specification, illustrate embodiments of the invention and together with the description, serve to explain the principles of the invention. The embodiments illustrated herein are presently preferred, it being understood, however, that the invention is not limited to the precise arrangements and instrumentalities shown, wherein: 
           [0014]      FIG. 1  is a pictorial illustration of a process for predictively mapping automatically discovered resources in a monitored system with a manually specified resource for the monitored system; 
           [0015]      FIG. 2  is a schematic illustration of a change configuration management and systems monitoring data processing system configured to predictively map automatically discovered resources in a monitored system with a manually specified resource for the monitored system; and, 
           [0016]      FIG. 3  is a flow chart illustrating a process for predictively mapping automatically discovered resources in a monitored system with a manually specified resource for the monitored system. 
       
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION 
       [0017]    Embodiments of the present invention provide a method, system and computer program product for predictively mapping automatically discovered resources in a monitored system with a manually specified resource for the monitored system. In accordance with an embodiment of the present invention, an individual manually specified resource can be presented in one pane of a two-pane user interface while a list of automatically discovered resources can be presented in the second pane of the two-pane user interface. The list of automatically discovered resources can be filtered, however, according to a likelihood that a given one of the automatically discovered resources is likely to correlate to the manually specified resource. Criteria for the correlation can include the sharing of similar system lists, product information, names and tags. 
         [0018]    In further illustration,  FIG. 1  is a pictorial illustration of a process for predictively mapping automatically discovered resources in a monitored system with a manually specified resource for the monitored system. As shown in  FIG. 1 , a monitored system  100  can be observed by both an end user  110  and an automated monitoring system  120 . The automated monitoring system  120  can automatically discover a full set  130  of resources  140  in the monitored system  100 . Likewise, the end user  110  can manually specify a resource  150  in the monitored system  100 . As it will be recognized by one skilled in the art, the manually specified resource  150  can overlap one of the automatically discovered resources  140  in the full set  130 . 
         [0019]    To that end, a two-pane view  160  can be provided to match the manually specified resource  150  in a first pane  160 A with a corresponding one of the automatically discovered resources  140  in a filtered set  170  of the automatically discovered resources  140  in a second pane  160 B. Specifically, to facilitate the matching, a filtered set  170  of the automatically discovered resources  140  can be generated with a filter  190  from the full set  130  according to the resources  140  in the full set  130  most likely to be matched to the manually specified resource  150 . Those of the resources  140  in the full set  130  most likely to be matched to the manually specified resource  150  can be predicted by the filter  190  according to similar system lists, product information, names or tags. Thereafter, the matched manually specified resource  150  and automatically discovered resource  140  can be stored in a mapping  180  for the automated monitoring system  120 . 
         [0020]    In further illustration,  FIG. 2  is a schematic illustration of a change configuration management and systems monitoring data processing system configured to predictively map automatically discovered resources in a monitored system with a manually specified resource for the monitored system. The system can include an application dependency and discovery server  210  configured for communicative coupling to an accessor client  250  over computer communications network  220 . The application dependency and discovery server  210  can be coupled both to a CMDB  240  and a discovery engine  230 . 
         [0021]    The application dependency and discovery server  210  also can be communicatively linked to one or more different information technology (IT) infrastructure components  260 , each providing one or more IT resources  270  (either hardware resources, software resources or both). In this regard, the discovery engine  230  can be configured to perform automated discovery of one or more of the IT resources  270  and to populate the CMDB  240  accordingly. Additionally, the discovery engine  230  can be configured to accept a manual specification of any of the IT resources  270  for inclusion in the CMDB  240 . 
         [0022]    Notably, predictive resource mapping logic  280  can be coupled to the discovery engine  230  and to a two-pane view  290  provided as an interface to the discovery engine  230 . The predictive resource mapping logic  280  can include program code enabled to filter automatically discovered ones of the resources  270  according to a likelihood that a given one of the resources  270  is likely to match to a manually specified one of the resources  270 . In this regard, automatically discovered ones of the resources  270  can correlate to a manually specified one of the resources  270  based upon similar system lists, e.g. similar defined sets of managed systems. Also, automatically discovered ones of the resources  270  can correlate to a manually specified one of the resources  270  based upon similar product information, or similar or identical names for the resources  270 . Finally, automatically discovered ones of the resources  270  can correlate to a manually specified one of the resources  270  based upon similar tags for the resources  270  including same or similar key-value pairs for tags for the resources  270 . 
         [0023]    Upon operation of the predictive resource mapping logic  280 , a filtered set of the resources  270  can be presented in one pane of the two-pane view  290 , while the corresponding manually specified one of the resources  270  can be presented in the other pane of the two-pane view  290 . Consequently, an end user through accessor client  250  can visually match the manually specified one of the resources  270  with a selected one of the filtered one of the resources  270  through the two-pane view  290 . Thereafter, the CMDB  240  can be updated with the mapping. 
         [0024]    In yet further illustration,  FIG. 3  is a flow chart illustrating a process for predictively mapping automatically discovered resources in a monitored system with a manually specified resource for the monitored system. Beginning in block  310 , automatically discovered resources in a monitored system can be loaded and in block  320 , a manually specified resource can be selected for mapping. In block  330 , one or more correlation criteria can be retrieved for application to the automatically discovered resources. The correlation criteria can include, for example, similar system lists, product information, names and tags between individual ones of the automatically discovered resources and the manually specified resource. 
         [0025]    In block  340 , the automatically discovered resources can be filtered according to the criteria to produce a filtered set of automatically discovered resources. Thereafter, in block  350  the filtered set of automatically discovered resources can be rendered in one pane of a two-pane view while the manually specified resource can be specified in a second pane of the two-pane view. In block  360 , the manually specified resource can be mapped to one of the resources in the filtered set of automatically discovered resources. Finally, in decision block  370 , it can be determined whether or not to match another manually specified resource. If not, the process can end in block  380  with a storing of the mapping in the CMDB. 
         [0026]    Embodiments of the invention can take the form of an entirely hardware embodiment, an entirely software embodiment or an embodiment containing both hardware and software elements. In a preferred embodiment, the invention is implemented in software, which includes but is not limited to firmware, resident software, microcode, and the like. Furthermore, the invention can take the form of a computer program product accessible from a computer-usable or computer-readable medium providing program code for use by or in connection with a computer or any instruction execution system. 
         [0027]    For the purposes of this description, a computer-usable or computer readable medium can be any apparatus that can contain, store, communicate, propagate, or transport the program for use by or in connection with the instruction execution system, apparatus, or device. The medium can be an electronic, magnetic, optical, electromagnetic, infrared, or semiconductor system (or apparatus or device) or a propagation medium. Examples of a computer-readable medium include a semiconductor or solid state memory, magnetic tape, a removable computer diskette, a random access memory (RAM), a read-only memory (ROM), a rigid magnetic disk and an optical disk. Current examples of optical disks include compact disk-read only memory (CD-ROM), compact disk-read/write (CD-R/W) and DVD. 
         [0028]    A data processing system suitable for storing and/or executing program code will include at least one processor coupled directly or indirectly to memory elements through a system bus. The memory elements can include local memory employed during actual execution of the program code, bulk storage, and cache memories which provide temporary storage of at least some program code in order to reduce the number of times code must be retrieved from bulk storage during execution. Input/output or I/O devices (including but not limited to keyboards, displays, pointing devices, etc.) can be coupled to the system either directly or through intervening I/O controllers. Network adapters may also be coupled to the system to enable the data processing system to become coupled to other data processing systems or remote printers or storage devices through intervening private or public networks. Modems, cable modem and Ethernet cards are just a few of the currently available types of network adapters.