Patent Publication Number: US-2007100674-A1

Title: Device, method and computer program product for determining an importance of multiple business entities

Description:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION  
      The present invention relates to methods, devices and computer program products that determine the importance of multiple business entities, especially in a complex multiple-level environment.  
     BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION  
      The infrastructure of modern organizations can include a large number of business entities. These entities can include tangible entities as well as intangible entities. The tangible entities can include IT entities but this is not necessarily so. Typically, the different entities are arranged in multiple levels, starting from a business-level business entities such as business processes, intermediate level business entities such as activity business entities, and lower level business entities such as hardware business entities.  
      An importance of a business entity can affect various decisions including business entity upgrading or replacement, failure analysis, outsourcing analysis, strategic investments, capital and cost allocations and the like.  
      Determining an importance of a business entity can be very problematic, especially when the business entity is a part of a complex multiple level infrastructure. The importance of a certain business entity can be responsive to the relationship between that business entity and other business entities. In a complex infrastructure the number of connections between business entities can be very large thus dramatically complicating the importance determination process and even preventing such a calculation to be successfully completed.  
      In addition, the importance of various business entities, especially the intermediate level business entities and the low level business entities, is neither provided nor can be easily evaluated. These business entities are usually described in terms that do not reveal their importance.  
      There is a need to provide methods, systems and computer readable products that can determine the importance of multiple business entities, especially in a complex multiple-level environment.  
     SUMMARY OF THE PRESENT INVENTION  
      A method for calculating an importance of multiple business entities, the method includes receiving dependency information representative of dependencies between multiple business entities; and utilizing a probability based mathematical model of a business infrastructure for determining the importance of multiple business entities.  
      Conveniently, the method includes generating the probability based mathematical model.  
      Conveniently, the stage of generating includes calculating inter-entity importance related probabilities.  
      Conveniently, the stage of utilizing comprises utilizing intrinsic probabilities.  
      Conveniently, the importance of a business entity represents a benefit resulting from a replacement or an update of the business entity.  
      Conveniently, the determining of an importance of a first business entity includes multiplying an intrinsic importance of a dependency related business entity by an indication of an influence of a change in the dependency related business entity on the first business entity.  
      Conveniently, the method further includes selecting between multiple importance calculation mechanisms.  
      A method for calculating an importance of multiple business entities, the method includes: receiving dependency information representative of dependencies between business entities of a multi-level business infrastructure; receiving a first type of information representing a characteristic of high level business entities; converting the first type of information to importance information of the high level business entities; and calculating an importance of intermediate level and low level business entities in response to the importance information of the high level business entities.  
      A device that includes a memory element adapted to receive dependency information representative of dependencies between multiple business entities that form a multi-level business infrastructure; and to receive additional information representative of at least one characteristic of at least two business entities that belong to the multi-level business infrastructure; and a processor, connected to the memory element, the processor is adapted to calculate, in response to the received information, an importance of each of the multiple business entities; whereas an importance of a business entity represents a product resulting from utilizing the business entity.  
      A computer program product that includes a computer useable medium including a computer readable program, wherein the computer readable program when executed on a computer causes the computer to: receive dependency information representative of dependencies between multiple business entities; and to utilize a probability based mathematical model of a business infrastructure for determining the importance of multiple business entities.  
      A computer program product that includes a computer useable medium including a computer readable program, wherein the computer readable program when executed on a computer causes the computer to: receive dependency information representative of dependencies between business entities of a multi-level business infrastructure; receive a first type of information representing a characteristic of high level business entities; convert the first type of information to importance information of the high level business entities; and calculate an importance of intermediate level and low level business entities in response to the importance information of the high level business entities. 
    
    
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS  
      The present invention will be understood and appreciated more fully from the following detailed description taken in conjunction with the drawings in which:  
       FIG. 1  illustrates a method for determining the importance of multiple business entities, according to an embodiment of the invention;  
       FIG. 2  illustrates method for calculating an importance of multiple business entities, according to an embodiment of the invention;  
       FIG. 3  illustrates a method for determining the importance of an business entity, according to an embodiment of the invention;  
       FIG. 4  illustrates an exemplary high level business entity dependency graph;  
       FIG. 5  illustrates an exemplary multi-level dependencies graph;  
       FIG. 6  illustrates a business importance graph, according to an embodiment of the invention;  
       FIG. 7  illustrates a method for calculating an importance of multiple business entities, according to an embodiment of the invention; and  
       FIG. 8  illustrates a device, according to an embodiment of the invention. 
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS  
      Methods, devices and computer program products are provided. According to an embodiment of the invention the devices, methods and computer program products determine the business importance of business entities that belong to (or even form) a business infrastructure. The business infrastructure usually includes business entities of multiple levels and can accordingly be referred to as a multi-level business infrastructure.  
      According to one embodiment of the invention the determination is based upon a probability based model of the business infrastructure. The model can be a Bayesian bet but this is not necessarily so. Conveniently, the model is generated by calculating inter-entity importance related probabilities. The importance of a business entity depends upon the inter-entity importance related probabilities and the intrinsic importance of that business entity.  
      According to another embodiment of the invention the business importance of intermediate level and low level business entities is affected by the importance of high level business entities. Conveniently, received first type of information of high level business entities is converted to importance information of the high level business entities.  
      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, etc.  
      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. 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.  
      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.  
      Conveniently, once the importance of an business entity is defined said importance can affect various decisions such as business entity replacements decisions, business entity upgrade decisions, outsourcing decisions, strategic investments, capital and cost allocations and problem resolution decisions. For example: investing in the resiliency of more important business entities, upgrading more important business entities, focusing an infrastructure monitoring process on more important business entities.  
       FIG. 1  illustrates a method  100  for determining the importance of multiple business entities, according to an embodiment of the invention.  
      For convenience of explanation the following description refers to an importance of a business entity as reflecting an impact of a failure of that business entity on other business entities. Accordingly the importance is referred to as criticality.  
      Those of skill in the art will appreciate that the importance of an business entity can provide indications that differ from the mentioned above indication. For example, the importance can represent a product (such as but not limited to revenue) resulting from a utilization of a business entity. Alternatively or additionally, a business entity can be assigned with different importance values, representative of different indications.  
      Method  100  is explained by referring to a Bayesian network. It is noted that other probability based mathematical models can be used within the scope of the invention.  
      Conveniently, the following assumptions are made and the following definitions are used. It is noted that at least some of the assumptions are optional and provided for clarity of explanation.  
      C(A) is the criticality of business entity A, IC(A) is the inherent criticality of business entity A. The inherent criticality is a measure of the importance of business entity A regardless the dependency between business entity A and other business entities. Typically, the inherent criticality of a hardware or software business entity is zero as such a business entity is not expected to have any inherent business importance, and its importance results from business processes which depend on it.  
      Conveniently, if the failure of business entity A always causes business entity B to fail, then C(A)−IC(A)≧C(B).  
      Conveniently, if E A  is the set of business entities that fail as a result of the failure of business entity A (excluding A). Accordingly, if E A   ⊂ E B   C(A)−IC(A)≦C(B)−IC(B).  
      Conveniently, if E is the set of all business entities in the business infrastructure, and EP A  is the set of all business entities which depend on A, then C(A) on the whole business infrastructure is the same as C(A) on EP A .  
      For each DεEP B , C(B)∝IC(D). In other words, if the inherent criticality of business entity D increases, then the criticality of business entity B increases. This proportion reflects the likelihood that the failure of business entity B will cause the failure of business entity D.  
      The notation F A  for any business entity A is used to denote the probabilistic event that business entity A failed.  
      The criticality of a business entity can be calculated in various manners, thus one out of multiple importance calculation mechanisms can be selected. Each importance calculation mechanism uses a different probabilistic space and involves calculating the inter-entity importance probability in a different manner. The selection can be responsive to the ability to implement the various calculation mechanisms.  
      Three exemplary importance calculation mechanisms as well as three different inter-entity importance probabilities are illustrated below.  
      According to an embodiment the importance of business entity B is calculated by the following equation:  
         C   ⁡     (   B   )       =         ∑     A   ≠   B       ⁢       (     Pr   ⁡     (         F   A     ⁢          F   B     )       -       Pr   (     F   A          ⁢     ⫬     F   B           )       )     ·     IC   ⁡     (   A   )           +       IC   ⁡     (   B   )       .           
 
      In this case, the criticality of business entity B equals the inherent criticality of business entity B (IC(B)) plus the sum (over all business entities excluding business entity B) of products of (i) the inherent criticality of A (IC(A)) and (ii) an increase in likelihood that business entity A will fail if the state of business entitles A and B changes from a functional business entity B to a failed business entity B.  
      According to another embodiment the importance of business entity B is calculated by the following equation  
         C   ⁡     (   B   )       =       ∑   A     ⁢     (         Pr   ⁡     (         F   A     ⁢          do   ⁡     (     F   B     )       )       -       Pr   (     F   A          ⁢     do   ⁡     (     ⫬     F   B       )           )       ·     IC   ⁡     (   A   )         +       IC   ⁡     (   B   )       .               
 
 The notation do(F B ) represents that entity B failed for a reason “outside” or the original probability space (i.e. it was set to fail). 
 
      In this case, the criticality of business entity B equals the inherent criticality of business entity B (IC(B)) plus the sum (over all business entities excluding business entity B) of products of (i) the inherent criticality of A (IC(A)) by (ii) the difference between the probability that business entity A failed if business entity B has independently failed or did not independently fail.  
      According to another embodiment the importance of business entity B is calculated by the following equation:  
           C   ⁡     (   B   )       =         ∑   A     ⁢       Pr   ⁡     (         F     A     F   B         ❘     ⫬     F   A         ,     ⫬     F   B         )       ·     IC   ⁡     (   A   )           +     IC   ⁡     (   B   )           ,       
 
 whereas  
       Pr   ⁡     (         F     A     F   B         |     ⫬     F   A         ,     ⫬     F   B         )         
is the probability that business entity A fails given that business entity B is set to fail, and given that previously both business entities A and B were functional. In other words, given an initial state in which business entities A and B are functional, what is the probability that business entity A fails if business entity B has independently failed.  
       Pr   ⁡     (         F     A     F   B         |     ⫬     F   A         ,     ⫬     F   B         )         
is also denoted PS(F A →F B ). Thus the following equation has the following form:  
         C   ⁡     (   B   )       =         ∑   A     ⁢       PS   ⁡     (       F   A     →     F   B       )       ·     IC   ⁡     (   A   )           +       IC   ⁡     (   B   )       .           
 
      According to an embodiment the importance of business entity B is calculated by the following equation:  
           C   ⁡     (   B   )       =         ∑   A     ⁢       Pr   ⁡     (         F   A     ❘     do   ⁡     (     F   B     )         ,     do   ⁡     (     F     S   AB       )         )       ·     IC   ⁡     (   A   )           +     IC   ⁡     (   B   )           ,       
 
 where Pr(F A |do(F B ),do(F S     AB   )) illustrates the direct effect of an independent failure of business entity B on business entity A. 
 
      It is further assumed that the business entities can include tangible business entities such as applications and resources, and intangible business entities such as business processes and activities.  
      Conveniently, the dependencies between business entities can include mandatory dependencies, compound dependencies, alternate dependency, and workflow dependencies.  
      Business entity A has a mandatory dependency on a set of business entities B 1 , . . . , Bn with a constant c (mandatory dependency value) if the failure of any of the business entities B 1 , . . . , Bn causes business entity A to fail with likelihood c.  
      A Compound dependency includes a combination of two or more different dependencies.  
      Business entity A has an alternating dependency, such as a “m out of n” dependency, on a set of business entities B 1 , . . . , Bn with a constant c if the failure of m business entities out of business entities B 1 , . . . , Bn causes business entity A to fail with likelihood c.  
      Workflow dependencies are defined between activity business entities. Conveniently, these dependencies include Next, XOR Split, AND Split, XOR join, AND join. A workflow dependency may also have a constant c associated with it. Next illustrates a sequential relationship between two business entities.  
      Conveniently, there are no dependencies between two activities, and an activity cannot depend on a business process. Conveniently, there are no cycles in the dependency diagrams.  
      Conveniently, for each business process, a workflow corresponding to this business process is specified in a dependency diagram that is provided as an input to method  100 .  
      It is noted that a source of uncertainty for mandatory dependencies between activities and business processes stems from the fact that a specific activity does not necessarily have to participate in every instance of a business process. Therefore, this uncertainty has to be consistent with the workflow definition of the business process.  
      Conveniently, a logical business entity, such as an activity or business process cannot fail if none of the business entities on which it depends fail. For example, if an activity uses several applications to carry out its task, and all of the applications function correctly, than the activity will not fail. This rationale behind this assumption is, that in order for a process or activity to fail, an event (bug, disk crash, etc.) must occur in some tangible business entity, such as code or hardware.  
      Conveniently, if c is the certainty of a mandatory dependency between a business process B and a set of activities A 1 , . . . , A n  then c is the likelihood that if any one of activities A 1 , . . . , A n  fails, then so will process B.  
      Conveniently, if c is a certainty on an edge belonging to a XOR split pattern from some activity A then c is the likelihood that that edge will be taken when leaving activity A on that workflow process.  
      Conveniently, a business process can be in one of two states, active or failed. Conveniently, a business process is uniquely identified by a workflow dependency, i.e., a business process is synonymous with a single workflow.  
      Conveniently, a dependency diagram that is provided to method  100  is fully specified—i.e., all business entities that affect the relevant business processes appear. This ensures, for example, that all outside causes of failure for each business entity appear in the diagram and, also, that if a business process has both a workflow dependency to a set of activities S, and mandatory dependencies to another set of activities S′, then S′ ⊂ S.  
      Conveniently, the probabilities of an edges that exit a XOR split node should be normalizes. Typically the sum of all these probabilities equals one, but this is not necessarily so. Out A  denotes the edges exiting activity A when the exit is of type XOR Split. The certainty on a link eεOut A  is defined as the probability that after activity A completes, the link e will be taken. If all of the outgoing links of a business entity have constants c defined, the sum of these certainties will be normalized to one, by dividing each certainty by the sum of the certainties of all outgoing links. If some of the outgoing links of a business entity have constants c and some do not, and the defined constants sum to less than one, than the remaining probability will be divided equally between the outgoing links that do not have certainties defined. The case in which the constants defined sum to more than one will be invalid, and the certainties will have to be redefined. If none of the outgoing links of an activity have certainties defined, then the probability of taking any link will be  
       1          Out   A              
 
 (A link is chosen at random with equal probability). 
 
      Method  100  starts by stage  110  of receiving dependency information representative of dependencies between multiple business entities. Conveniently, the dependency information includes a dependency diagram.  
      Stage  110  also includes receiving the inherent criticality of each business entity and an independent failure probability of each business entity. Conveniently, stage  110  includes receiving a dependency diagram. The independent failure probability of a business entity reflects the probability that the business entity will fail, if the business entity does not depend on other business entities or reflects the probability that this business entity will fail given that other business entities (or business entity) on which the certain business entity depends did not fail.  
      Stage  110  is followed by stage  120  of generating a probability based mathematical model of the business infrastructure. Conveniently, stage  120  includes calculating inter-entity importance related probabilities.  
      Conveniently, stage  120  includes generating a Bayesian network representative of the business infrastructure in response to the information received during stage  110 .  
      Bayesian networks are probabilistic directed graphical models in which nodes represent random variables, and edges between nodes represent conditional independence assumptions. An edge (or arc) between a first node to a second node indicates that an event represented by the first node causes an event that is represented by the second node. Bayesian Networks are also known as Belief Networks.  
      Conveniently, stage  120  includes stages  122 - 124 . Stage  122  includes defining a node for each business entity, whereas the value of the node reflects the probability that that business entity will fail.  
      Conveniently, stage  122  includes defining, for each tangible business entity that depend upon one or more other business entities, an independent failure node that represents a probability of a independent failure of that business entity—the probability that the tangible business entity fails although neither of the business entities upon it depends failed.  
      Stage  122  is followed by stage  124  of defining an edge between two nodes if there is a dependency between the business entities represented by the nodes.  
      Stage  120  is followed by stage  130  of utilizing a probability based mathematical model of a business infrastructure for determining the importance of multiple business entities.  
      Conveniently, stage  130  includes utilizing a Bayesian network to compute inter-entity importance probabilities and determining the importance of multiple business entities. The determination is responsive to the intrinsic criticality of various business entities and inter-entity critically related probabilities.  
      For example the inter-entity importance probability can be: (i) an increase in likelihood that business entity A will fail if the state of entitles A and B changes from a state in which business entity B is functional to a state in which business entity B fails; (ii) the difference between the probability that business entity A failed if business entity B has independently failed or did not independently fail; (iii) given an initial state in which business entities A and B are functional, the probability that business entity A fails if element B has independently failed; (iv) a direct effect of an independent failure of business entity B on business entity A.  
      For example, assuming that the criticality is calculated by the following equation:  
         C   ⁡     (   B   )       =         ∑   A     ⁢       PS   ⁡     (       F   A     →     F   B       )       ·     IC   ⁡     (   A   )           +     IC   ⁡     (   B   )             
 
 then stage  130  includes stages  132 - 136 . 
 
      Stage  132  includes resetting the criticality of each business entity A.  
      Stage  132  is followed by stage  134  of creating a copy of the Bayesian network, and calculating, for each pair of business entities A and B that differ from each other and for each node of the Bayesian network Pr(F| F A , F B ). This probability is referred to as parentless node apriori probability.  
      Stage  134  is followed by stage  136  of assigning to each parentless node in the Bayesian network the parentless node apriori probability. Stage  136  is followed by stage  138  of deleting, at the copy of the Bayesian network, all edges going into F A  to provide an altered Bayesian network.  
      Stage  138  is followed by stage  139  of computing, in response to the altered Bayesian network, Pr(F B |F A ) which equals PS(F A →F B ).  
      Stage  130  conveniently includes defining an inter-entity importance probability Pr(F A |P A ) that represents the probability of a failure of a business entity if one or more of its parent business entities fail.  
      F A  is a node in the Bayesian network, and it is true if business entity A failed. It is false elsewhere. P A  is the parent business entities of business entity A—the business entities that depend upon business entity A.  
      If business entity A is “n out of m” dependent upon P A  then Pr(F A |P A )=1 if at least for n of the nodes FεP A , F=true, and 0 otherwise.  
      If business entity A is not business process or a business entity which depends on other business entities in an alternate manner, then all of its dependencies are either mandatory or compound and they usually do not have certainty defined on them. Therefore,  
         Pr   ⁡     (       F   A     ❘     P   A       )       =     {             1   ,     ∃     F   ∈       P   A     ⁢     s   .   t   .                   F   =   true             0       otherwise         .           
 
      If business entity A is a business process and it depends on one or more tangible business entities and the tangible business entities failed then business entity A fails. In mathematical terms—if ∃F E εP A  business entity E is not an activity and F E =true Pr(F A |P A )=1.  
      If business entity A is a business process and the only dependency between business entity A and activities is a workflow dependency, than Pr(F A |P A ) is the probability of reaching any of the failed activities in an instance of the business process, as defined by the probabilities on the workflow dependencies as defined above.  
      Conveniently, for workflow dependencies other than XOR Split there is no probability defined, and the path is defined by the specific pattern. This is as only a XOR chooses a path—all other workflow dependencies assume that the workflow must proceed on all exiting edges.  
      Conveniently, if the workflow relationship is a XOR split, the certainties on the edges are normalized to be between 0 and 1 in order to constitute valid probabilities. The normalization process is described in a later subsection.  
      Conveniently, if in addition to a workflow dependency there are also other mandatory dependencies, the probability will be defined as the maximum of the probabilities of the two cases.  
      Stage  130  can be further illustrated by the following example. It is assumed that there is a mandatory dependency between business process B and activities A 1  and A 2 , that there is a workflow dependency between B and activities A 1 ,A 2  and A 3 . It is further assumed that these dependencies have the following parameters: (a) the certainty of the mandatory dependency between B and A 1  is c 1 , (b) the certainty of the mandatory dependency between B and A 2  is c 2 , (c) c 3 , c 4 , c 6 , c 7  are smaller than c 1 , c 1  is smaller than c 2 , and c 2  is smaller than c 8 .  
      The inter-entity importance probabilities defined by the workflow dependencies are: Pr WF (F B |F A     1   , F A     2   , F A     3   )=c 3 , Pr WF (F B | F A     1   ,F A     2   , F A     3   )=c 4 , Pr WF (F B | F A     1   , F A     2   ,F A     3   )=c 5 , Pr WF (F B |F A     1   ,F A     2   , F A     3   )=c 6 , Pr WF (F B |F A     1   , F A     2   ,F A     3   )=c 7 , Pr WF (F B | F A     1   ,F A     2   ,F A     3   )=c 8 , Pr WF (F B |F A     1   ,F A     2   ,F A     3   )−1, Pr WF (F B | F A     1   , F A     2   , F A     3   )=0.  
      In addition, the probabilities on the Bayesian network will be defined as follows: Pr(F B |F A     1   , F A     2   , F A     3   )=c 1  as c 3 &lt;c 1  Pr(F B | F A     1   ,F A     2   , F A     3   )=c 2  as c 4 &lt;c 2  Pr(F B | F A     1   , F A     2   ,F A     3   )=c 5  as that it the only way that only A 3  influences B. Pr(F B |F A     1   ,F A     2   , F A     3   )=c 2  as c 2  is the maximum of c 2 ,c 1 ,c 6 , which are all the uncertainties of the effects between A 1 ,A 2 ,A 3  and B.  
      Pr(F B |F A     1   , F A     2   ,F A     3   )=c 1  as c 1 &gt;c 7 . Pr(F B | F A     1   ,F A     2   ,F A     3   )=c 8  as c 8 &gt;c 2 . Pr(F B |F A     1   ,F A     2   ,F A     3   )=c1 as a business process will always fail if all of the activities on which it depends fail. Pr(F B | F A     1   , F A     2   , F A     3   )=0 as a business process will not fail if none of the activities on which it depends fails.  
       FIG. 2  illustrates method  200  for calculating an importance of multiple business entities, according to an embodiment of the invention.  
      Method  200  is adapted to evaluate changes to a certain business infrastructure. The importance of certain business entities are evaluated in view of the income that can result from changing the business entities.  
      Method  200  refers to an annual calculation of revenue, although other time periods can be selected.  
      Method  200  starts by stage  210  of receiving business process information and business process change information.  
      The business process information includes an expected income from that business process when it is functional and a time period during which the business process is expected to be operational. The expected income can be defined in various manners including overall income, income per various portion of the time period during which the business is expected to be functional.  
      The business process change information includes an initial investment in incorporating that change, an annual addition of total cost of ownership (TCO) of that change, and a time it would take to incorporate the change. It is noted that the annual addition of TCO can be expressed in various manners such as annual average amount or different average amounts for different times of the year.  
      It is noted that the additional TCO can be negative, as some changes may reduce the TCO. Conveniently, for each business entity other then a business process, this algorithm assumes that the inherent criticality is zero.  
      Stage  210  is followed by stage  220  of calculating the expected income of all business processes until the change is incorporated by computing the expected income in the time frame, multiplied by the probability that the business process will be operational, given that no change has been incorporated.  
      Stage  220  is followed by stage  230  of subtracting, from each expected income prior to the change the amount it takes to incorporate the change.  
      Stage  230  is followed by stage  240  of calculating the availability probability of each business process, given the change that was made. Stage  240  can involve utilizing a Bayesian network.  
      Stage  240  is followed by stage  250  of calculating the income generated from the business process. Stage  250  conveniently includes calculating the income in the remaining time period for that business process, and multiplying it by the new availability probability of the business process.  
      Stages  220 - 250  can be repeated for each evaluated change. Thus, stage  250  can be followed by query stage  260  of checking if all the changes were evaluated. If not—stage  260  jumps to stage  220 , else it is followed by stage  270  of selecting the evaluated change in view of the impact of that change on the business process. Stage  270  can include selecting the most profitable change, and the like.  
      Conveniently, stage  270  include storing the income generated by each evaluated change. Stage  270  can also include storing the incomes in an ascending order of time.  
       FIG. 3  illustrates a method  300  for determining the importance of an business entity, according to an embodiment of the invention.  FIG. 4  illustrates an exemplary high level business entity dependency graph  400  that illustrates the dependency between various high level business entities of a business infrastructure.  FIG. 5  illustrates an exemplary multilevel dependencies graph  500  that represents the dependencies between various business entities of the business infrastructure, including medium level business entities and low level business entities.  FIG. 6  illustrates a business importance graph  600  that represents the importance of each business entity of the business infrastructure, according to an embodiment of the invention.  
      For convenience of explanation method  300  is explained by referring to graphs  400 - 600 .  
      Method  300  starts by stage  310  of receiving dependency information representative of dependencies between business entities of a multi-level business infrastructure and receiving a first type of information representing a characteristic of high level business entities. The first type of information can include high level business entity economical values, operational measurements representing a relationship between changes in various business entities and the like. The first type of information is illustrated by boxes  420 - 425  and links  411 - 419  in graph  400 .  
      High level business entity dependency graph  400  illustrates three highest level business entities  401 - 403 , second level business entities  431  and  432  and multiple qualitative measures (also referred to as operational measures) that are associated with the second level business entities and the highest level business entities.  
      These highest and second level entities can be regarded as high level business entities while other business entities (such as entities  441 - 473  of graph  600 ) can be regarded as medium level business entities and low level business entities.  
      The highest level business entities include market penetration business entity  401 , share of wallet business entity  402  and customer penetration business entity  403 .  
      The second level business entities include open new account business entity  431  and reexamined credit score business entity  432 .  
      The multiple operational measurements business entities are associated with the highest level business entities and with the collaboration pattern business entities. They include total process time  420 , false negative ratio  421 , false positive ratio  422 , frequency  423 , false negative ratio  424  and false positive ratio  425 . These multiple operational measurement business entities can be regarded as business entities.  
      Total process time  420  is linked by links  410  and  411  to market penetration business entity  401  and to share of wallet business entity  402  accordingly. Link  410  illustrates that a change of 1% in the total process time causes a change of 0.1% in the market penetration business entity  401 . Link  411  illustrates that a change of 1% in the total process time causes a change of 0.5% in the share of wallet business entity  402 .  
      False negative ratio  421  is linked by links  412  and  413  to market penetration business entity  401  and to share of wallet business entity  402  accordingly. Link  412  illustrates that a change of 1% in false negative ratio  421  causes a change of 0.2% in the market penetration business entity  401 . Link  413  illustrates that a change of 1% in the false negative ratio  421  causes a change of 0.2% in the share of wallet business entity  402 .  
      False positive ratio  422  is linked by link  414  to customer retention business entity  403 . Link  414  illustrates that a change of 1% in false positive ratio  422  causes a change of 0.5% in the customer retention business entity  403 .  
      False negative ratio  425  is linked by link  417  to customer retention business entity  403 . Link  417  illustrates that a change of 1% in false negative ratio  425  causes a change of 1% in the customer retention business entity  403 .  
      False positive ratio  424  is linked by link  416  to share of wallet business entity  402 . Link  416  illustrates that a change of 1% in false positive ratio  424  causes a change of 0.5% in the share of wallet business entity  402 .  
      Frequency  423  is linked by link  415  to customer retention business entity  403 . Link  415  illustrates that a change of 1% in frequency  423  causes a change of 0.1% in the customer retention business entity  403 .  
      Each of total process time  420 , false negative ratio  421  and false positive ratio  422  is linked by link  418  to the open new account business entity  431 . Links  418  illustrates that each of total process time  420 , false negative ratio  421  and false positive ratio  422  has the same impact on the open new account business entity  431 .  
      Each of frequency  423 , false negative ratio  424  and false positive ratio  425  is linked by link  419  to the reexamined credit score business entity  432 . Links  419  illustrates that each of frequency  423 , false negative ratio  424  and false positive ratio  425  has the same impact on the reexamined credit score business entity  432 .  
      Multilevel dependencies graph  500  can include the business entities of graph  400 , but for simplicity of explanation it will include business entities  431  and  432  and the business entities that have a lower level than business entities  431  and  432 .  
      Open new account business entity  431  depends upon multiple business service business entities such as accept application for processing business entity  441 , send application response business entity  442 , authenticate customer business entity  443  and provide credit score business entity  444 . Reexamined credit score business entity  432  depends upon multiple business service business entities such as send application response business entity  442 , provide credit score business entity  444  and provide market data business entity  445 .  
      Accept application for processing business entity  441  depends upon two action business entities—receive application business entity  461  and process application business entity  462 . Send application response business entity  442  depends upon two action business entities—application response business entity  463  and process application business entity  462 . Authenticate customer business entity  443  depends upon two action business entities—customer authentication business entity  464  and process application business entity  462 . Provide credit score business entity  444  depends upon two action business entities—customer credit score calculation business entity  465  and process application business entity  462 . Provide market data business entity  445  depends upon a customer profile business entity  472 .  
      Various action business entities  461 - 465  can include various action implementation business entities  451 - 457 . These entities illustrate that not all entities are required to participate in a business entity importance calculation. Receive application business entity  461  can include a receive application through email business entity  451  and receive application through clerks  452 . Process application business entity  462  can include automated processing business entity  453  and manual processing business entity  545 . Application respond business entity  463  can include manual processing business entity  454  and manual respond business entity  455 . Customer authentication business entity  464  can include username and password business entity  456  and finger print business entity  457 .  
      The action business entities depend upon Business Component business entities. Receive application business entity  461 , process application business entity  462  and application respond business entity  463  depend upon customer service business entity  471 . Customer authentication business entity  464  and customer credit score calculation business entity  465  depend upon customer profile business entity  472 .  
      The lowest level business entities include a customer service legacy system business entity  481 , database farm business entity  482  and communication service business entity  483 . Customer service business entity  471  depends on all lowest level business entities  481 - 483 . Customer profile business entity  472  depends upon database farm business entity  482  and communication service business entity  483 .  
      Stage  310  is followed by stage  320  of converting the first type of information to importance information of the high level business entities and calculating an importance of intermediate level and low level business entities in response to the importance information of the high level business entities.  
      Conveniently stage  320  includes performing business importance calculation of a certain business entity level. Whereas the business importance of a certain business infrastructure entity depends upon the business importance of its direct offspring business entities.  
      Conveniently, if multiple direct offspring business entity depend upon a certain business entity then the business importance of that certain business entity is the sum of the business importance of all the direct offspring business entities.  
      Conveniently, stage  320  includes calculating a business importance of certain business entities in response to the economic value of an business entity and the dependencies between business entities.  
      Assuming that a change of 1% in market penetration business entity equals 3.5 M$, that a change of 1% in the share of wallet business entity  402  equals 5M$ and that a change of 1% in the customer retention business entity  403  equals 1.5M$.  
      The impact of a change of 1% in the total process time business entity  420  is responsive to these values as well as the relationship between total process time business entity changes and market penetration business entity changes and share of wallet business entity changes, as illustrated by links  410  and  411 . Given these values the impact equals 0.1*3.5+0.5*5=2.85.  
      Accordingly, the impact of a change of 1% in the false negative ratio business entity  421  equals 0.2*3.5+0.2*5=1.7. The impact of a change of 1% in the false positive ratio business entity  422  equals 0.5*5=2.5.  
      The impact of a change of 1% in the false negative ratio business entity  425  equals 1*6.5=6.5. The impact of a change of 1% in the false positive ratio business entity  424  equals 0.5*5=2.5. The impact of a change of 1% in the frequency business entity  423  equals 0.1*6.5=0.65.  
      The business value of the open new business entity account represents the impact of a change in 1% in that business entity, and it equals (as indicated by links  418 )=(2.85+1.7+2.5)/3=2.35.  
      The business value of the reexamined credit score business entity  432  represents the impact of a change in 1% in that business entity, and it equals (as indicated by links  419 )=(0.65+2.5+6.5)/3=3.13.  
      Stage  320  is followed by optional stage  330  of normalizing the business model importance of each level.  
      For example, the business importance of the open new account business entity  431  is normalized to 2.35/(2.35+3.13)=0.43. The business importance of the reexamined new credit score business entity  432  is normalized to 3.13/(2.35+3.13)=0.57.  
      These normalized business importance values will be used when the business importance of the business service business entity is calculated.  
      Stage  330  is followed by stage  340  of determining if the process ends—did the business importance of all business entities calculated. If the answer is positive then stage  340  is followed by stage  350  of providing a business importance indication of each business entity of the business infrastructure. Else, stage  340  is followed by stage  320  of processing the business entities of a lower level.  
      TABLE 1 illustrates the normalized and non-normalized business importance values of the various business entities of graph  600 .  
                               TABLE 1                               Direct                       higher               level   Non-       Business   Business   dependent   normalized   Normalized       entity   entity   business   business   business       number   level   entities   value   value                                                    441   Business   431   0.43   0.13           service       442   Business   431,   1   0.3           service   432       443   Business   431   0.43   0.13           service       444   Business   431,   1   0.3           service   432       445   Business   432   0.57   0.16           service       461   Action   441   0.13   0.1       462   Action   441,   0.43   0.33               442       463   Action   442   0.3   0.23       464   Action   443   0.13   0.1       465   Action   444   0.3   0.23       471   BC   461,   0.66   0.66               462,               463       472   BC   464,   0.33   0.33               465       481   Utility   471   0.66   0.24           technology           component       482   Utility   471,   1   0.38           technology   472           component       483   Utility   471,   1   0.38           technology   472           component                  
 
       FIG. 7  illustrates a method  700  for calculating an importance of multiple business entities, according to an embodiment of the invention.  
      Method  700  starts by stage  710  of receiving dependency information representative of dependencies between multiple business entities that form a multi-level business infrastructure and receiving additional information representative of at least one characteristic of at least two business entities that belong to the multi-level business infrastructure.  
      According to an embodiment of the invention, the additional information includes a first type of information representing a characteristic of high level business entities. Thus, stage  710  can resemble stage  310 .  
      According to another embodiment of the invention, the additional information comprises intrinsic importance of multiple business entities. Thus, stage  710  can resemble stage  110 .  
      Stage  710  is followed by stage  720  of calculating, in response to the received information, an importance of each of the multiple business entities; whereas an importance of a business entity represents a product resulting from utilizing the business entity.  
      According to an embodiment of the invention, stage  720  includes utilizing a probability based mathematical model of the multi-level business infrastructure.  
      According to another embodiment of the invention stage  720  includes calculating an importance of intermediate level and low level business entities.  
       FIG. 8  illustrates a device  800 , according to an embodiment of the invention. Conveniently, device  800  can execute one or more of methods  100 ,  200 , and  700 .  
      Device  800  include one or more memory elements, one or more processors, I/O ports, network adaptors or can be connected to such I/P ports or network adaptors.  
      For convenience of explanation  FIG. 8  illustrates a single memory element  810  and a single processor  820  that are connected via a single bus. Those of skill in the art will appreciate that device  800  can have various configurations within the scope of the invention.  
      The memory element  810  is adapted to receive dependency information representative of dependencies between multiple business entities that form a multi-level business infrastructure. The memory element  810  is further adapted to receive additional information representative of at least one characteristic of at least two business entities that belong to the multi-level business infrastructure. Conveniently, the additional information includes intrinsic importance of multiple business entities. Conveniently, the additional information includes a first type of information representing a characteristic of high level business entities.  
      Processor  820  is adapted to calculate, in response to the received information, an importance of each of the multiple business entities; whereas an importance of a business entity can represent a product resulting from utilizing the business entity, a criticality of the business entity and the like.  
      Conveniently, processor  820  is adapted to utilize a probability based mathematical model of the multi-level business infrastructure. Conveniently, processor  820  is adapted to calculate an importance of intermediate level and low level business entities. Conveniently, processor  820  is adapted to convert a received first type of information to importance information of high level business entities.  
      Device  800  can be a part of the business infrastructure, can be located in proximate to the business infrastructure or be located in a remote location and not be included within the business infrastructure.  
      Variations, modifications, and other implementations of what is described herein will occur to those of ordinary skill in the art without departing from the spirit and the scope of the invention as claimed. Accordingly, the invention is to be defined not by the preceding illustrative description but instead by the spirit and scope of the following claims.