Patent ID: 8171130

Claim:
A method for diagnosing a problem associated with a computing system, the method comprising the steps of: executing one or more probes in accordance with at least a portion of a previously selected probe schedule to detect one or more potential problems in the computing system; when a result of one or more of the probes of the previously selected probe schedule indicates, at least, a potential problem associated with the computing system, selecting in real-time one or more probes which optimize at least one criterion; executing the one or more selected probes so as to diagnose the potential problem; analyzing results of the execution of the one or more selected probes using a probabilistic inference; and repeating the step of selecting in real-time one or more probes which optimize at least one criterion and the step of analyzing results of the execution of the one or more selected probes until a particular level of diagnostic confidence is reached, wherein selecting in real-time one or more probes which optimize at least one criterion comprises selecting in real-time one or more probes which maximize information gain relating to the potential problem, and wherein one or more of the steps of executing and selecting are implemented by a computer.