Patent ID: 7107339

Claim:
A method comprising: receiving a plurality of component metrics, each component metric corresponding to a component of a plurality of components of an information technology (IT) infrastructure of an enterprise, and each component of the plurality of components being associated with one or more gross-level rules; generating an indicator set representative of a current state of the IT infrastructure by comparing each received component metric to relevant historical values of the component metric; using the indicator set to diagnose an existing condition or predict a future condition within the IT infrastructure; determining that a gross-level rule is out of compliance; comparing the indicator set to one or more historical indicator sets to determine whether the indicator set resembles any of the one or more historical indicator sets; performing an appropriate action based on the result of the comparison; and wherein, if the indicator set resembles at least one of historical indicator set, performing the appropriate action comprises inferring a problem associated with the at least one historical indicator set.