Patent ID: 7028221

Claim:
A method of creating and then utilizing one or more analyzers that can identify issues arising in the nodes of an enterprise having data collectors comprising the steps of: for each analyzer that is to be created, creating analyzer computer executable code that directs a computer to accept input data, to perform computations on the input data to detect the presence of one or more issues, and to output identifiers of any of the issues which are found to be present, creating one or more machine-readable issue templates separate from the analyzer code and not computer executable corresponding to each of the one or more issue identifiers and each defining an issue report corresponding to an issue, and creating a machine-readable descriptor of the analyzer separate from the analyzer code and not computer executable identifying the collector types whose output the analyzer code is intended to cause the computer to accept as input data; collecting the created elements of each analyzer into an analyzer database; and using a computer having access to the analyzer database and also to collector data gathered or obtainable from one or more nodes, for each of the nodes and for each of one or more of the analyzers, operating the computer under the control of the analyzer such that the analyzer's descriptor and its specification of collector types guides the computer in the automatic selection of input data from the node's collector data, the computer executes the analyzer's computer executable code against this selected input data, and if such execution outputs issue identifiers, the issue templates corresponding to the issue types outputted guide the computer in the automatic generation of issue reports.