Patent ID: 8812542

Claim:
A method for determining alert relationships in a distributed system, comprising: receiving an alert for the distributed system; determining whether alert relationship information is requested in a query concerning the received alert; determining a beginning of an alert relationship path for traversal based on the received alert and responsive to the query, wherein the beginning of the alert relationship path is determined by using alert attribute information of the received alert that identifies an immediate preceding or subsequent alert relationship of the received alert; traversing the alert relationship path to obtain alert relationship information responsive to the query, wherein the traversing of the alert relationship path is performed on-the-fly, wherein the on-the-fly traversing of the alert relationship path is performed without using a stored hierarchical relationship structure of alerts, and includes determining, for each alert reached in the alert relationship path, immediate preceding or subsequent alert relationships maintained as alert attribute information for each alert in order to continue the on-the-fly traversing; and displaying the alert relationship information responsive to the query.