Patent ID: 6859893

Claim:
A method for troubleshooting a computer system, comprising: receiving, at a location remote to the computer system, a request for problem analysis for the computer system in response to an occurrence of a problem; receiving data corresponding to the computer system comprising a core file from the computer system and supplemental configuration information; accessing a knowledge store storing phases, wherein each phase includes a set of scripts adapted to identify previously identified computer problems; performing a phased analysis of the computer system data comprising completing at least two of the phases from the knowledge store; and generating an output report including a list of the computer problems identified during the performing; wherein each of the phases includes an optimization mechanism operable such that the phases executed in the performing is less than the set of the phases, wherein the optimization mechanism functions to check a list of static preconditions and to compare the static preconditions to the received computer system data; and wherein the static preconditions include variables selected from the group consisting of operating system identifications, operating system releases, software packages, software packages releases, system architectures, platforms, catch levels, and panic strings.