Patent ID: 7500144

Claim:
A method of resolving problems in a business process, the method comprising: generating a symptom that identifies a problem in the business process, which process includes a plurality of application programs that run on an Information Technology (IT) infrastructure having a plurality of IT components; identifying one or more of: (a) selected application programs in the plurality of application programs and (b) selected IT components in the IT infrastructure that may cause the problem in the business process, based on the symptom; obtaining a respective situation for one or more of (a) respective selected application programs and (b) selected IT components, the respective situation being one of a set of component-independent predefined situation categories that is associated with the respective selected application programs and/or selected IT components, so as to provide status of the selected application programs and/or selected IT components in a common situation format that includes the associated one of the component-independent predefined situation categories; analyzing the respective situations that are obtained to identify at least one problem in the one or more of selected application programs and selected IT components that may cause the problem in the business process; and identifying at least one business impact in the business process that may be caused by the at least one problem in the selected application programs and/or selected IT components.