Patent ID: 7631058

Claim:
A computer-based method for use in accordance with an event management system, the method comprising the steps of: automatically generating one or more event relationship networks from event data, wherein an event relationship network comprises a graphical representation wherein nodes represent events and links connect correlated nodes; and utilizing the one or more generated event relationship networks to construct one or more correlation rules for use by a correlation engine in the event management system; wherein, when one or more previously generated event relationship networks are available, the step of automatically generating one or more event relationship networks comprises: obtaining one or more previously generated event relationship networks: validating the one or more previously generated event relationship networks by removing any nodes or links included therein that are incorrect for a particular application context; completing the one or more previously generated event relationship networks by adding any nodes or links thereto that are missing for the particular application context; outputting the one or more validated and completed event relationship networks as the one or more event relationship networks used to construct the one or more correlation rules; further wherein the validating step. for a particular event relationship network, comprises: splitting the event relationship network into correlation paths; for every correlation path, removing a node that has the least number of correlated nodes associated therewith until every node is fully correlated with every other node; and merging correlation paths into one or more event relationship networks such that every path in a resulting event relationship network has every node fully correlated with every other node in the path.