Patent ID: 8024617

Claim:
A method of cause analysis for a target computer of a plurality of computers, the target computer having experienced an application invocation failure of a computer application at a first failure time and an application invocation success of the computer application at a first success time prior to the first failure time, without any other application invocation success and without any other application invocation failure of the computer application in a first time period between the first success time and the first failure time, the method comprising: (1) identifying one or more first configuration changes that occurred during the first time period of the computer application; and (2) performing at least one of causal configuration change analysis (A) or fixing configuration change analysis (B): (A) for every other computer of the plurality of computers other than the target computer, identifying other application invocation failure instances in which said every other computer has experienced an application invocation success of the same computer application at a second success time and an application invocation failure of the same computer application at a second failure time after the second success time, without any other application invocation success and without any other application invocation failure of the same computer application in a second time period between the second success time and the second failure time, and identifying one or more second configuration changes that occurred during the second time period, and obtaining a total causal configuration change count for each of the one or more second configuration changes by summing a total number of configuration changes for all of the plurality of computers other than the target computer; and (B) for every other computer of the plurality of computers other than the target computer, identifying application invocation success instances in which said every other computer has experienced an application invocation failure of the same computer application at a third failure time and an application invocation success of the same computer application at a third success time after the third failure time, without any other application invocation success and without any other application invocation failure of the same computer application in a third time period between the third failure time and the third success time, and identifying one or more third configuration changes that occurred during the third time period, and obtaining a total fixing configuration change count for each of the one or more third configuration changes by summing a total number of configuration changes for all of the plurality of computers other than the target computer.