Patent ID: 7949739

Claim:
A computer implemented method for determining causality mapping between causing events and detectable events among a plurality of nodes in a distributed system comprising physical devices, the method comprising the steps of: automatically generating, in one or more computers, a causality mapping model, the mapping model mapping the dependences between causing events at the nodes and detectable events associated with a subset of the nodes, the model suitable for representing the execution of at least one system operation; wherein each causing event of the causing events corresponds to a cause of a problem in the distributed system; wherein each detectible event of the detectible events corresponds to a symptom of at least one problem in the distributed system; and wherein the mapping model may be used in determining at least one causing event contributing to the cause of the detected event; wherein the step of generating the model comprises the steps of: selecting nodes associated with each of the detectable events from the subset of the nodes; indicating the dependency between a causing event and at least one detectable event for each causing event at a node when the causing event node divides the system into a plurality of disjoint partitions and at least one of the nodes associated with a selected detectable event is contained in one of the disjoint partitions and at least one other of the nodes associated with the selected detectable event is contained in another one of the disjoint partitions.