Patent ID: 7464294

Claim:
A method of monitoring a data processing system comprising: providing at least one performance indicator of the system; detecting a critical condition of the system according to the at least one performance indicator; selecting a corrective action for the critical condition, the corrective action having a corresponding action effectiveness parameter; authorising the execution of the corrective action if the corresponding action effectiveness parameter satisfies predetermined threshold criteria; verifying the effectiveness of the execution of the corrective action on the critical condition, and updating the corresponding action effectiveness parameter according to the effectiveness of the corrective action, wherein the critical condition is defined by a severity indicator, and wherein the verifying comprises: for each at least one performance indicator, logging a plurality of detected severity indicators; and estimating the action effectiveness with a function depending on a set of the plurality of detected severity indicators, wherein the estimating comprises using the function: AE = 1 2 ⁡ [ I ⁡ ( t 1 ) - I ⁡ ( t 2 ) + 1 ] where AE is the action effectiveness and I(t n ) is the severity indicator at time n.