Patent Document ID: 5539877
Application ID: 08266073
Patent Flag: 1

Claim One:
1. A limited multi-fault method of managing error events in a local area network (LAN) having one or more LAN servers, a plurality of LAN requesters, a LAN EXPERT server and a plurality of LAN EXPERT agents, the LAN EXPERT server being connected to said LAN and including an inference engine, a knowledge base containing relationships between possible causes and error messages, and a user interface for reporting problems and interacting with a user, the LAN EXPERT agents being installed on LAN servers and LAN requesters to monitor a status of the LAN servers and LAN requesters, said method comprising the steps of: receiving by the LAN EXPERT agents error messages issued by said LAN servers and LAN requesters on which they are installed and sending the error messages to the LAN EXPERT server; receiving by the LAN EXPERT server error messages sent by all LAN EXPERT agents, a received error message being an event to be diagnosed by the inference engine of the LAN EXPERT server; forming by the inference engine of the LAN EXPERT server an event cluster for a received error message, wherein a cluster is a data structure that holds partial diagnostic results containing correlated events and possible causes and wherein both events and causes have associated variables; accessing by the inference engine the knowledge base of the LAN EXPERT server to retrieve all related causes for an event corresponding to a received error message as defined in the knowledge base, wherein variables in causes can be instantiated by the event; comparing by the inference engine of the LAN EXPERT server subsequent error messages with each cluster to determine whether subsequent events should join a cluster or not; joining by the inference engine of the LAN EXPERT server a subsequent event to a cluster if a mathematical intersection of causes of the subsequent event and causes of the cluster is not empty, otherwise, forming by the inference engine a new event cluster for the subsequent event, whereby as more and more events are joined in a cluster by the inference engine, a number of causes decreases and variables are instantiated so that when a cluster contains only one fully instantiated cause, a diagnostic conclusion is reached; and reporting by the user interface of the LAN EXPERT server diagnostic information generated by the inference engine.