Method and apparatus for cause analysis involving configuration changes

摘要

A technique determines which configuration change(s) caused an application invocation failure of a computer application without the need for a knowledge database. To determine which configuration change is the most likely cause, the cause analysis program checks other computers that have experienced the same configuration changes. The cause analysis program checks and counts the application invocation results before and after each configuration change is done. If the same configuration changes are found in the other computers, the program checks whether each configuration change caused or cured the same problem in that computer. The program counts the similar cases for all of the computers. Subsequently, the program calculates the ratio of those instances involving a change from success to failure and the ratio of those instances involving a change from failure to success out of all instances for each configuration change.

主权项

1. A system comprising:
at least one first computer; a second computer; and an analysis computer coupled to the at least one first computer and the second computer, wherein the analysis computer is configured to: (A) store configuration change history indicating configuration changes of the at least one first computer; (B) store event log information indicating events related to a first object included in the at least one first computer; (C) identify a certain configuration change of the second computer and events related to the first object in the second computer; and (D) perform at least one of (1) causal configuration change analysis or (2) fixing configuration change analysis as follows: (1) as the causal configuration change analysis, calculate a rate of occurrence of a certain problem related to the first object regarding the certain configuration change, based on: (1-1) at least one configuration change of the at least one first computer, which at least has a same configuration item as the certain configuration change, and (1-2) at least one occurrence of the certain problem in the at least one first computer, after occurrence of the at least one configuration change of the at least one first computer; wherein the rate of the occurrence of the certain problem is calculated based on a ratio of a number of computers in which the certain problem occurs after the configuration change to a total number of computers related to the certain configuration change; (2) as the fixing configuration change analysis, calculate a rate of fixing the certain problem regarding the certain configuration change, based on: (2-1) at least one configuration change of the at least one first computer, which at least has a same configuration item as the certain configuration change, and (2-2) at least one event which is related to the first object included in the at least one first computer and indicates other than the certain problem, after occurrence of the at least one configuration change of the at least one first computer, wherein the rate of fixing the certain problem is calculated based on a ratio of a number of computers in which the at least one event, indicating other than the certain problem, occurs after the certain configuration change to a total number of computers related to the certain configuration change; and (E) display the rate of occurrence of the certain problem or the rate of fixing the certain problem regarding the certain configuration change.