Automation and validation of insurance claims for infrastructure risks and failures in multi-processor computing environments

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10332212-B2
Application number	US-201615334762-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Oct 26, 2016
Priority date	Oct 26, 2016
Publication date	Jun 25, 2019
Grant date	Jun 25, 2019

Abstract

A method, computer program product, and system performing a method that includes a processor(s) obtaining a digital document defining insurance parameters for utilization by a user of a portion of computing resources selected from a group of computing resources comprising the shared computing environment. The processor(s) generates, based on the digital document, parameters defining the portion of the computing resources and risk management rules reflecting guaranteed thresholds for utilization and performance of the portion of the computing resources defined in the digital document. The processor(s) configures a controller in the shared computing environment, based on the parameters and the risk management rules and obtains a notification of a failure in the portion of the computing resources in violation of the risk management rules and details of the failure to determine the extent and impact of the failure. The processor(s) automatically generates a claim package and transmits it to the administrator.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A computer-implemented method, comprising:
obtaining, by one or more processors, from a computing resource of an administrator of a shared computing environment, a digital document defining parameters for utilization, by a user, of a portion of computing resources, selected from a group of computing resources comprising the shared computing environment, wherein the portion of the computing resources comprises physical infrastructure and software-defined infrastructure;
generating, by the one or more processors, based on the digital document, parameters defining the portion of the computing resources and risk management rules reflecting guaranteed thresholds for utilization and performance of the portion of the computing resources defined in the digital document, wherein the generating parameters and defining risk management rules further comprises:
defining, by the one or more processors, a scope of use for each computing resource of the portion of computing resources, based on the digital document, comprising:
determining, by the one or more processors, dependencies between each computing resource and each other computing resource of the portion of the computing resources;
defining, by the one or more processors, services executed by the user on the portion of the computing resources; and
mapping, by the one or more processors, each service of the services to at least one computing resource of the portion of computing resources;

implementing, by the one or more processors, the defined scopes in the parameters;
defining, by the one or more processors, for each computing resource of the portion of computing resources, a risk profile, wherein the risk profile automatically detects failures in the computing resource when implemented by the controller of the shared computing environment; and
implementing, by the one or more processors, the defined risk profiles in the risk management rules;

configuring, by the one or more processors, a controller in the shared computing environment, based on the parameters and the risk management rules to provide selective monitoring of the shared computing environment based on usage of the user of a portion of computing resources of the computing resources of the shared computing environment;
based on the configuring, monitoring, by the controller, operations from the portion of the computing resources by continuously collecting data from the portion of the computing resources;
determining, by the controller, that a failure defined by the risk management rules has occurred in the monitored portion of the computing resources;
obtaining, by the one or more processors, from the controller, a notification of a failure in the monitored portion of the computing resources in violation of the risk management rules, wherein the notification comprises data logs exclusively from the portion of the computing resources;
obtaining, by the one or more processors, from the controller, details of the failure comprising raw data collected by the controller;
determining, by the one or more processors, from the raw data and the dependencies between each computing resource and each other computing resource, an extent of the failure and an impact of the failure, wherein determining the extent of the failure comprises conducting a fault-tree analysis based on the dependencies between each computing resource and each other computing resource of the portion of the computing resources, wherein the fault-tree analysis identifies one or more resources in the portion of the computing resources impacted by the failure, and wherein the failure is selected from the group consisting of: a failed resource, a failed event, a result of periodic health audit performed in the shared computing environment, and a configuration change implemented in at least one resource of the portion of the computing resources;
automatically generating, by the one or more processors, based on the raw data and the determination, a claim package, wherein the claim package comprises the extent of the failure the portion of the computing resources;
automatically transmitting, by the one or more processors, the claim package, to the computing resource of the administrator; and
concurrently with the transmitting, recovering, by the one or more processors, the one or more resources in the portion impacted by the failure.

2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , wherein determining the extent of the failure and the impact of the failure comprises:
identifying, by the one or more processors, based on analyzing the dependencies, which computing resources of the portion of computing resources were affected by the failure; and
based on identifying the computing resources affected by the failure, determining which services were affected by the failure.

3. The computer-implemented method of claim 2 , wherein determining an extent of the failure and the impact of the failure further comprises applying at risk management rules selected from the group consisting of: threshold rules for the monitoring data to raise events based on a failure, and event-correlation rules utilizing the dependencies to assist in determining a root-cause of the failures.

4. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , wherein the data collected by the controller is selected from a group consisting of: configuration audits performed on the portion of the computing resources, health events from the portion of the computing resources, and configuration changes made to the portion of the computing resources.

5. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , wherein the obtaining the notification of the failure further comprises:
receiving, from the controller, data from logs of the portion of the computing resources.

6. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , wherein the portion of the computing resources comprises physical infrastructure and software-defined infrastructure.

7. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , further comprising:
analyzing, by the one or more processors, the raw data collected by the controller; and
determining, by the one or more processors, based on the raw data and the dependencies between each computing resource and each other computing resource, a root cause of the failure.

8. The computer-implemented method of claim 7 , further comprising:
automatically generating, by the one or more processors, a report detailing the root cause; and
transmitting, by the one or more processors, the report to the administrator.

9. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , wherein the shared computing environment comprises a cloud computing environment.

10. A computer program product comprising:
a computer readable storage medium readable by one or more processors and storing instructions for execution by the one or more processors for performing a method comprising:
obtaining, by the one or more processors, from a computing resource of an administrator of a shared computing environment, a digital document defining parameters for utilization, by a user, of a portion of computing resources, selected from a group of computing resources comprising the shared computing environment, wherein the portion of the computing resources comprises physical infrastructure and software-defined infrastructure;
generating, by the one or more processors, based on the digital document, parameters defining the portion of the computing resources and risk management rules reflecting guaranteed thresholds for utilization and performance of the portion of the computing resources defined in the digital document, wherein the generating parameters and defining risk management rules further comprises:
defining, by the one or mor

Assignees

• IBM

Inventors

• Jhoney Albee
• Krishna Hariharan
• Mani Anbazhagan
• Ramakrishnan Umasuthan

Classifications

• G06F2201/81

  Threshold · CPC title

• G06F11/0751

  Error or fault detection not based on redundancy (power supply failures G06F1/30; network fault management H04L41/06) · CPC title

• G06Q40/08 Primary

  Insurance · CPC title

• G06F2201/86

  Event-based monitoring · CPC title

• G06F11/0709

  in a distributed system consisting of a plurality of standalone computer nodes, e.g. clusters, client-server systems · CPC title