System and method for event processing order guarantee

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10659289-B2
Application number	US-201815933115-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Mar 22, 2018
Priority date	Mar 22, 2018
Publication date	May 19, 2020
Grant date	May 19, 2020

Abstract

The present approach relates to the use of a unique key for event messages related to the same event and by employing a publication/subscription framework so that like-keyed event messages are only processed by a subscribing server. The message key may be a numeric value (e.g., from 0-99) calculated or generated based on designated event fields so that similar message keys will have the same message key number. The message key may be used to populate an event bucket field and may also be used as the topic of an event message, allowing a subscribing server to subscribe to this message key and receive and process the related event messages in order of arrival. In this manner, there is no distribution of the event messages having the same message key between parallel processing servers.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A method for processing event alerts in a networked computer architecture, the method comprising:
at an event management listener, generating a message key and event indication in response to a condition on a resource monitored by the event management listener;
assigning a first management, instrumentation, and discovery (MID) server of a plurality of MID servers as a publishing MID server and a second MID server of the plurality of MID servers as a subscribed MID server;
assigning the message key to the subscribed MID server to receive each event indication associated with the message key;
at the publishing MID server, receiving the message key and the event indication and publishing the event indication and message key to a message bus;
at the subscribed MID server, processing the event indication, wherein the subscribed MID server is subscribed to the message key so that other MID servers of the plurality of MID servers do not receive the event indication associated with the message key, and wherein processing the event indication comprises generating an alert based on a set of event rules; and
providing the alert to an instance in communication with the subscribed MID server.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the message key is generated as a numeric value determined by fields characterizing the event indication such that subsequent related event indications have the same message key.

3. The method of claim 2 , wherein the subsequent related event indications having the same message key are processed in order by the subscribed MID server based on having the same message key.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the event indication is provided to the instance in addition to the alert.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the event indication is a notification that indicates a log message, warning, or error has occurred.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the message key is used to populate an event bucket field associated with publishing the event indication.

7. The method of claim 6 , wherein the event bucket field is part of a topic header of the publishing the event indication.

8. The method of claim 1 , wherein event management listener generates the event indication based on metric data pulled from monitored resources.

9. The method of claim 1 , wherein the message key is generated based on resource parameters comprising one or more of source, type, node, resource, or metric name field.

10. The method of claim 1 , further comprising a load balancer that determines which MID server of the plurality of MID servers receives the message key and the event indication to publish.

11. A data center comprising:
a plurality of shared memory devices configured to store instructions; and
a plurality of processors configured to execute the instructions, wherein the instructions cause the plurality of processors to implement an event management listener, a load balancer, and a plurality of management, instrumentation, and discovery (MID) servers, wherein:
the event management listener is configured to generate a message key and event indication in response to a condition on a resource monitored by the event management listener;
the load balancer is configured to:
assign a first MID server of the plurality of MID servers as publishing MID server and a second MID server of the plurality of MID servers as a subscribed MID server; and
assign the message key to the subscribed MID server to receive each event indication associated with the message key; and

the plurality of MID servers comprising:
the publishing MID server, wherein the publishing MID server receives the message key and the event indication and publish the event indication and message key to a message bus; and
the subscribed MID server, wherein the subscribed MID server process the event indication, wherein the subscribed MID server is subscribed to the message key so that other MID servers of the plurality of MID servers do not receive the event indication associated with the message key, and wherein processing the event indication comprises generating an alert based on a set of event rules.

12. The data center of claim 11 , wherein the subscribed MID server is further configured to provide the alert to an instance in communication with the subscribed MID server.

13. The data center of claim 11 , wherein the message key is generated as a numeric value determined by fields characterizing the event indication such that subsequent related event indications have the same message key.

14. The data center of claim 13 , wherein the subsequent related events having the same message key are processed in order by the subscribed server based on having the same message key.

15. The data center of claim 11 , wherein the event indication is provided to an instance in addition to the alert.

16. The data center of claim 11 , wherein event management listener generates the event indication based on metric data pulled from monitored resources.

17. The data center of claim 11 , wherein the load balancer determines which MID server receives of the plurality of MID servers the message key and the event indication to publish.

18. A method for processing event data, comprising:
receiving monitored data from one or more connected resources at an event management listener, wherein the monitored data comprises one or more parameter fields;
in response to monitored data constituting an event, generating a message key for the event based on the one or more parameter fields such that the same message key is generated for subsequent monitored data related to the event;
assigning a first management, instrumentation, and discovery (MID) server of a plurality of MID servers as a publishing MID server and a second MID server of the plurality of MID servers as a subscribed MID server;
assigning the message key to the subscribed MID server to receive each event associated with the message key;
transmitting the event and message key to the publishing MID server in communication with the event management listener to be subsequently processed by the subscribed MID server.

19. The method of claim 18 , wherein the monitored data comprises metric data related to an operation of the one or more connected resources.

20. The method of claim 18 , wherein the message key is generated as a numeric value determined by fields characterizing an event indication for the event such that subsequent related event indications have the same message key.

Assignees

• Servicenow Inc

Inventors

• Shif Vadim
• Gati Ofer
• Miron Dov

Classifications

• H04L43/0817

  by checking functioning · CPC title

• H04L41/06 Primary

  Management of faults, events, alarms or notifications · CPC title

• H04L41/0631 Primary

  using root cause analysis; using analysis of correlation between notifications, alarms or events based on decision criteria, e.g. hierarchy, tree or time analysis · CPC title

• H04L41/0622

  based on time · CPC title

• H04L43/065

  related to network devices · CPC title