Processing main cause errors and sympathetic errors in devices in a system

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9361174-B2
Application number	US-201514621321-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Feb 12, 2015
Priority date	Oct 17, 2012
Publication date	Jun 7, 2016
Grant date	Jun 7, 2016

Abstract

Provided are a computer program product, system, and method for processing main cause errors and sympathetic errors in devices in a system. Error data for the devices in the system are analyzed to determine a main cause error for one of the devices that cause at least one sympathetic error in the system. A main cause event object for the determined main cause error and at least one sympathetic event object for the determined at least one sympathetic error resulting from the main cause error are generated. A determination is made from the at least one sympathetic event object of at least one sympathetic event action to perform. The determined at least one sympathetic event action is performed to recover from the at least one sympathetic error represented by the at least one sympathetic event object providing the at least one sympathetic event action.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A computer program product for handling errors in a system having devices, the computer program product comprising a non-transitory computer readable storage medium having computer readable program code embodied therein that executes to cause operations, the operations comprising:
analyzing error data for the devices in the system to determine a main cause error for one of the devices that causes at least one sympathetic error in the system;
generating a main cause event object for the main cause error including an active function pointer invoked to determine whether the main cause error is active;
generating at least one sympathetic event object for at least one sympathetic error resulting from the main cause error, wherein the at least one sympathetic event object indicates at least one sympathetic event action to perform for the sympathetic error represented by the sympathetic event object;
executing the active function pointer to check state information in the system or at least one of the devices in the system to determine whether the main cause error is active; and
in response to determining that the main cause error is active, performing:
determining, from the at least one sympathetic event object, the at least one sympathetic event action to perform for the at least one sympathetic error; and
performing the determined at least one sympathetic event action to recover from the at least one sympathetic error represented by the at least one sympathetic event object providing the at least one sympathetic event action, wherein the main cause and sympathetic event objects are generated for the main cause error at the device in order to perform recovery operations to address the main cause error.

2. The computer program product of claim 1 , wherein the operations further comprise:
indicating the main cause error as active in persistent information in the system; and
generating sympathetic event objects for sympathetic errors resulting from the main cause error indicated in the persistent information as active.

3. The computer program product of claim 1 , wherein the operations further comprise:
indicating the main cause event object as inactive in response to determining that system and device state information indicates that the main cause error represented by the main cause event object is not present.

4. The computer program product of claim 1 , wherein the main cause event object indicates at least one sympathetic event object for at least one sympathetic error at the device causing the main cause error.

5. The computer program product of claim 4 , wherein the main cause event object indicates at least one sympathetic event object for at least one sympathetic error for at least one device that does not cause the main cause error.

6. The computer program product of claim 4 , wherein at least one device that does not cause the main cause error having the at least one sympathetic error comprises at least one of a redundant partner device providing redundancy for the device having the main cause error and a device comprising a child device to the device having the main cause error.

7. The computer program product of claim 1 , wherein the at least one sympathetic event action comprises either a cancel of the at least one sympathetic event object or performing operations in the system to recover from the at least one sympathetic error represented by the at least one sympathetic event object.

8. The computer program product of claim 7 , wherein the operations performed in the system for the at least one sympathetic event action comprises at least one of setting system flags, resetting system flags, and calling a sympathetic event handler function.

9. A system having devices, comprising:
a processor; and
a computer readable storage medium having code executed by the processor to perform operations, the operations comprising:
analyzing error data for the devices in the system to determine a main cause error for one of the devices that causes at least one sympathetic error in the system;
generating a main cause event object for the determined main cause error including an active function pointer invoked to determine whether the main cause error is active;
generating at least one sympathetic event object for the at least one sympathetic error resulting from the main cause error, wherein the at least one sympathetic event object indicates at least one sympathetic event action to perform for the sympathetic error represented by the sympathetic event object;
executing the active function pointer to check state information in the system or at least one of the devices in the system to determine whether the main cause error is active; and
in response to determining that the main cause error is active, performing:
determining from the at least one sympathetic event object the at least one sympathetic event action to perform for the at least one sympathetic error; and
performing the determined at least one sympathetic event action to recover from the at least one sympathetic error represented by the at least one sympathetic event object providing the at least one sympathetic event action, wherein the main cause event object and the at least one sympathetic event objects are generated for the main cause error at the device in order to perform recovery operations to address the main cause error.

10. The system of claim 9 , wherein the operations further comprise:
indicating the main cause error as active in persistent information in the system; and
generating sympathetic event objects for sympathetic errors resulting from the main cause error indicated in the persistent information as active.

11. The system of claim 9 , wherein the main cause event object indicates at least one sympathetic event object for at least one sympathetic error at the device causing the main cause error.

12. The system of claim 11 , wherein the main cause event object indicates at least one sympathetic event object for at least one sympathetic error for at least one device that does not cause the main cause error.

13. The system of claim 9 , wherein the at least one sympathetic event action comprises either a cancel of the at least one sympathetic event object or performing operations in the system to recover from the at least one sympathetic error represented by the sympathetic event object.

14. The system of claim 13 , wherein the operations performed in the system for the at least one sympathetic event action comprises at least one of setting system flags, resetting system flags, and calling a sympathetic event handler function.

15. A method, comprising:
analyzing error data for devices in a system to determine a main cause error for one of the devices that causes at least one sympathetic error in the system;
generating a main cause event object for the main cause error including an active function pointer invoked to determine whether the main cause error is active;
generating at least one sympathetic event object for the at least one sympathetic error resulting from the main cause error, wherein the at least one sympathetic event object indicates at least one sympathetic event action to perform for the sympathetic error represented by the sympathetic event object;
executing the active function pointer to check state information in the system or at least one of the devices in the system to determine whether the main cause error is active; and
in response to determining that the main cause error is active, performing:
determining from the at least one sympathetic event object the at least one sympathetic e

Assignees

• IBM

Inventors

• Padilla Ricardo S
• Sorenson Todd C
• Valverde David V
• He Wang Ping

Classifications

• G06F11/0706

  the processing taking place on a specific hardware platform or in a specific software environment · CPC title

• G06F11/079 Primary

  Root cause analysis, i.e. error or fault diagnosis (in a hardware test environment G06F11/22; in a software test environment G06F11/36) · CPC title

• G06F11/16

  Error detection or correction of the data by redundancy in hardware · CPC title

• G06F11/0793 Primary

  Remedial or corrective actions (recovery from an exception in an instruction pipeline G06F9/3861; by retry G06F11/1402; for recovering from a failure of a protocol instance or entity H04L69/40) · CPC title