Deputizing agents to reduce a volume of event logs sent to a coordinator

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9923856-B2
Application number	US-201615018059-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Feb 8, 2016
Priority date	Feb 8, 2016
Publication date	Mar 20, 2018
Grant date	Mar 20, 2018

Abstract

Systems and techniques to deputize agents in a system to reduce a number of event logs received by a coordinator are described. An agent belonging to a group of agents may receive a request to select a deputized agent. The agent may determine data associated with a component hosting the agent and send the data to a selection agent. The agent may receive a message from the selection agent indicating that the agent is to be the deputized agent. The deputized agent may receive one or more event logs from other agents in the group, determine that at least one event log has a high priority, and send the at least one event log to the coordinator. The deputized agent may store the one or more event logs in a storage device accessible to the hardware component.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A computer-implemented method, comprising:
receiving, by an agent, a request to select a deputized agent in a group of agents;
determining data associated with a hardware component that is hosting the agent;
sending the data to a selection agent in the group;
receiving a message from the selection agent indicating that the agent has been deputized;
transitioning from a normal mode of operation to a deputized mode of operation;
receiving one or more event logs from other agents in the group;
determining that at least one event log of the one or more event logs has a high priority;
sending the at least one event log having the high priority to the coordinator; and
storing the one or more event logs in a storage device accessible to the hardware component.

2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , wherein determining the data associated with the hardware component that is hosting the agent comprises:
determining a processing power of the hardware component in terms of millions of instructions per second (MIPS); and
determining a storage capacity of the storage device that is accessible to the hardware component.

3. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , wherein determining the data associated with the hardware component that is hosting the agent comprises:
determining an average inter-group communications latency of a first plurality of messages received by the agent from the other agents in the group; and
determining an average ping message latency associated with a second plurality of messages between the agent and the coordinator.

4. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , further comprising:
receiving, by the agent, a group information message from the coordinator indicating that the agent belongs to a group and identifying the other agents in the group.

5. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , further comprising:
monitoring, by the agent, a hardware component in a computing system;
determining, by the agent, that an event associated with the hardware component occurred; and
generating, by the agent, an event log based on the event.

6. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , further comprising:
determining statistics associated with the one or more event logs stored in the storage device, the statistics including a number of event logs stored in the storage device; and
sending the statistics to the coordinator.

7. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , further comprising:
receiving a resume message from the coordinator;
transitioning from the deputized mode of operation to the normal mode of operation;
sending the one or more event logs stored in the storage device to the coordinator; and
sending a newly generated event log to the coordinator.

8. One or more non-transitory computer-readable media storing instructions that are executable by one or more processors to perform operations comprising:
receiving, by an agent, a request to select a deputized agent in a group of agents;
determining data associated with a hardware component that is hosting the agent;
sending the data to a selection agent in the group;
receiving a message from the selection agent indicating that the agent has been deputized;
transitioning from a normal mode of operation to a deputized mode of operation;
receiving one or more event logs from other agents in the group;
determining that at least one event log of the one or more event logs has a high priority;
sending the at least one event log having the high priority to the coordinator; and
storing the one or more event logs in a storage device accessible to the hardware component.

9. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable media of claim 8 , wherein determining the data associated with the hardware component that is hosting the agent comprises:
determining a processing power of the hardware component in terms of millions of instructions per second (MIPS); and
determining a storage capacity of the storage device that is accessible to the hardware component.

10. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable media of claim 8 , wherein determining the data associated with the hardware component that is hosting the agent comprises:
determining an average inter-group communications latency of a first plurality of messages received by the agent from the other agents in the group; and
determining an average ping message latency associated with a second plurality of messages between the agent and the coordinator.

11. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable media of claim 8 , the operations further comprising:
receiving, by the agent, a group information message from the coordinator indicating that the agent belongs to a group and identifying the other agents in the group.

12. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable media of claim 8 , the operations further comprising:
determining statistics associated with the one or more event logs stored in the storage device, the statistics including a number of event logs stored in the storage device; and
sending the statistics to the coordinator.

13. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable media of claim 8 , further comprising:
receiving a resume message from the coordinator;
transitioning from the deputized mode of operation to the normal mode of operation;
sending the one or more event logs stored in the storage device to the coordinator; and
sending a newly generated event log to the coordinator.

14. A server comprising:
one or more processors; and
one or more non-transitory computer-readable media storing instructions that are executable by the one or more processors to:
receiving, by an agent executing on the server, a request to select a deputized agent in a group of agents;
determining data associated with the server;
sending the data to a selection agent in the group;
receiving a message from the selection agent indicating that the agent has been deputized;
transitioning from a normal mode of operation to a deputized mode of operation;
receiving one or more event logs from other agents in the group;
determining that at least one event log of the one or more event logs has a high priority;
sending the at least one event log having the high priority to the coordinator; and
storing the one or more event logs in a storage device accessible to the server.

15. The server of claim 14 , wherein determining the data associated with the server comprises:
determining a processing power of the server in terms of a clock speed and a number of cores; and
determining a storage capacity of the storage device that is accessible to the server.

16. The server of claim 14 , wherein determining the data associated with the server comprises:
determining an average inter-group communications latency of a first plurality of messages received by the agent from the other agents in the group; and
determining an average ping message latency associated with a second plurality of messages between the agent and the coordinator.

17. The server of claim 14 , the operations further comprising:
receiving, by the agent, a group information message from the coordinator indicating that the agent belongs to a group and identifying the other agents in the group.

18. The server of claim 14 , the operations further comprising:
determining statistics associated with the one or more event logs stored in the storage device, the statistics including a number of event logs stored in the storage device; and
sending the statistics to the coord

Assignees

• Quest Software Inc

Inventors

• Seigel Jake
• Jury Derek Alfred

Classifications

• H04L41/06

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

• H04L41/0609

  based on severity or priority · CPC title

• H04L41/0604

  using filtering, e.g. reduction of information by using priority, element types, position or time · CPC title

• H04L51/26 Primary

  Electricity · mapped topic

• H04L67/1097 Primary

  for distributed storage of data in networks, e.g. transport arrangements for network file system [NFS], storage area networks [SAN] or network attached storage [NAS] · CPC title