US 2011/0239055 A1Published application

Validating configuration of distributed applications

AssigneeMicrosoft Corporation

InventorsSata Busayarat, Vladimir Pogrebinsky

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Abstract

The present invention extends to methods, systems, and computer program products for validation configuration of distributed applications. Embodiments of the invention provide a system framework for identifying root causes of configuration errors and best-practice incompliance of distributed applications. The system framework provides both platform provider and customer a powerful and consistent method to create, extend, and utilize a tool that simplifies the configuration troubleshooting experience. Using the system framework, a user is able to access more information about applications and to troubleshoot multiple applications at the same time without having to load or activate any of the applications. In addition, users are able to add custom rules to identify commonly occurring configuration problems.

Claims20

Dependent claims

At a computer system including one or more processors and system memory, the computer system also including a one or more configuration readers, and a rule store, the rule store containing a plurality of configuration validation rules, each of the one or more configuration readers configured to read configuration data for one or more configuration validation rules from among the plurality of configuration validation rules, the rule engine configured to apply configuration validation rules against configuration data, a method for attempting to validate the configuration of an application, the method comprising:

an act of accessing a configuration validation rule from the rule store, the configuration validation rule configured to execute against configuration data to validate an at least partial configuration of the application, the configuration validation rule containing rule metadata, detection logic, and resolution logic, the rule metadata identifying at least one configuration reader, from among the one or configuration readers, the configuration validation rule is to read configuration data from, the detection logic indicating how to detect one or more conditions in configuration data accessed from the identified configuration reader, the resolution logic representing one or more possible resolutions to the one or more detectable conditions;
an act of matching the accessed configuration validation rule to the at least one identified configuration reader based on the at least one configuration reader being identified in the rule metadata;
an act of accessing a portion of configuration data from the at least one identified configuration reader;
an act of attempting to validate the at least partial configuration of the application by executing the detection logic against the accessed portion of configuration data, execution of the detection logic including attempting to detect any of the one or more conditions the detection logic;
an act of detecting a condition, from among the one or more conditions, in the accessed portion of configuration data;
and
an act of presenting at least the detected condition at a user interface.

4 more elements

A computer program product for use at a computer system, the computer system including a one or more configuration readers, and a rule store, the rule store containing a plurality of configuration validation rules, each of the one or more configuration readers configured to read configuration data for one or more configuration validation rules from among the plurality of configuration validation rules, the rule engine configured to apply configuration validation rules against configuration data, the computer program product for implementing a method for attempting to validate the configuration of an application, the computer program product comprising one or more computer storage media having stored thereon computer executable instructions that, when executed at a processor, cause the computer system to perform the method, including the following:

access a configuration validation rule from the rule store, the configuration validation rule configured to execute against configuration data to validate an at least partial configuration of the application, the configuration validation rule containing rule metadata, detection logic, and resolution logic, the rule metadata identifying at least one configuration reader, from among the one or more configuration readers, the configuration validation rule is to read configuration data from, the detection logic indicating how to detect one or more conditions in configuration data accessed from the identified configuration reader, the resolution logic representing one or more possible resolutions to the one or more detectable conditions;
match the accessed configuration validation rule to the at least one identified configuration reader based on the at least one configuration reader being identified in the rule metadata;
access a portion of configuration data from the at least one identified configuration reader;
and
attempt to validate the at least partial configuration of the application by executing the detection logic against the accessed portion of configuration data, execution of the detection logic including attempting to detect any of the one or more conditions the detection logic;
detect a condition, from among the one or more conditions, in the accessed portion of configuration data;
and
present the detected condition along with one or more possible resolutions for the detected condition.

5 more elements

A system for validating the configuration of distributed applications, the system comprising:

one or more processors;
system memory;
a rule store, the rule store storing one or more configuration validation rules for validating the configuration of distributed applications;
a results cache for storing the results from executing configuration validation rules;
one or more computer storage media having stored thereon computer-executable instructions representing a plurality of configuration readers, a rule engine, and a user interface, wherein each of the plurality of configuration readers is configured to:
access one or more differently formatted types of configuration data form one or more different locations, the one or more differently formatted types of configuration data represented at least a partial configuration for a distributed application;
and
convert any accessed configuration data into a rule engine format compatible with the rule engine;
and
combining any portions of configuration data converted into the rule engine format into a distributed application configuration in the rule engine format, the distributed application configuration representing at least a partial configuration of the distributed application;
wherein the rule engine is configured to:
accessing a configuration validation rule from the rule store, the configuration validation rule configured to execute against the distributed application configuration to validate the at least partial configuration of the distributed application;
attempt to validate the at least partial configuration of the distributed application by executing detection logic contained within the accessed configuration validation rule against one or more portions of the distributed application configuration, including attempting to detect any conditions in the one or more portions of the distributed application configuration;
detect a condition in the one or more portions of distributed application configuration based on application of the accessed configuration validation rule;
and
provide the detected condition along with one or more possible resolutions for the detected condition to the user interface, the one or more possible resolutions contained in resolution logic within the accessed configuration validation rule;
and
wherein the rule engine is configured to:
receive and present detected conditions along with one or more possible resolutions provided by the rule engine.

16 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.