Methods and arrangements for planning and scheduling change management requests in computing systems
AssigneeInternational Business Machines Corporation
InventorsJoseph L. Hellerstein, Alexander Keller, Vijaya Krishnan, Joel L. Wolf, Kun-Lung Wu
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Methods and arrangements for planning and scheduling change management requests in computing systems are disclosed. Included are an arrangement for deciding whether or not an RFC should be done, an arrangement for assigning individual tasks to acceptable servers for each RFC to be done, and an arrangement for assigning the start times to said individual tasks for each RFC to be done.
Claims23
A method for planning and scheduling tasks within a plurality of requests for change within a change window in a computing system comprising the steps of:
- deciding whether or not a request for change should be done with respect to maximizing a profit value expressed as a value of performing the plurality of requests for change minus a value of associated costs, wherein a request for change comprises a set of tasks interrelated by temporal and location-specific dependencies;
- for each request for change to be done, assigning individual tasks within each request for change to acceptable servers;
- for each request for change to be done, assigning a start time to said individual tasks;
- wherein the set of tasks comprises hardware changes and/or software changes;
- wherein the change window describes a period of time during which a request for change is to be done;
- wherein precedence constraints among tasks within a request for change are enforced;
- wherein each task of a request for change that is performed is assigned to a single acceptable server;
- and
- wherein no acceptable server can work on more than one task at any time.
A system for planning and scheduling tasks within a plurality of requests for change within a change window in a computing system comprising:
- a processor;
- an arrangement for deciding whether or not a request for change should be done with respect to maximizing a profit value expressed as a value of performing the plurality of requests for change minus a value of associated costs, wherein a request for change comprises a set of tasks interrelated by temporal and location-specific dependencies;
- an arrangement for assigning individual tasks to acceptable servers for each request for change to be done;
- and
- an arrangement for assigning a start time to said individual tasks for each request for change to be done;
- wherein the set of tasks comprises hardware changes and/or software changes;
- wherein the change window describes a period of time during which a request for change is to be done;
- wherein precedence constraints among tasks within a request for change are enforced;
- wherein each task of a request for change that is performed is assigned to a single acceptable server;
- and
- wherein no acceptable server can work on more than one task at any time.
A program storage device readable by machine, tangibly embodying a program of instructions executable by the machine to perform a method for planning and scheduling tasks within a plurality of requests for change within a change window in a computing system comprising the steps of:
- deciding whether or not a request for change should be done with respect to maximizing a profit value expressed as a value of performing the plurality of requests for change minus a value of associated costs, wherein a request for change comprises a set of tasks interrelated by temporal and location-specific dependencies;
- for each request for change to be done, assigning individual tasks within each request for change to acceptable servers;
- for each request for change to be done, assigning a start time to said individual tasks;
- wherein the set of tasks comprises hardware changes and/or software changes;
- wherein the change window describes a period of time during which a request for change is to be done;
- wherein precedence constraints among tasks within a request for change are enforced;
- wherein each task of a request for change that is performed is assigned to a single acceptable server;
- and
- wherein no acceptable server can work on more than one task at any time.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.