US 9,432,277 B2 · System and method for modeling interdependencies in a network datacenter

Abstract

The system and method described herein may include a discovery engine that scans a network datacenter to inventory resources in the datacenter and populate a configuration management database with the resource inventory. One or more destination listeners created from the resource inventory may then selectively sample monitored flows in the datacenter to model interdependencies between the inventoried resources. For example, any monitored flows originating outside the datacenter or failing to correlate with the inventoried resources may be dropped, whereby the interdependencies may be modeled from a deliberately reduced sample of the monitored flows that have information relevant to modeling relationships between resources within the datacenter. Furthermore, directionalities for the monitored flows may be determined, wherein the directionalities provide further information relevant to modeling the relationships between the resources within the datacenter.

Claims20

Dependent claims

A system for modeling interdependencies in a network datacenter, comprising:

a machine-readable storage medium;
one or more physical processors;
a resource inventory containing information describing every resource in an information technology datacenter and every open communication port on the resources described in the resource inventory;
one or more listeners configured to observe any network conversations originating in the datacenter and involving the open communication ports on the resources described in the resource inventory;
and
a correlation engine that analyzes at least one network conversation observed with the one or more listeners, wherein the one or more physical processors cause the correlation engine to:
drop the observed network conversation in response to determining that the observed network conversation fails to correlate with any of the open communication ports on the resources described in the resource inventory;
and
model a relationship between two of the resources described in the resource inventory in response to determining that the Observed network conversation correlates with open communication ports on the two resources.

6 more elements

A computer-implemented method of modeling interdependencies in a network datacenter, the method being implemented by one or more physical processors executing one or more computer program instructions which, when executed, perform the method, the method comprising:

discovering a resource inventory with a discovery engine coupled to an information technology datacenter, wherein the resource inventory contains information describing every resource in the information technology datacenter and every open communication port on the resources described in the resource inventory;
observing any network conversations originating in the datacenter and involving the open communication ports on the resources described in the resource inventory with one or more listeners;
dropping, by the one or more physical processors, the observed network conversation in response to a correlation engine determining that the observed network conversation fails to correlate with any of the open communication ports on the resources described in the resource inventory;
and
modeling, by the one or more physical processors, a relationship between two of the resources described in the resource inventory in response to the correlation engine determining that the observed network conversation correlates with open communication ports on the two resources.

2 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

System and method for modeling interdependencies in a network datacenter

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System and method for modeling interdependencies in a network datacenter

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims20