Automated Whole-System Diagnosis of Distributed Services Using Model-Based Reasoning

distributed servicemanagement,automatedend-to-enddiagnostics,model-basedreasoning, MBR,network printingModern applications increasingly depend on services that aredistributed across the infrastructure, e.g., printing, Web andmail services. This is especially true in mobile computing,where it is necessary to compensate for the lack of onboardresources by tapping into the infrastructure, e.g., for increasedstorage or computational capacity. However, this shift causeshardships for traditional IT departments whose personnel andtools each focus on individual pieces of the whole service. Thiscalls for IT management tools that can diagnose problems inwhole services from end to end.We developed a prototype of such a system for the domain ofprinting services and deployed it for use at our local ITdepartment. The tool (1) models the dependencies betweencomponents, (2) gathers information from the distributedenvironment using a variety of mechanisms, (3) diagnosesproblems with the whole system, and (4) proactively monitorsselected components to eliminate certain classes of problemsbefore users encounter them. The fundamental technologyused is an HP-proprietary engine for Model-Based Reasoning.IT personnel who use our tool are delighted with it, especiallyits ability to gather information from multiple heterogeneoussubsystems. Its use has been credited with a 7% increase inthe percentage of printing related problem calls that areresolved at the help desk.