Autonomic Installer for Component Dependency Management
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Solution Overview
Problem
In autonomic computing systems, application component upgrades often break dependencies due to changed or removed APIs, leading to incompatibilities and disruptions, with existing methods like the 'ReadMe' file being tedious and unreliable for managing these changes.
Innovation Solution
An autonomic component installation system that uses a catalog of host components and an autonomic installer to determine required dependencies and modifications, generating a machine-readable ReadMe file to ensure compatibility and locate necessary updates, utilizing XML formatting for portability and accuracy.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If automated programming tools are used to identify application component dependencies, then the tedium of manual ReadMe file creation is reduced, but the processing resources consumed increase substantially
Solution Approach 1:
The patent performs dependency identification and compatibility analysis during the installation process itself, rather than requiring a separate preliminary analysis phase. The autonomic installer dynamically determines dependencies as components are installed, eliminating the need for extensive pre-processing while maintaining comprehensive dependency tracking
Solution Approach 2:
The system uses the component's own metadata and installation information to automatically identify its dependencies and compatibility requirements. The autonomic installer extracts dependency information directly from the component package and its associated documentation, eliminating the need for external programming tools to parse and analyze code
2Reliability
If comprehensive dependency analysis is performed to identify all affected components, then upgrade reliability improves, but the time required for installation increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent performs dependency identification and compatibility analysis during the installation process itself, rather than requiring a separate preliminary analysis phase. The autonomic installer dynamically determines dependencies as components are installed, eliminating the need for extensive pre-processing while maintaining comprehensive dependency tracking
Solution Approach 2:
The system dynamically adjusts the depth and scope of dependency analysis based on the specific component being installed and the current system state. Rather than performing a static, comprehensive analysis of all possible dependencies, the autonomic installer adapts its analysis to focus on relevant dependencies, reducing overall installation time while maintaining reliability
Data Source
AI summary
An autonomic component installation system. The system can include a catalog of host components installed within a computing system and an autonomic installer coupled to the catalog and programmed to determine, when installing an upgraded component, whether the upgraded component provides component capabilities required by the host components in the catalog. The catalog can include both host components and respective publicly accessible data, method implementations and method prototypes provided by the host components. Consequently, the autonomic installer can determine whether the upgraded component will have access to required publicly accessible data and method implementations. The autonomic installer further can be configured to determine whether modifications included in the upgraded component have caused changes in associated method prototypes which differ from the method prototypes in the catalog. Finally, a machine-readable ReadMe file processor can be coupled to the autonomic installer to identify the required publicly accessible data and methods implementations.