Centralized Outage Reporting Mechanism
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current service outage reporting mechanisms often provide limited information to users and administrators, particularly when outages are caused by system failures outside of the application framework, and are not standardized across different services, leading to inadequate communication during service disruptions.
Innovation Solution
A computing system automatically identifies characteristics of a service outage and selects an appropriate reporting method and content based on these characteristics, using a centralized reporting mechanism that can communicate through various channels, including email, text messages, social networking sites, and in-product notifications, to inform users and support personnel.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Loss of information
If a centralized reporting mechanism is implemented to provide comprehensive outage information, then the quality and completeness of outage communication is improved, but the system complexity and implementation difficulty increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a centralized outage reporting service as an intermediary component that sits between the service framework and users/administrators. This mediator collects outage information from the framework, determines appropriate communication channels based on outage characteristics, and delivers notifications through selected channels (email, SMS, social media, etc.). This intermediary approach consolidates the complexity into a single manageable component while providing comprehensive outage communication.
Solution Approach 2:
The centralized reporting mechanism is designed to serve multiple services and multiple communication channels through a single unified system. It can detect outages in any service within the framework, classify them by severity and type, and route notifications through appropriate channels based on the outage characteristics. This multi-functional design reduces overall system complexity by eliminating the need for separate reporting mechanisms for each service.
2Loss of time
If automated outage detection and reporting is implemented across all services, then the responsiveness and timeliness of outage communication is improved, but the resource consumption and system overhead increase
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary classification and routing of outage notifications based on pre-defined criteria and outage characteristics. When an outage is detected, the centralized reporting service immediately evaluates the outage type, severity, and affected services against predetermined rules to determine the appropriate communication channels and notification content. This preliminary action enables rapid automated response without requiring complex real-time decision-making, reducing both notification time and computational overhead.
3Reliability
If standardized reporting formats are used across all services, then the consistency and reliability of outage communication is improved, but the adaptability to service-specific requirements decreases
Solution Approach 1:
The centralized reporting service implements local quality by allowing different notification templates, communication channels, and content formats to be selected based on the specific characteristics of each outage. While the core reporting mechanism is standardized and centralized, the system can adapt the notification content and delivery method to match the specific service affected, outage type, and target audience (users vs. administrators). This enables reliable standardized processing with service-specific customization where needed.
Data Source
AI summary
The centralized reporting of a service outage, where the service is offered over a network such as, for example, the Internet. Upon detecting a service outage, computing system automatically identifies characteristic(s) of the outage. Then, the computing system selects a way of reporting the outage that depends on the characteristic(s) of the outage. For instance, depending on the outage characteristic(s), the computing system might cause a particular communication channel or channels to be selected for reporting the outage. Alternatively or in addition, the content or structure of the report may differ depending on the characteristic(s) of the outage. The reporting mechanism may be centralized and service a number of other services, and even report regarding errors in the framework that supports the service.