Management Objects for IT Administrative Intent Enforcement
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current system management tools lack the ability for administrators to express and enforce administrative intent in IT environments, failing to ensure consistent configurations and settings across computer systems, leading to costly downtimes and inefficiencies.
Innovation Solution
A management system employing management objects (MOs) that allow administrators to intuitively express and act upon administrative intent by defining, deploying, and managing hardware and software components, configurations, and policies, enabling detection, installation, remediation, and compliance monitoring across IT environments.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Loss of information
If current system management tools are used to gather information about computer systems, then administrators can know what is on the computer systems, but administrators cannot express or enforce administrative intent to ensure consistent configurations
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces management objects (MOs) as an intermediary layer between administrators and the actual computer systems. MOs serve as mediators that capture administrative intent through standardized templates and propagate it across multiple systems, ensuring consistent configuration enforcement without requiring direct administrator intervention on each system.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent creates standardized templates for management objects that can be copied and deployed across multiple computer systems. These templates encapsulate desired configurations and settings, allowing administrators to replicate consistent administrative intent across numerous systems simultaneously, ensuring configuration uniformity.
2Reliability
If system administrators manually manage computer system configurations, then they can monitor and adjust settings, but the human cost and time required are very expensive
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements self-service capabilities where management objects automatically monitor their own states, detect configuration drift, and trigger remediation actions without human intervention. The system autonomously compares actual system states against desired configurations defined in MO templates and automatically corrects deviations, eliminating the need for continuous manual monitoring.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent establishes feedback loops where the management system continuously monitors computer system configurations, compares them against desired states defined in management object templates, and automatically initiates corrective actions when deviations are detected. This closed-loop feedback mechanism ensures application availability while minimizing administrator involvement.
3Loss of information
If current system management tools are used, then administrators can gather information about systems, but they cannot perform automated actions based on the gathered information
Solution Approach 1:
The patent defines management object templates in advance that encapsulate desired configurations, monitoring parameters, and remediation actions. These templates are prepared beforehand and deployed to systems, enabling the management system to automatically execute predetermined actions based on gathered information without requiring real-time human decision-making.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent creates a dynamic management system where management objects can be instantiated, modified, and deployed across systems based on changing requirements. The system dynamically adapts to different system states and automatically performs appropriate actions, transforming static information gathering into dynamic automated response.
Data Source
AI summary
A method, system, and architecture for managing computer systems is provided. A management system employs management objects (MOs) to provide administrators the ability to intuitively express the administrative intent in an information technology (IT) environment, and to act out the administrative intent based on the information gathered by the management system. Managed elements of an IT environment, such as, by way of example, hardware components, software applications, software updates, software distribution policies, configurations, settings, etc., may be expressed as MOs. Actions, such as, by way of example, detect, install/apply, remove, remediate, enumerate, etc., may be associated with the MOs. The management system manages the computer systems by deploying the appropriate MOs and their associated actions onto the computer systems, and performing the actions on the computer systems.