Multi-pane View Manager for Interconnected SAN Fabric Visualization
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional SAN management applications lack the ability to display multiple network fabrics in a single graphical user interface, limiting network administrators' ability to view and manage complex SAN environments with interconnected fabrics.
Innovation Solution
A view manager system that enables the concurrent display of multiple SAN fabrics within a single graphical user interface, allowing administrators to visualize the topology, interconnections, and resource relationships across different fabrics, with customizable layouts and real-time state information.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If conventional SAN management applications display a single network fabric at a time, then the graphical user interface remains simple and easy to operate, but the system cannot provide comprehensive visibility of multiple interconnected fabrics in a single view
Solution Approach 1:
The graphical user interface is segmented into multiple independent panes, each displaying a different network fabric. This allows multiple fabrics to be displayed simultaneously without overwhelming complexity, as each pane can be independently managed and scrolled. The segmentation principle resolves the contradiction by enabling multi-fabric visibility while maintaining operational simplicity through isolated view management.
Solution Approach 2:
The system transitions from a single-view interface to a multi-pane interface, adding a dimensional aspect to the graphical display. By arranging multiple fabric representations in separate panes within the same window, the system provides comprehensive visibility of multiple interconnected fabrics without requiring multiple separate applications, thus improving versatility while controlling complexity.
2Ease of operation
If network administrators use multiple separate graphical user interfaces to view different fabrics, then each interface can be optimized for its specific fabric, but the administrator loses overall context and cannot easily view interconnections between fabrics
Solution Approach 1:
Multiple separate graphical user interfaces are merged into a single integrated window containing multiple panes, each displaying a different fabric. This merging allows administrators to view multiple fabrics and their interconnections simultaneously in one unified interface, eliminating the need to switch between separate applications and preserving contextual information about fabric relationships while maintaining ease of operation.
Solution Approach 2:
The multi-pane graphical user interface acts as an intermediary that bridges the gap between individual fabric views and overall system context. It allows administrators to access detailed views of specific fabrics through individual panes while simultaneously maintaining awareness of the broader fabric architecture and interconnections, thus preventing information loss about fabric relationships.
3Measurement precision
If the system displays detailed topology information for each fabric, then network administrators can manage each fabric comprehensively, but the overall system complexity increases and performance monitoring becomes difficult
Solution Approach 1:
The system segments the display of detailed topology information into separate panes, each dedicated to a specific fabric. This segmentation allows comprehensive monitoring of individual fabric resources with high precision while maintaining overall system productivity, as administrators can focus on one fabric at a time without the complexity of managing all fabrics simultaneously in a single view.
Solution Approach 2:
The graphical user interface provides dynamic control over the level of detail displayed in each pane, allowing administrators to adjust the granularity of topology information based on current needs. This dynamic capability enables precise monitoring when needed while maintaining efficiency by allowing broader overview modes when comprehensive detail is not required, thus balancing measurement precision with productivity.
Data Source
AI summary
A method for displaying graphically interconnected network fabrics on a graphical user interface. The method disclosed herein is a view manager that identifies fabrics (e.g., storage area networks) in a network system and then displays graphical representations of the fabrics within a graphical user interface. In this manner, the fabric representations are displayed in respective regions of the graphical user interface such that the pixels of each fabric representation do not overlap. Graphical interconnections are displayed between network fabrics to represent the relationship and connectivity between the fabrics. Additionally, the view manager displays the physical and virtual components or resources (e.g., host computers, switch devices, storage devices) that make up the network fabrics as graphical objects within the fabric representations. In order to show the relationship and connectivity between the resource objects, the view manager also displays graphical interconnections that flow between the resources.