Symptoms Automation Framework (SAF) for Cloud Business Alignment

OASIS SAF TCWorking Draft 018 April 2010

This document is an OASIS SAF TC Working Draft. It does not reflect the views of the OASIS SAF TC or of OASIS

What is Symptoms? An information model

Describing, recognizing, and reacting to multi-domain problems/opportunities

Enabling vendors, integrators, and organizations to codify their best practices

And SHARE them in a machine readable and interoperable way

This document is an OASIS SAF TC Working Draft. It does not reflect the views of the OASIS SAF TC or of OASIS

What is Symptoms? Symptom

an indicator that a situation is present in the system e.g. “server XYZ ping failed”, “server application ABC unresponsive”

Syndrome an identifiable meaningful pattern of Symptoms e.g. if “server XYZ ping failed” && “server application ABC

unresponsive” then server XYZ is probably down Protocol

a treatment template necessary to create a Prescription e.g. “reboot server”

Prescription a concrete instance of a Protocol. Used to provide remediation,

diagnostics, preventative measures, or optimizations e.g. “reboot server XYZ”

This document is an OASIS SAF TC Working Draft. It does not reflect the views of the OASIS SAF TC or of OASIS

How does Symptoms work? Domain experts fill in a Catalogue with Syndromes and Protocols

i.e. what to keep an eye on in their system, and how to react if it appears.

Symptoms are emitted from various sources (within or external to the system)

A Diagnostician matches the incoming Symptoms against Syndromes from the Catalogue

If it matches a Syndrome, it creates a Prescription and sends it to a designated Practitioner

The Practitioner “implements” the Prescription

This document is an OASIS SAF TC Working Draft. It does not reflect the views of the OASIS SAF TC or of OASIS

symptom emitter

How does Symptoms work?

Diagnostician

PractitionerCatalogue

any complex system

symptom emitterSymptom emitter

symptoms

prescriptions

syndromesprotocols

This document is an OASIS SAF TC Working Draft. It does not reflect the views of the OASIS SAF TC or of OASIS

A simple example Symptom A: “Ping to Application Server A (192.168.1.2) failed” Symptom B: “Application ‘EXCEL’ unresponsive” Symptom C: “Ping to Router failed”

Syndrome ‘Server Down’: “Symptom A && Symptom B” Associated Protocol ‘Reboot Server’: “Reboot server at IP

address X” Syndrome ‘Network Card Down’: “Symptom A && Symptom C”

Associated Protocol ‘Reset Network Card’: “Reset network interface X”

If Symptoms A and B appear in the system, the Syndrome ‘Server Down’ will be recognized and a Prescription will be generated from the associated Protocol

‘Reboot server at IP address 192.168.1.2’

This document is an OASIS SAF TC Working Draft. It does not reflect the views of the OASIS SAF TC or of OASIS

Symptoms for Cloud Business Alignment The problem scenario

A cloud consumer: an online sales company Subtle warnings of a potential peak in sales

More web site browsing (operations department) A call from a regional sales manager A small increase in online sales system

Strong indications of sudden surge in sales Media endorsement (marketing department) Lots of buzz in blogs (RSS Feeds)

All this info cannot be combined and analyzed properly

Result: cloud capacity is not ready to handle the sudden rise! Lost profit...

This document is an OASIS SAF TC Working Draft. It does not reflect the views of the OASIS SAF TC or of OASIS

Symptoms for Cloud Business Alignment How do we merge info/content from all

aspects of the business? Internal departments external sources

How do we connect the high level business conditions to appropriate and automated actions in the Cloud?

This document is an OASIS SAF TC Working Draft. It does not reflect the views of the OASIS SAF TC or of OASIS

consumer provider

diagnostician

operations

marketing

catalogue

sales

3rd part news analysis

Let’s collaborate to understand each other better!

Cool! I’ll provide a catalogue where we can link your business concepts to my

cloud operations

I will provide a Protocol template that modifies server capacity –since I know

how to do this.

And since I know my business, I will provide a Syndrome to identify important business

conditions

For example, I will merge data from all my departments and external sources

pertaining to my sales...

...so that I can identify potential sudden increase in my sales!

And if my sales are to go up suddenly, I’ll use your Protocol to increase my server capacity!

Web site browsing has gone up!

Store sales have upward trend

Call: CEO interviewed and endorsed in CNN!

There is lots of talk/buzz about the company in the

blogosphere!

Combining all this info, I found the business condition of potential

sudden increase in sales!

I’ll inform the practitioner to enact the relevant Protocol to increase

server capacity!

I know how to do this cause I speak this Cloud’s language (e.g.

Fujitsu SOP API)

* These are roles in the framework, not necessarily people! They will usually be software entities.** The Catalogue, Diagnostician, and Practitioner(s) could be implemented in various ways, e.g. Provider provides the Catalogue and Practitioner, and the Consumer the Diagnostician.

I work for the consumer, and I’ll be checking incoming data to see

if I identify some important business condition!

I work for the provider, and I will be “implementing” Prescriptions

relevant to him.

practitioner

For example, I will be arranging to increase server capacity

whenever needed.This is the operations

department. We will be emitting Symptoms to denote web site

browsing ratesThis is the sales department. We will emit Symptoms with the rate

of shop sales

This is marketing. I will emit Symptoms whenever something

significant happens.I am a contractor service

provider. I parse news and RSS feeds and emit Symptoms to

denote ‘buzz’ about the company

with all the roles introduced, and the Catalogue filled in by Consumer and Provider, this merged environment

begins to operate under normal business conditions, when at some

point...

Here you are, get some more servers proactively so you can accommodate

the anticipated growth!

This document is an OASIS SAF TC Working Draft. It does not reflect the views of the OASIS SAF TC or of OASIS

Symptoms for Cloud Business Alignment With Symptoms

Consumers can map their business conditions to Cloud operations

Becomes possible to blend information from many domains

This document is an OASIS SAF TC Working Draft. It does not reflect the views of the OASIS SAF TC or of OASIS

Symptoms for Cloud Business Alignment Benefits for consumer

Improved operations and understanding by merging info from different business aspects

Better positioned to accommodate sudden business changes

Cloud provisioning maps naturally to business requirements

Benefits for provider Significant differentiator and value added capabilities Automated and improved responses to meet

changing customer needs

This document is an OASIS SAF TC Working Draft. It does not reflect the views of the OASIS SAF TC or of OASIS

Collaborations What we need

Real cloud consumer requirements Around business functions in the cloud,

such as energy, ID, contract, policy management, QoS, etc.

Validation of our Cloud use cases Direct communication and/or potential

for participation in the OASIS Technical Committee

This document is an OASIS SAF TC Working Draft. It does not reflect the views of the OASIS SAF TC or of OASIS

Contact Stavros Isaiadis, Fujitsu (SAF TC Co-chair)

Stavros.Isaiadis@uk.fujitsu.com Jeff Vaught CA (SAF TC Co-chair)

vauje01@ca.com

OASIS SAF Technical Committee http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/saf/

Current Working Documents http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/documents.php?wg_abbre

v=saf

Example Use Case Working Draft http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/download.php/36886/Use

Case-Automated_Provisioning-WD.doc

More Info and Contact