System model determination for failure detection and isolation, in particular in computer systems

DETAILED DESCRIPTION It is therefore an object of the present invention to facilitate the provision of system models to be applied in model-based diagnostic systems.
The object is solved by the independent claims.
Preferred embodiments are shown by the dependent claims.
The invention provides an improved tool for determining a system model describing a relation between applicable tests and components of a system under test (SUT).
The system model can then be applied in conjunction with actual test results for determining at least one fault candidate representing a specific component of the SUT likely to have caused a fault or failure of the SUT.
Each fault candidate is preferably provided with a certain probability that the component has caused the failure.
The fault candidates can be preferably represented in a probability-ranked list.
Thus, the invention can be applied in diagnosis tools allowing to detect any kind of system failures--hardware, configuration, and software--based on the system model and a series of tests.
According to the invention, a logical inference engine determines the system model for the system under test (SUT).
The system model can be one of the test-based system models as described in the introductory part.
It is to be understood that the invention is not limited to a specific type of system model required for a specific diagnosis application, but can be applied for a wide variety of different system models.
Typical features of the system model can be, either together or individually: A system definition assigning an identification/reference (such as a name and/or an address) to each component of the system, preferably in a multiple level (preferably two levels) part-whole hierarchy comprising names of the components (typically field-replaceable units FRUs or block level units) and of their subcomponents.
It is to be understood that even though the system diagnosis can be accomplished/executed on the lowest level of the hierarchy of system components (in order to achieve highest accuracy), the result of the diagnosis is preferably provided and output only on the highest level of the hierarchy of system components (in order to provide a more concise result with highest understandability)