Real-time management of a configuration of a computer system
View Patent ↗A computer system is described for representing and enforcing configuration rules that can be used to create and define a configuration or hardware definition for the computer system. The computer system represents configuration rules that define a configuration of a high end mainframe, such as an OS2200 system, in a file external to a configuration program with which a user may interact to manage the configuration of the mainframe system, and to enforce the configuration rules as a user is attempting to modify a configuration of a computer system. The configuration rules may be specified in, for example, an extensible markup language (XML) file format rather than in the source code of the executable program. The external configuration file may conform to a scripting language that allows a developer to embed validation operations for the configuration data specified in the XML file.
1. A computer system comprising:
a set of hardware components;
a configuration file having configuration data for the set of hardware components and embedded scripts for validating the configuration data; and
a configuration program executing on a processor of the computer system, wherein the configuration program parses the configuration file to identify the scripts, and executes the scripts to validate the configuration data.
2. The system of claim 1 ,
wherein the configuration program presents an interface by which a user modifies a configuration parameter for the configuration data, and
wherein in response to an operation by the user, the configuration program selects one or more of the scripts based on the modified configuration parameter and executes the selected scripts to determine whether the modified parameter results in an invalid configuration for the computer system.
3. The computer system of claim 1 , wherein the configuration program executes the scripts in real-time when the user modifies the configuration parameter and outputs error information when the modified parameter produces an invalid configuration.
4. The computer system of claim 3 , wherein the configuration program executes the scripts in real-time solely for the modified parameter without requiring validation of the entire configuration data.
5. The computer system of claim 1 , wherein the configuration file is external to the configuration program.
6. The computer system of claim 1 , wherein the configuration program includes a validation engine that does not include logic specific to the hardware components.
7. The computer system of claim 1 ,
wherein the configuration program includes triggers that fire in response to operations by the user, and
wherein the triggers apply one or more of the scripts in response to the operations to determine whether the operations result in an invalid configuration of the computer system.
8. The computer system of claim 1 , wherein the configuration file conforms to a data description language.
9. The computer system of claim 7 , wherein the configuration file conforms to the extensible markup language (XML).
10. The computer system of claim 7 , wherein the scripts are written in accordance with a character set that does not overlap a character set of the data description language.
11. The computer system of claim 1 , further comprising:
a first parser to parse metadata within the configuration file that specifies the configuration data in a format that conforms to a data description language; and
a second parser to parse the scripts embedded within the configuration file that conform to a scripting language that does not overlap with the data description language.
12. A computer-implemented method comprising:
maintaining a configuration file having configuration data for a set of hardware components associated with a computer system and embedded scripts for validating the configuration data;
executing a configuration program on a processor of the computer system that parses the configuration file to identify the scripts and executes the scripts to validate the configuration data.
13. The method of claim 12 , further comprising:
modifying a configuration parameter for the configuration data;
selecting one or more of the scripts based on the modified configuration parameter; and
executing the selected scripts to determine whether the modified parameter results in an invalid configuration for the computer system, wherein a user interacts with a user interface presented by the configuration program to modify the configuration parameter.
14. The method of claim 12 , wherein executing the scripts comprises executing the scripts in real-time in response to modifying a configuration parameter for the configuration data and outputting error information when the modified parameter produces an invalid configuration of the computer system.
15. The method of claim 14 , wherein executing the scripts comprises executing the scripts in real-time solely for the modified parameter without validating the entire configuration data.
16. The method of claim 12 , wherein the configuration file is external to the configuration program.
17. The method of claim 12 , wherein the configuration program includes a validation engine that does not include logic specific to the hardware components.
18. The method of claim 12 , further comprising:
performing an operation on the configuration data;
executing one or more of the scripts in response to the operation, wherein the configuration program includes triggers that fire in response to the operation; and
determining whether the operation results in an invalid configuration of the computer system.
19. The method of claim 12 , wherein the configuration file conforms to a data description language.
20. The method of claim 19 , wherein the configuration file conforms to the extensible markup language (XML).
21. The method of claim 19 , wherein the scripts are written in accordance with a character set that does not overlap a character set of the data description language.
22. The method of claim 12 , further comprising:
parsing metadata within the configuration file that specifies the configuration data in a format that conforms to a data description language; and
parsing the scripts embedded within the configuration file that conform to a scripting language that does not overlap with the data description language.
23. A computer system comprising:
a set of hardware components;
a configuration file having configuration data for the set of hardware components and embedded scripts for validating the configuration data;
means for parsing the configuration file to identify the configuration data and any corresponding embedded scripts; and
means for executing the scripts in real-time to validate the configuration data in response operations by the user.