Patent Application

App. No. 14/861,608

Abstract

Claims (69)

1 . A computer-implemented method, comprising:

receiving, by a replication server comprising a memory and one or more processors, configuration information associated with a computing system, wherein receiving the configuration information causes instructions stored in the memory to be executed by the one or more processors to perform operations comprising:

configuring a cloud-based replica system based on configuration information associated with a computing system, the cloud-based replica system including multiple virtual hardware components, wherein individual ones of the multiple virtual hardware components correspond to individual ones of multiple hardware components of the computing system;

configuring, based on the configuration information, simulated users having replicated permissions and replicated credentials;

simulating, based on activity information gathered from the computing system, activities in the cloud-based replica system, the activities including user activities performed by the simulated users; and

determining, using a classifier, one or more potential problems based on the activities in the cloud-based replica system.

2 . The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , the operations further comprising:

determining, based on the configuration information, that a particular hardware component of the multiple hardware components executes a particular operating system and a particular software application;

identifying a particular virtual hardware component of the multiple virtual hardware components that corresponds to the particular hardware component; and

configuring the particular virtual hardware component to execute the particular operating system and the particular software application.

3 . The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , the operations further comprising:

removing deployment-specific data from the configuration information.

4 . The computer-implemented method of claim 3 , wherein the deployment-specific data includes one or more of:

a user name, data related to the user name, metadata associated with the user name, an email address, a job code, a domain name, a server name, a port number, an internet protocol (IP) address, an active directory group name, a file name, a document name, or a site name.

5 . The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , the operations further comprising:

determining that a problem occurs in a first portion of the computing system;

determining that a second portion of the computing system does not affect the problem;

identifying a first cloud portion of the cloud-based replica system corresponding to the first portion of the computing system;

identifying a second cloud portion of the cloud-based replica system corresponding to the second portion of the computing system; and

removing the second cloud portion from the cloud-based replica system.

6 . The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , wherein the cloud-based replica system and the computing system have a similar or a same network topology.

7 . The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , wherein:

the configuration information is gathered by multiple agents with access to one or more domain controllers in the computing system.

8 . One or more non-transitory computer-readable media storing instructions that are executable by one or more processors to perform operations comprising:

configuring a cloud-based replica system based on configuration information associated with a computing system that includes multiple hardware components, the cloud-based replica system including multiple virtual hardware components, wherein individual ones of the multiple virtual hardware components correspond to individual ones of the multiple hardware components of the computing system;

simulating user activities in the cloud-based replica system based on activity information gathered from the computing system; and

determining, using a classifier, one or more potential problems based on the user activities in the cloud-based replica system.

9 . The one or more non-transitory computer-readable media of claim 8 , wherein the user activities include:

logging on to a virtual user device of the cloud-based replica system using credentials associated with a simulated user; and

accessing a virtual database of the cloud-based replica system using the credentials.

10 . The one or more non-transitory computer-readable media of claim 8 , wherein the user activities include:

logging on to a virtual user device of the cloud-based replica system using credentials associated with a simulated user; and

accessing a software application executing on a virtual server of the cloud-based replica system using the credentials.

11 . The one or more non-transitory computer-readable media of claim 8 , wherein the user activities include:

logging on to a first virtual device in a first domain of the cloud-based replica system using credentials associated with a simulated user; and

accessing a second virtual device in a second domain of the cloud-based replica system using the credentials.

12 . The one or more non-transitory computer-readable media of claim 8 , further comprising:

removing deployment-specific data from the configuration information, wherein the deployment-specific data includes one or more of:

a user name, data related to the user name, metadata associated with the user name, an email address, a job code, a domain name, a server name, a port number, an internet protocol (IP) address, an active directory group name, a file name, a document name, or a site name.

13 . The one or more non-transitory computer-readable media of claim 8 , wherein:

the configuration information is gathered by multiple agents with access to one or more domain controllers in the computing system.

14 . A replication server, comprising:

one or more processors; and

one or more non-transitory computer-readable media storing instructions that are executable by the one or more processors to:

receive configuration information associated with a computing system, wherein receiving the configuration information causes the one or more processors to execute the instructions to perform operations comprising:

removing customer-specific information from the configuration information to create modified configuration information;

creating, in a cloud-based environment, a replica system based on the modified configuration information, the replica system including a virtual hardware component corresponding to a hardware component of the computing system;

determining, based on activity information gathered from the computing system, permissions and credentials associated with users of the computing system;

creating simulated users with replicated permissions and replicated credentials in the replica system that are based on the permissions and the credentials associated with the users of the computing system;

simulating, based on activity information associated with the users of the computing system, user activities in the replica system; and

identifying one or more potential problems based on the user activities.

15 . The replication server of claim 14 , the operations further comprising:

determining, based on the configuration information, that the hardware component of the computing system executes an operating system and one or more software applications; and

configuring the virtual hardware component of the replica system to execute the operating system and the one or more software applications.

16 . The replication server of claim 14 , wherein the customer-specific information includes one or more of:

a user name, data related to the user name, metadata associated with the user name, an email address, a job code, a domain name, a server name, a port number, an internet protocol (IP) address, an active directory group name, a file name, a document name, or a site name.

17 . The replication server of claim 14 , the operations further comprising:

identifying a first replicated portion of the replica system corresponding to first portion of the computing system in which a problem occurs;

identifying a second replicated portion of the replica system corresponding to a second portion of the computing system that does not affect the problem; and

removing the second replicated portion from the replica system.

18 . The replication server of claim 14 , wherein the user activities include:

logging on to a virtual user device of the replica system using a set of credentials associated with a simulated user; and

accessing a virtual database of the replica system using the set of credentials.

19 . The replication server of claim 14 , wherein the user activities include:

logging on to a virtual user device of the replica system using a set of credentials associated with a simulated user; and

accessing a software application executing on a virtual server of the replica system using the set of credentials.

20 . The replication server of claim 14 , wherein the user activities include:

logging on to a first virtual device in a first domain of the replica system using a set of credentials associated with a simulated user; and

accessing a second virtual device in a second domain of the replica system using the set of credentials.

Assignments (21)