Query driven data collection on parallel processing architecture for license metrics software

Abstract

A method for collecting monitoring data on a set of monitored computers. The method comprises providing definitions for collection methods for a set of monitoring data, wherein the monitoring data is collected from agents running at monitoring computers, wherein each item of monitoring data has at least one respective collection method. The method further comprises determining a subset of monitoring data to be updated. The method further comprises identifying collection methods corresponding to the subset of monitoring data and triggering the agents running at the monitoring computers to collect monitoring data using the identified collection methods.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . A computer system comprising:
 one or more computer processors;   one or more computer readable storage media;   program instructions stored on the computer readable storage media for execution by at least one of the one or more processors, the program instructions comprising:
 program instructions to provide definitions for collection methods for a set of monitoring data, wherein the monitoring data is collected from agents running at monitoring computers in a software asset management system, wherein the monitoring data includes software license metrics, and wherein each item of the monitoring data has at least one respective collection method; 
 program instructions to, in response to receiving a user query from a user computer via a network, determine a subset of the monitoring data to be updated; 
 program instructions to identify collection methods corresponding to the subset of the monitoring data; 
 program instructions to trigger the agents running at the monitoring computers to collect the monitoring data using the identified collection methods; 
 program instructions to store the monitoring data in a table of a database in memory, wherein the table includes columns for a system identifier (ID), a software ID, a number of instances, and a software name; 
 program instructions to determine for each respective collection method of the collection methods, a cost of executing the respective collection method; 
 program instructions to annotate each column of the table with the respective collection method of the collection methods and the cost corresponding to the collection of the monitoring data in the column; 
 program instructions to create a list of required tables and columns for processing the query, based on analyzing the query; 
 program instructions to map the list of required tables and columns to the collections methods and the costs for the collection methods; 
 program instructions to, upon creating the list of required tables and columns and mapping the list of required tables and columns to the collection methods, assign a weight to each collection method of the collection methods based on the cost of executing the respective collection method; 
 program instructions to translate the received user query into a Structured Query Language (SQL) query; 
 program instructions to query the table with the translated SQL query, wherein during execution of the query one or more collection methods of the collection methods are selected from the list of required tables and columns in a way which minimizes a cost of operation on the agents, based on the weights; and 
 program instructions to respond to the user query with results from the agents that include collected monitoring data from the table, based on the query of the table with the translated SQL query.