Patents by Inventor Kurt Andrew Westerfeld

Kurt Andrew Westerfeld has filed for patents to protect the following inventions. This listing includes patent applications that are pending as well as patents that have already been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

  • Patent number: 9432277
    Abstract: The system and method described herein may include a discovery engine that scans a network datacenter to inventory resources in the datacenter and populate a configuration management database with the resource inventory. One or more destination listeners created from the resource inventory may then selectively sample monitored flows in the datacenter to model interdependencies between the inventoried resources. For example, any monitored flows originating outside the datacenter or failing to correlate with the inventoried resources may be dropped, whereby the interdependencies may be modeled from a deliberately reduced sample of the monitored flows that have information relevant to modeling relationships between resources within the datacenter. Furthermore, directionalities for the monitored flows may be determined, wherein the directionalities provide further information relevant to modeling the relationships between the resources within the datacenter.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 27, 2014
    Date of Patent: August 30, 2016
    Assignee: Novell, Inc.
    Inventors: Kurt Andrew Westerfeld, John Ross Judson
  • Publication number: 20140310411
    Abstract: The system and method described herein may include a discovery engine that scans a network datacenter to inventory resources in the datacenter and populate a configuration management database with the resource inventory. One or more destination listeners created from the resource inventory may then selectively sample monitored flows in the datacenter to model interdependencies between the inventoried resources. For example, any monitored flows originating outside the datacenter or failing to correlate with the inventoried resources may be dropped, whereby the interdependencies may be modeled from a deliberately reduced sample of the monitored flows that have information relevant to modeling relationships between resources within the datacenter. Furthermore, directionalities for the monitored flows may be determined, wherein the directionalities provide further information relevant to modeling the relationships between the resources within the datacenter.
    Type: Application
    Filed: June 27, 2014
    Publication date: October 16, 2014
    Applicant: NOVELL, INC.
    Inventor: KURT ANDREW WESTERFELD
  • Patent number: 8769084
    Abstract: The system and method described herein may include a discovery engine that scans a network datacenter to inventory resources in the datacenter and populate a configuration management database with the resource inventory. One or more destination listeners created from the resource inventory may then selectively sample monitored flows in the datacenter to model interdependencies between the inventoried resources. For example, any monitored flows originating outside the datacenter or failing to correlate with the inventoried resources may be dropped, whereby the interdependencies may be modeled from a deliberately reduced sample of the monitored flows that have information relevant to modeling relationships between resources within the datacenter. Furthermore, directionalities for the monitored flows may be determined, wherein the directionalities provide further information relevant to modeling the relationships between the resources within the datacenter.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 25, 2010
    Date of Patent: July 1, 2014
    Assignee: Novell, Inc.
    Inventors: Kurt Andrew Westerfeld, John Ross Judson
  • Patent number: 8745188
    Abstract: The system and method described herein may include a configuration management database containing various configuration items describing every known resource in a datacenter. Upon receiving a request proposing changes to the datacenter, the proposed changes may be approved for automated execution (i.e., without human intervention) in response to analyzing relationships modeled in the configuration management database and determining that the proposed changes have no potential impacts on essential or critical resources. Otherwise, an impact workflow may be created to coordinate interaction between various human participants to resolve the potential impacts. Further, in contexts where multiple proposed changes have been approved, the multiple proposed changes may be analyzed to detect any potential conflicts.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 25, 2010
    Date of Patent: June 3, 2014
    Assignee: Novell, Inc.
    Inventors: Kurt Andrew Westerfeld, Hugh Warren
  • Publication number: 20110302290
    Abstract: The system and method described herein may include a configuration management database containing various configuration items describing every known resource in a datacenter. Upon receiving a request proposing changes to the datacenter, the proposed changes may be approved for automated execution (i.e., without human intervention) in response to analyzing relationships modeled in the configuration management database and determining that the proposed changes have no potential impacts on essential or critical resources. Otherwise, an impact workflow may be created to coordinate interaction between various human participants to resolve the potential impacts. Further, in contexts where multiple proposed changes have been approved, the multiple proposed changes may be analyzed to detect any potential conflicts.
    Type: Application
    Filed: August 25, 2010
    Publication date: December 8, 2011
    Applicant: Novell, Inc.
    Inventors: Kurt Andrew Westerfeld, Hugh Warren
  • Publication number: 20110302295
    Abstract: The system and method described herein may include a discovery engine that scans a network datacenter to inventory resources in the datacenter and populate a configuration management database with the resource inventory. One or more destination listeners created from the resource inventory may then selectively sample monitored flows in the datacenter to model interdependencies between the inventoried resources. For example, any monitored flows originating outside the datacenter or failing to correlate with the inventoried resources may be dropped, whereby the interdependencies may be modeled from a deliberately reduced sample of the monitored flows that have information relevant to modeling relationships between resources within the datacenter. Furthermore, directionalities for the monitored flows may be determined, wherein the directionalities provide further information relevant to modeling the relationships between the resources within the datacenter.
    Type: Application
    Filed: August 25, 2010
    Publication date: December 8, 2011
    Applicant: Novell, Inc.
    Inventors: Kurt Andrew Westerfeld, John Ross Judson
  • Publication number: 20110302652
    Abstract: The system and method described herein may include a configuration management database that describes every known service endpoint in a network datacenter to represent a steady state for the datacenter. One or more listeners may then observe traffic in the datacenter in real-time to detect network conversations initiating new activity in the datacenter, which may be correlated, in real-time, with the information in the configuration management database representing the steady state for the datacenter. Thus, in response to the new activity failing to correlate with the known service endpoints, a real-time security alert may be generated to indicate that any network conversations initiating such activity fall out-of-scope from the steady state for the information technology datacenter.
    Type: Application
    Filed: August 25, 2010
    Publication date: December 8, 2011
    Applicant: Novell, Inc.
    Inventor: Kurt Andrew Westerfeld