Patents by Inventor Michael Richard Fortin

Michael Richard Fortin 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: 7263632
    Abstract: Programmatically diagnosing the root cause of a problem in a computing system. Events are monitored within an operating system, and at least a subset of the events are logged to a log file. In response to the detection of error condition(s), a diagnostics module is invoked. The diagnostics module queries the log file to correlate events relevant to diagnosis of the problem, and identifies the root cause by evaluating the results of the query. Once the root cause of the problem is diagnosed, a resolution module corresponding to that root cause may be invoked to programmatically resolve the problem. The invocation of the diagnostic and resolution modules may be subject to policy rules. Furthermore, the logging, diagnostics and resolution modules may be automatically updated as needed.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 30, 2003
    Date of Patent: August 28, 2007
    Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
    Inventors: Andrew Ritz, Jee Fung Pang, Jonathan Vines Smith, Michael Richard Fortin, Nicholas Stephen Judge
  • Publication number: 20040225381
    Abstract: Programmatically diagnosing the root cause of a problem in a computing system. Events are monitored within an operating system, and at least a subset of the events are logged to a log file. In response to the detection of error condition(s), a diagnostics module is invoked. The diagnostics module queries the log file to correlate events relevant to diagnosis of the problem, and identifies the root cause by evaluating the results of the query. Once the root cause of the problem is diagnosed, a resolution module corresponding to that root cause may be invoked to programmatically resolve the problem. The invocation of the diagnostic and resolution modules may be subject to policy rules. Furthermore, the logging, diagnostics and resolution modules may be automatically updated as needed.
    Type: Application
    Filed: August 30, 2003
    Publication date: November 11, 2004
    Inventors: Andrew Ritz, Jee Fung Pang, Jonathan Vines Smith, Michael Richard Fortin, Nicholas Stephen Judge
  • Patent number: 6421827
    Abstract: The present invention is a method, system, and computer readable medium for detecting the loading pattern of application and library files, and then reordering the files so that future loads are performed more efficiently. The present invention detects the loading pattern of an application file and library files, and then reorders the pages within the application and library executable files so that future loads are sequential. After being reordered, the application and library files are relinked in order to resolve references. A sequential load access pattern is beneficial, as it takes full advantage of read-ahead performed by the file system. The present invention allows pages of an application or library executable file to be stored in the order in which they will most likely be loaded. Thus, when the file system performs read-ahead, and brings additional pages into memory, these additional pages are the next pages needed and are loaded.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 17, 1997
    Date of Patent: July 16, 2002
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Robert Tod Dimpsey, Michael Richard Fortin, Maher Saba
  • Patent number: 6263488
    Abstract: A method and system for enabling the monitoring of software executing on a computer system. The system inserts monitor instrumentation without recompiling the source code of the program. Encapsulation of the target routine does not disrupt the relative addressing of the target routine since an instruction is simply replaced. No instructions are added to the target routine. User specified entry and exit routines are used to collect selected performance and system state data. Instrumentation code is provided to link the target routines to the user specified entry and exit routines. The standard link interface allows the entry and exit routines to be written in high level languages.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 8, 1995
    Date of Patent: July 17, 2001
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Michael Richard Fortin, Robert John Urquhart
  • Patent number: 6026236
    Abstract: A method and system for enabling the monitoring of software executing on a computer system. The system inserts monitor instrumentation without recompiling the source code of the program. Encapsulation of the target routine does not disrupt the relative addressing of the target routine since an instruction is simply replaced. No instructions are added to the target routine. User specified entry and exit routines are used to collect selected performance and system state data. Instrumentation code is provided to link the target routines to the user specified entry and exit routines. The standard link interface allows the entry and exit routines to be written in high level languages.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 3, 1997
    Date of Patent: February 15, 2000
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Michael Richard Fortin, Robert John Urquhart
  • Patent number: 5878263
    Abstract: A method of indexing memory addresses associated with objects in a program file. In the prior art, a file has a single fixup record section which contains information necessary to determine memory addresses once the file is loaded onto the computer system. In the present invention, the fixup records are located within pages defined in the program file (e.g., data or text pages), and the fixup records are chained, that is, a given fixup record is based on a previous fixup record. In this manner, the overall size of the file is significantly reduced by reducing the collective size of all of the fixup records.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 5, 1997
    Date of Patent: March 2, 1999
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Michael Richard Fortin, Maher Afif Saba