Method and system for profiling file access by an executing virtual application

• US 10,158,707 B2
• Filed: 10/07/2015
• Issued: 12/18/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 07/02/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Code Systems Incorporated (VOXX International Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Code Systems Incorporated (VOXX International Corporation)
• Inventors: Larimore, Stefan I., Obata, Kenji C., Zeller, Mark Jeremy
• Primary Examiner(s): GHAFFARI, ABU Z
• Application Number:
  US14/877,790
• Publication Number:
  US 20160026496A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,168 Days
• Field of Search: None
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3466 Performance evaluation by tracing or monitoring
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/13 File access structures, e.g. distributed indices arrangements of input from, or output to, record carriers G06F3/06
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/188 Virtual file systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/2379 Updates performed during online database operations; commit processing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/40 of multimedia data, e.g. slideshows comprising image and additional audio data retrieval of still image data G06F16/50; retrieval of audio data G06F16/60; retrieval of video data G06F16/70
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9024 Graphs; Linked lists G06F16/9027 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/45583 Memory management, e.g. access or allocation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2212/152 Virtualized environment, e.g. logically partitioned system
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0619 in relation to data integrity, e.g. data losses, bit errors
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/064 Management of blocks
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45537 Provision of facilities of other operating environments, e.g. WINE I/O emulation G06F13/105
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/466 Transaction processing
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1085 involving dynamic management of active down- or uploading connections

Abstract

A method and system for profiling execution of an application implemented by an application file comprising a plurality of data blocks. The application is executed in response to an execute command from a management process. Read messages are sent to the management process each time the application reads one or more of the plurality of data blocks of the application file. The management process records information about the read operations in one or more transcripts which may be used to create a streaming model for the application allowing the application to be downloaded using a conventional download protocol without using a specialized streaming protocol.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method comprising:

receiving, by a runtime engine, an execute command from a management process, the execute command instructing the runtime engine to execute an application, the management process operating independently of the runtime engine;

executing the application inside the runtime engine in response to the execute command, the application being implemented by an application file comprising a plurality of data blocks, the application executing on an operating system configured to generate a thread identifier for each thread executing on the operating system;

determining, by the runtime engine, a pseudo thread identifier as a function of a first time value indicating when a thread was created and an associated thread identifier generated by the operating system for the thread when the thread was created;

sending, by the runtime engine, a thread start message comprising the pseudo thread identifier to the management process, the thread start message comprising the first time value indicating when the thread was created;

detecting, by the runtime engine, a plurality of read operations performed by the executing application on the plurality of data blocks;

sending, by the runtime engine, a plurality of read messages to the management process, each read message being sent after the runtime engine has detected at least one of the plurality of read operations;

storing, by the management process, information included in the plurality of read messages in a transcript file, the transcript file including an access order for the plurality of data blocks; and

determining, by a computing device, an order in which to download the plurality of data blocks to a client computing device based at least in part on the access order stored in the transcript file.

2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein detecting the plurality of read operations performed by the executing application comprises:

receiving a thread discriminate value from the thread when the thread performs a read operation on the application file, at least one of the plurality of read messages comprising the thread discriminate value, the thread having been created by a module, the module being associated with a module identifier, execution of the thread having been initiated at an offset location within the module, the thread discriminate value including the module identifier and an offset value identifying the offset location in the module.

3. The computer-implemented method of claim 2, wherein the module is a Dynamic Link Library file or an executable file.

4. The computer-implemented method of claim 2, wherein detecting the plurality of read operations performed by the executing application comprises:

receiving the pseudo thread identifier from the thread when the thread performs the read operation on the application file, the at least one read message comprising the pseudo thread identifier.

5. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein detecting the plurality of read operations performed by the executing application comprises:

receiving the pseudo thread identifier from the thread when the thread performs a read operation on the application file, at least one of the plurality of read messages comprising the pseudo thread identifier.

6. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the thread is initiated by the execution of the application, and the method further comprises:

determining, by the runtime engine, a thread discriminate value for the thread; and

instructing, by the runtime engine, the thread to store the thread discriminate value determined for the thread in a thread-local-storage accessible by only the thread.

7. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the thread is initiated by the execution of the application, and the thread was created by a module associated with a module identifier and execution of the thread was initiated at an offset location within the module, and the method further comprises:

determining, by the runtime engine, a thread discriminate value for the thread as a function of the module identifier and an offset value identifying the offset location in the module; and

instructing, by the runtime engine, the thread to store the thread discriminate value determined for the thread in a thread-local-storage accessible by only the thread.

8. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising:

instructing, by the runtime engine, the thread to store the pseudo thread identifier in a thread-local-storage accessible by only the thread.

9. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the operating system is configured to generate a process identifier for each process executing on the operating system, and the method further comprises:

determining, by the runtime engine, a pseudo process identifier as a function of a second time value indicating when the application began executing and a process identifier generated by the operating system for the application when the application began executing; and

sending, by the runtime engine, a process start message comprising the pseudo process identifier and the second time value indicating when the application began executing to the management process.

10. The computer-implemented method of claim 9, wherein the pseudo process identifier is determined by performing a hash function on the second time value and the process identifier generated by the operating system for the application when the application began executing.

11. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the pseudo thread identifier is determined by performing a hash function on the first time value and the associated thread identifier generated by the operating system for the thread when the thread was created.

12. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein detecting the plurality of read operations performed by the executing application comprises detecting read operations performed using an IStream interface.

13. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the application file is a virtualized application file and the runtime engine is a virtual runtime engine.

14. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein each of the plurality of read messages comprises:

an offset value indicating where in the application file a particular one of the plurality of read operations started, and

a length value indicating an amount of the application file read.

15. The computer-implemented method of claim 14, wherein each of the plurality of read messages comprises a process identifier identifying a process that performed the particular read operation.

16. The computer-implemented method of claim 15, wherein each of the plurality of read messages comprises a particular thread identifier identifying a particular thread of the process that performed the particular read operation.

17. The computer-implemented method of claim 14, wherein each of the plurality of read messages comprises a timestamp value or a current operating system tick count value.

18. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising:

sending, by the runtime engine, a process start message to the management process when execution of the application has begun.

19. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the management process comprises a named pipe,

the method further comprises connecting, by the runtime engine, to the named pipe of the management process, and

each of the plurality of read messages is sent to the management process over the connection with the named pipe of the management process.

20. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving, by the runtime engine, a pause command from the management process to pause execution of the application file; and

pausing, by the runtime engine, execution of the application file in response to receiving the pause command.

21. A computer-implemented method comprising:

sending, by a management process, an execute command to a runtime engine to execute an application, the application being implemented by an application file comprising a plurality of data blocks;

receiving, by the management process, a thread start message from the runtime engine after the runtime engine begins executing the application on an operating system configured to generate a thread identifier for each thread executing on the operating system, the thread start message comprising a pseudo thread identifier that uniquely identifies a thread, the thread start message comprising a first time value indicating when the thread was created, the pseudo thread identifier having been determined as a function of the first time value and an associated thread identifier generated by the operating system for the thread when the thread was created;

recording, by the management process, the pseudo thread identifier in a transcript;

receiving, by the management process, a plurality of access request messages from the runtime engine, at least one of the plurality of access request messages comprising the pseudo thread identifier, information in the plurality of access request messages identifying ones of the plurality of data blocks to which the executing application requested access, each of the plurality of access request messages having been received after the executing application requested access to a selected one or more of the plurality of data blocks, and indicating the executing application has requested access to the selected one or more data blocks;

recording, by the management process, that the executing application requested access to the ones of the plurality of data blocks in the transcript, the transcript identifying an access order in which the ones of the plurality of data blocks were accessed by the executing application; and

determining, by a build server, an order in which to download the plurality of data blocks to a client computing device based at least in part on the access order stored in the transcript.

22. The computer-implemented method of claim 21, further comprising:

establishing, by the management process, a named pipe connection with the runtime engine, wherein the plurality of access request messages are received from the runtime engine over the named pipe connection.

23. The computer-implemented method of claim 21, further comprising:

after the runtime engine begins executing the application, receiving, by the management process, a process start message from the runtime engine, the process start message comprising a process identifier; and

recording, by the management process, the process identifier in the transcript.

24. The computer-implemented method of claim 21, further comprising:

after the runtime engine begins executing the application, receiving, by the management process, a process start message from the runtime engine, the process start message comprising a pseudo process identifier that uniquely identifies the executing application; and

recording, by the management process, the pseudo process identifier in the transcript.

25. The computer-implemented method of claim 24, wherein the application is executing on an operating system configured to generate a process identifier for each process executing on the operating system,

the process start message comprises a second time value indicating when the application began executing, and

the pseudo process identifier is determined as a function of the second time value and a process identifier generated by the operating system for the application when the application began executing.

26. The computer-implemented method of claim 25, wherein the pseudo process identifier is determined by performing a hash function on the second time value and the process identifier generated by the operating system for the application when the application began executing.

27. The computer-implemented method of claim 21, wherein the application file comprises a file name, and the method further comprises:

after the runtime engine begins executing the application, receiving, by the management process, a process start message from the runtime engine, the process start message comprising the file name of the application file.

28. The computer-implemented method of claim 21, further comprising:

after the runtime engine begins executing the application, receiving, by the management process, a process start message from the runtime engine, the process start message comprising a pseudo process identifier that uniquely identifies the executing application, a particular one of the plurality of access request messages comprising the pseudo process identifier; and

associating, by the management process, the particular access request message with the pseudo process identifier using a dictionary.

29. The computer-implemented method of claim 21, further comprising:

each time the executing application creates a new thread, creating, by the management process, a new data structure for the new thread, the new data structure storing a thread identifier.

30. The computer-implemented method of claim 21, wherein the pseudo thread identifier is determined by performing a hash function on the first time value and the associated thread identifier generated by the operating system for the thread when the thread was created.

31. The computer-implemented method of claim 21, wherein the application file is a virtualized application file and the runtime engine is a virtual runtime engine.

32. The computer-implemented method of claim 21, further comprising:

uploading, by the management process, the transcript to the build server.

33. The computer-implemented method of claim 21, further comprising:

downloading, by the management process, the entire application file from a server before sending the execute command to the runtime engine.

34. A computer-implemented method comprising:

receiving, by a runtime engine, an execute command from a management process, the execute command instructing the runtime engine to execute an application, the management process operating independently of the runtime engine;

executing the application inside the runtime engine in response to the execute command, the application being implemented by an application file comprising a plurality of data blocks;

detecting, by the runtime engine, a plurality of read operations performed by the executing application on the plurality of data blocks, detecting the plurality of read operations comprising receiving a thread discriminate value from a thread when the thread performs a read operation on the application file, the thread having been created by a module, the module being associated with a module identifier, execution of the thread having been initiated at an offset location within the module, the thread discriminate value including the module identifier and an offset value identifying the offset location in the module;

sending, by the runtime engine, a plurality of read messages to the management process, each read message being sent after the runtime engine has detected at least one of the plurality of read operations, at least one of the plurality of read messages comprising the thread discriminate value;

storing, by the management process, information included in the plurality of read messages in a transcript file, the transcript file including an access order for the plurality of data blocks; and

determining, by a computing device, an order in which to download the plurality of data blocks to a client computing device based at least in part on the access order stored in the transcript file.

35. The computer-implemented method of claim 34, further comprising:

determining, by the runtime engine, the thread discriminate value as a function of the module identifier and the offset value.

36. The computer-implemented method of claim 35, further comprising:

instructing, by the runtime engine, the thread to store the thread discriminate value in a thread-local-storage accessible by only the thread.

37. A computer-implemented method comprising:

receiving, by a runtime engine, an execute command from a management process, the execute command instructing the runtime engine to execute an application, the management process operating independently of the runtime engine;

executing the application inside the runtime engine in response to the execute command, the application being implemented by an application file comprising a plurality of data blocks, the application executing on an operating system configured to generate a process identifier for each process executing on the operating system;

determining, by the runtime engine, a pseudo process identifier as a function of a time value indicating when the application began executing and a process identifier generated by the operating system for the application when the application began executing;

sending, by the runtime engine, a process start message comprising the pseudo process identifier and the time value;

detecting, by the runtime engine, a plurality of read operations performed by the executing application on the plurality of data blocks;

sending, by the runtime engine, a plurality of read messages to the management process, each read message being sent after the runtime engine has detected at least one of the plurality of read operations;

storing, by the management process, information included in the plurality of read messages in a transcript file, the transcript file including an access order for the plurality of data blocks; and

determining, by a computing device, an order in which to download the plurality of data blocks to a client computing device based at least in part on the access order stored in the transcript file.

38. The computer-implemented method of claim 37, wherein the pseudo process identifier is determined by performing a hash function on the time value and the process identifier generated by the operating system for the application when the application began executing.