Method and system for business-oriented web services management

• US 20050080661A1
• Filed: 10/08/2003
• Published: 04/14/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 10/08/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Hewlett Packard Enterprise Development LP (Hewlett-Packard Enterprise Company)
• Original Assignee: Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. (HP Inc.)
• Inventors: Dayal, Umeshwar, Casati, Fabio, Shan, Ming-Chien
• Granted Patent: US 8,291,061 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/10
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/06 Generation of reports
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/062 related to network traffic
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/08 Monitoring or testing based on specific metrics, e.g. QoS, energy consumption or environmental parameters
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0805 by checking availability
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/02 based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]

Abstract

A method and system are disclosed for monitoring the performance of web-based services. The method comprises receiving a transaction from a client and routing the transaction to an appropriate web service for execution of the transaction. During execution of the transaction, performance data relating to the execution of the transaction is monitored and logged. The collected performance data is then queried based on pre-defined performance metrics and web service performance reports are generated. A system for the foregoing method is also disclosed.

Claims

1. A method for monitoring performance of web-based services, the method comprising:

receiving a transaction from a client;

routing the transaction to an appropriate web service for execution of the transaction;

executing the transaction;

monitoring and logging transaction execution performance data relating to receiving and executing the transaction; and

reporting the performance data based on pre-defined performance metrics.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the receiving the transaction includes tracking information relating to the transaction and communicating the information to a web services manager (WSM) for performance analysis.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the tracking and communicating steps are performed by a SOAP tracker.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the routing step is performed by a SOAP router or application server.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the monitoring and logging step includes the use of a service registry and a service composition engine to record and store data in service execution logs relating to instances of conversation transaction or composition transaction.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the reporting step is performed by the WSM.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the reporting step includes extracting data from a service registry or the service execution logs for use by the WSM to generate performance reports.

8. The method of claim 6, wherein the WSM further includes a WSM definer, a metric schema and a WSM engine to generate performance reports.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the WSM engine receives data from a SOAP tracker and data relating to conversation definitions, composition service definitions and related execution data.

10. The method of claim 6, wherein the WSM engine communicates with a web framework and related application servers to provide performance reports to business or IT personnel.

11. A computer system for monitoring performance of web-based services, the computer system comprising:

a tracking system for tracking information relating to a transaction communicated from a client;

a routing system for routing the transaction to an appropriate web service for execution of the transaction;

a data collection system for collecting performance data relating to the communication of the transaction from the client and the execution of the transaction by the web service; and

a reporting system for extracting the performance data and generating reports relating to the performance of the web services based on pre-defined performance metrics.

12. A system as recited in claim 11, wherein the tracking system further comprises a SOAP tracker device.

13. A system as recited in claim 11, wherein the tracking system receives tracking information relating to the transaction and communicates the information to a web services manager (WSM).

14. A system as recited in claim 11, wherein the routing system further comprises a SOAP router or application server.

15. A system as recited in claim 11, wherein the data collection system further comprises a service registry and a service composition engine to memorialize web service performance data in service execution logs.

16. A system as recited in claim 15, wherein the web service performance data in the service execution logs comprises data relating to instances of conversation transaction or composition transaction.

17. A system as recited in claim 11, wherein the reporting system further comprises a WSM.

18. A system as recited in claim 11, wherein the reporting system receives data from a service registry or service execution logs and transmits the data to the WSM.

19. A system as recited in claim 18, wherein the WSM comprises a WSM definer, a metric schema and a WSM engine.

20. A system as recited in claim 19, wherein the WSM engine receives data from a SOAP tracker and data relating to conversation definitions, composition service definitions and related execution data.

21. A system as recited in claim 19, wherein the WSM engine communicates with a web framework and related application servers.

22. A method for creating custom metrics for monitoring performance of web-based services, the method comprising:

providing a metrics construction model;

providing a metrics library containing metrics definitions;

selecting at least one built-in metric function from the metrics library; and

customizing the selected built-in metric function based on the metrics construction model by selecting parameters for the built-in metric function.

23. The method of claim 22, wherein the metrics construction model includes an algorithm for assembling the selected at least one metric function and the selected parameters into a custom metric.

24. The method of claim 22, wherein the metrics library is included in the WSM.

25. A method for correlating conversation metrics to composition metrics to analyze performance of web-based services, the method comprising:

collecting information relating to at least one metric associated with a conversation;

collecting information relating to at least one metric associated with a composition; and

correlating the collected conversation metric information to the collected composition metric information to determine the relationship between execution of instances of the execution of the composition and instances of execution of the conversation in terms of the performance of the web-based service.

26. The method of claim 25, wherein conversation metric information is obtained from a service registry;

and wherein composition metric information is obtained from a service composition engine.

27. A computing means for managing business-oriented web services, the computing means comprising:

a client interface means for conducting a conversation with a client, wherein the conversation includes passing at least one transaction between the client and a web service;

an operation means for executing the transaction based on a composition, wherein the composition includes a business logic internal to the web service;

a conversation tracking means for monitoring and storing data relating to the conversation performance;

a composition tracking means for monitoring and storing data relating to the composition performance; and

a processing means for compiling stored data relating to the conversation and composition into a report.

28. The computing means of claim 27, wherein a web services manager generates the report for display on a web framework.

29. A computer-readable storage medium for storing an executable set of software instructions, wherein the instructions are configured for managing business-oriented web services by a method comprising:

transmitting a transaction from a client to an appropriate web service for execution of the transaction;

executing the transaction;

monitoring and logging transaction execution performance data relating to transmitting and executing the transaction to a service execution log;

extracting the performance data from the service execution log;

parsing the performance data into a format readable by a web services manager; and

compiling the performance data into a report.

30. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 29, wherein the compiling step is coordinated by a web services manager.