Transaction recognition and prediction using regular exp

• US 20060064487A1
• Filed: 11/11/2005
• Published: 03/23/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 08/11/1998
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: PLATINUM Technology IP, Inc. (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Computer Associates Think Inc. (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Inventors: Ross, Perry R.
• Granted Patent: US 7,483,976 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/224
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5054 Automatic deployment of services triggered by the service manager, e.g. service implementation by automatic configuration of network components
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/51 Discovery or management thereof, e.g. service location protocol [SLP] or web services
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99933 Query processing, i.e. searching
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99936 Pattern matching access

Abstract

The present invention is directed to a method and apparatus for identifying occurrences of transactions, especially in computer networks. A unique identifier, denoted “request identifier”, is associated with each service request. Accordingly, for a sequence of service requests detected, a corresponding sequence of request identifiers is generated. The request identifier sequence is compared to regular expressions that correspond to different transactions. If the request identifier sequence matches a regular expression, this sequence is deemed to represent an occurrence of that transaction.

Claims

1. A method for identifying an occurrence of a transaction, comprising:

decomposing a set of one or more service request identifiers, each service request identifier associated with a service request communicated between two network components and identified using a service request representation associated with the service request, each service request comprising at least a portion of a request by a first of the two network components for processing by a second of the two network components and the service request representation comprising a normalized service request to remove at least some service request-specific information from the service request; and

comparing the set with a predetermined regular expression characterizing the transaction.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

sorting the service request representations based upon at least one of the source and destination of a corresponding service request represented by the service request representation.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein each of the service request representations in the set is ordered by time and further comprising:

comparing a time interval between a second service request and a previous service request, wherein both have representations in the set, with a predetermined time interval to determine if the representation for the second service request is a part of the set of service request representations.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

assigning to a service request a unique identifier characterizing the service request, wherein said identifier is included in a corresponding service request representation for the service request.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the regular expression comprises one or more service request identifiers.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein a plurality of the service request representations in the set each have a unique identifier.

7. A system for identifying an occurrence of a transaction, comprising:

means for decomposing a set of one or more service request identifiers, each service request identifier associated with a service request communicated between two network components and identified using a service request representation associated with the service request, each service request comprising at least a portion of a request by a first of the two network components for processing by a second of the two network components and the service request representation comprising a normalized service request to remove at least some service request-specific information from the service request; and

means for comparing the set with a predetermined regular expression characterizing the transaction.

8. A system for recognizing an occurrence of a transaction, comprising:

a transaction analyzer operable to generate a set of one or more service request identifiers, each service request identifier associated with a service request communicated between two network components and identified using a service request representation associated with the service request, each service request comprising at least a portion of a request by a first of the two network components for processing by a second of the two network components and the service request representation comprising a normalized service request to remove at least some service request-specific information from the service request; and

a regular expression matcher operable to compare the set of one or more service request identifiers to at least one predetermined regular expression characterizing at least one identified transaction to determine whether the transaction representation corresponds to an occurrence of one of the identified transactions.

9. Software for identifying an occurrence of a transaction, the software encoded on at least one computer readable medium and operable when executed to:

decompose a set of one or more service request identifiers, each service request identifier associated with a service request communicated between two network components and identified using a service request representation associated with the service request, each service request comprising at least a portion of a request by a first of the two network components for processing by a second of the two network components and the service request representation comprising a normalized service request to remove at least some service request-specific information from the service request; and

compare the set with a predetermined regular expression characterizing the transaction.

10. The software of claim 9, further operable to sort the service request representations based upon at least one of the source and destination of a corresponding service request represented by the service request representation.

11. The software of claim 9, wherein each of the service request representations in the set is ordered by time, the software further operable to compare a time interval between a second service request and a previous service request, wherein both have representations in the set, with a predetermined time interval to determine if the representation for the second service request is a part of the set of service request representations.

12. The software of claim 9, further operable to assign to a service request a unique identifier characterizing the service request, wherein said identifier is included in a corresponding service request representation for the service request.

13. The software of claim 12, wherein the regular expression comprises one or more service request identifiers.

14. The software of claim 9, wherein a plurality of the service request representations in the set each have a unique identifier.