Dynamic software performance models

• US 20070239766A1
• Filed: 03/31/2006
• Published: 10/11/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 03/31/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Papaefstathiou, Efstathios, Dournov, Pavel, Hardwick, Jonathan, Oslake, John
• Granted Patent: US 8,073,671 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/04 Forecasting or optimisation specially adapted for administrative or management purposes, e.g. linear programming or "cutting stock problem" market predictions or forecasting for commercial activities G06Q30/0202

Abstract

Simulating an application. A method that may be practiced in a computing environment configured for simulating an application modeled by an application model deployed in a performance scenario of a computing system by deploying service models of the application model to device models modeling devices. The method includes referencing a performance scenario to obtain a transaction being modeled as originating from a first device model. The transaction invokes of a first service model. The first service model specifies hardware actions for simulation. The first service model is referenced to determine the hardware actions for simulation and the next referenced service. The next referenced service specifies hardware actions to be added to the transaction and may specify invocation of other service models. A chain of hardware actions is generated by following the invocation path of the service models. The hardware actions are applied to device models to simulate the transaction.

Claims

1. In a computing environment configured for simulating a computing system, a computer readable medium comprising:

a first data structure defining an application model to model a computer application, wherein the application model comprises;

service models defined within the application model, the services models being designed to model application modules that process requests to implement functionality of the application, the definition of service models comprising definitions of hardware actions.

2. The computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein the service models are defined independent of definitions of hardware device models and any specific performance scenario such that the service models can be applied to hardware device models defining hardware device characteristics and hardware interconnections by an instantiated performance scenario that is able to reuse service models to represent various deployments of software workloads in distributed computer systems.

3. The computer readable medium of claim 1, further comprising one or more second data structures defining device models, the device models including definitions of computer hardware characteristics that can model the hardware actions defined in the service models.

4. The computer readable medium of claim 2, further comprising a third data structure defining a performance scenario, the performance scenario defining interconnections of device models and/or defining inclusion of device models within other device models.

5. The computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein the application models comprises a first service model and a second service model, wherein the first service model includes in invocation of the second service model such that the functionality of the first service model includes the functionality of the second service model.

6. The computer readable medium of claim 5 further comprising a third data structure defining a performance scenario, the performance scenario defining instantiations of device models including interconnections and configurations of device models and/or defining inclusion of device models within other device models, one or more of the device models including an instantiation of the first service model and a definition of a bounded set of instantiations of the second service model that can be invoked by the instantiation of the first service model.

7. The computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein the application model is embodied in a low level programming language compiled from a high level domain specific language.

8. The computer readable medium of claim 7, wherein the low level programming language is C#.

9. The computer readable medium of claim 4, further comprising computer executable instructions defining a workload generator, the workload generator configured to generate workload requests applied to the device models instantiated in the performance scenario.

10. The computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein the first data structure comprises XML code.

11. The computer readable medium of claim 1, further comprising a user defined assemblies field including user designed functions that can be implemented by the application model.

12. The computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein the first data structure comprises information describing at least one of software contention or a background load for the application model.

13. In a computing environment configured for simulating an application modeled by an application model, the application model modeling an application that may be deployed in a performance scenario of a computing system by deploying service models of the application model to device models modeling devices in the computing system in the performance scenario, a method of simulating the application, the method comprising

referencing a performance scenario to obtain a next transaction to be modeled, the transaction specifying the invocation of a first service model of an application model, the first service model specifying specific hardware actions to be simulated;

referencing the first service model to determine the specific hardware actions to be simulated; and

generating a chain of hardware actions and applying the hardware actions to one or more device models to simulate the transaction.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the first service model invokes a second service model.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein the first service model is mapped to a device model and the second service model is mapped on another device model, and wherein generating a chain of hardware actions comprises dynamically generating hardware actions including network communication actions from the first device model to the other device model to invoke the second service.

16. The method of claim 14, wherein the first service model invokes the second service model by invoking a service model instance specified in a set of service model instances defined in the performance scenario, wherein the set of service model instances is declared in the first service model and the declaration is independent of any performance scenario.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein the first service model invokes the second service model using a scheduling policy to select the second service model instance from the set of service model instances defined in the performance scenario.

18. Computer readable media comprising computer executable instructions for performing the acts of claim 13.

19. The method of claim 14, wherein generating a chain of hardware actions is determined by sub-service mapping defined in the performance scenario.

20. In a computing environment configured for simulating a computing system, a method of creating a model embodied on a computer readable medium, the method comprising

defining in a computer readable media interconnections of device models, the device models representing hardware devices in a computing environment;

defining in the computer readable media deployment of an application model by specifying mapping of service models of the application model to one or more of the device models, wherein the service models define hardware activities to be simulated by the device models.

21. The method of claim 20, further comprising defining sub-services for device models to control which device models simulate which hardware activities.