HIERARCHY FOR CHARACTERIZING INTERACTIONS WITH AN APPLICATION

• US 20070266045A1
• Filed: 11/30/2006
• Published: 11/15/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 05/11/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: CA, Inc. (d/b/a CA Technologies) (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Computer Associates Think Inc. (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Inventors: Thio, Ling, Bansal, Jyoti K., Cobb, Jeffrey R.
• Granted Patent: US 7,805,510 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/125 involving control of end-device applications over a network
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/14 Session management for real-time applications in data packet communications networks H04L65/1066
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/146 Markers for unambiguous identification of a particular session, e.g. session cookie or URL-encoding
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/535 Tracking the activity of the user network monitoring arrangements H04L43/00; recording of computer activity G06F11/34

Abstract

Application runtime data is obtained from an application monitoring system which monitors execution of an application, and traffic monitoring data is obtained from a traffic monitoring system which monitors traffic to/from the application as the clients interact with the application. Corresponding application runtime data and traffic monitoring data can be selectively output to assist an operator in investigating an anomalous condition. The data can be classified and selectively output according to one or more hierarchies which characterize the interactions. The hierarchies can include a domain level, a business process level (where a domain is made up of a number of business processes), a business transaction level (where a business process is made up of different business transactions), an individual transaction level (where a business transaction is made up of different transactions), and a transaction component level (where a transaction is made up of one or more transaction components).

Claims

1. A method for providing information regarding an application, comprising:

generating application runtime data based on execution of an application, the execution is responsive to at least one client interacting with the application;

classifying the application runtime data according to a hierarchy, thereby providing classified application runtime data, the hierarchy comprising different levels which characterize the interacting; and

providing an output using the classified application runtime data.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein:

the classifying comprises classifying an aggregation of application runtime data associated with a plurality of clients according to the hierarchy.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein:

the classifying comprises comparing components of at least one of a request provided to the application by the at least one client and a response provided to the at least one client by the application to a set of definitions to determine a matching definition, the matching definition being associated with at least one level of the hierarchy.

4. The method of claim 3 wherein:

the definitions comprise at least one of URLs, HTTP post parameters, cookie parameters, query parameters and session manager parameters.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein:

the providing an output comprises displaying an interface which allows viewing of a selected portion of the classified application runtime data according to a selected level of the hierarchy.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein:

the hierarchy identifies a business process, and business transactions which are parts of the business process.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein:

at least one level of the hierarchy is associated with a transaction.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein:

at least one level of the hierarchy is associated with a set of web pages.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein:

at least one level of the hierarchy is associated with a set of transactions, each transaction being associated with at least one web page.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein:

at least one level of the hierarchy is associated with a request-response pair which represents a request provided to the application by the at least one client and an associated response provided to the at least one client by the application.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein:

the application runtime data indicates components invoked by the application during execution of the application.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein:

the providing an output comprises displaying an interface which represents the hierarchy as a tree with selectable nodes so that the classified application runtime data is selectively displayed based on which of the selectable nodes is selected.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein:

the different levels of the hierarchy characterize the interacting from a perspective of the at least one client with different degrees of breadth.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein:

the different levels of the hierarchy characterize the interacting according to a business model with different degrees of breadth.

15. A method for providing information regarding an application, comprising:

generating traffic monitoring data based on traffic to and from an application;

classifying the traffic monitoring data according to a first hierarchy, thereby providing classified traffic monitoring data, the first hierarchy comprising different levels which characterize the interacting;

generating application runtime data based on execution of the application, the execution is responsive to at least one client interacting with the application;

classifying the application runtime data according to a second hierarchy, thereby providing classified application runtime data, the second hierarchy comprising different levels which characterize the interacting; and

providing an output using the classified traffic monitoring data and the classified application runtime data.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein:

the first and second hierarchies include at least one shared hierarchical level.

17. The method of claim 15, wherein:

the first hierarchy includes at least one hierarchical level which is not shared with the second hierarchy.

18. The method of claim 15, wherein:

the classifying the traffic monitoring data comprises comparing components of the traffic to a set of definitions to determine a matching definition, the matching definition being associated with at least one level of the first hierarchy.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein:

the definitions comprise at least one of URLs, HTTP post parameters, cookie parameters, query parameters and session manager parameters.

20. The method of claim 15, wherein:

the classifying the application runtime data comprises comparing components of at least one of a request provided to the application by the at least one client and a response provided to the at least one client by the application to a set of definitions to determine a matching definition, the matching definition being associated with at least one level of the second hierarchy.

21. The method of claim 20, wherein:

the definitions comprise at least one of URLs, HTTP post parameters, cookie parameters, query parameters and session manager parameters.

22. The method of claim 15, wherein:

the classifying the traffic monitoring data comprises classifying an aggregation of traffic monitoring data associated with a plurality of clients according to the first hierarchy.

23. The method of claim 15, wherein:

the classifying the application runtime data comprises classifying an aggregation of application runtime data associated with a plurality of clients according to the second hierarchy.

24. The method of claim 15, wherein:

the providing an output comprises displaying an interface which allows viewing of a selected portion of the classified application runtime data according to a selected level of the second hierarchy.

25. The method of claim 15, wherein:

the second hierarchy identifies a business process, and business transactions which are parts of the business process.

26. The method of claim 15, wherein:

at least one level of the second hierarchy is associated with a transaction.

27. The method of claim 15, wherein:

at least one level of the second hierarchy is associated with a set of web pages.

28. The method of claim 15, wherein:

at least one level of the second hierarchy is associated with a set of transactions, each transaction being associated with at least one web page.

29. The method of claim 15, wherein:

at least one level of the second hierarchy is associated with a request-response pair which represents a request provided to the application by the at least one client and an associated response provided to the at least one client by the application.

30. The method of claim 15, wherein:

the application runtime data indicates components invoked by the application during execution of the application.

31. The method of claim 15, wherein:

the different levels of the second hierarchy characterize the interacting from a perspective of the at least one client with different degrees of breadth.

32. The method of claim 15, wherein:

the different levels of the second hierarchy characterize the interacting according to a business model with different degrees of breadth.

33. At least one processor readable storage device having processor readable code embodied thereon for programming at least one processor to perform a method, the method comprising:

generating application runtime data based on execution of an application, the execution is responsive to at least one client interacting with the application;

classifying the application runtime data according to a hierarchy, thereby providing classified application runtime data, the hierarchy comprising different levels which characterize the interacting; and

providing an output using the classified application runtime data.

34. The at least one processor readable storage device of claim 34, wherein:

the providing an output comprises displaying an interface which allows viewing of a selected portion of the classified application runtime data according to a selected level of the hierarchy.

35. The at least one processor readable storage device of claim 34, wherein:

the classifying comprises comparing components of at least one of a request provided to the application by the at least one client and a response provided to the at least one client by the application to a set of definitions to determine a matching definition, the matching definition being associated with at least one level of the hierarchy.

36. The at least one processor readable storage device of claim 36, wherein:

the definitions comprise at least one of URLs, HTTP post parameters, cookie parameters, query parameters and session manager parameters.

37. A monitoring system, comprising:

one or more storage devices; and

one or more processors in communication with said one or more storage devices, said one or more processors perform a method, the method comprising the steps of;

generating application runtime data based on execution of an application, the execution is responsive to at least one client interacting with the application;

classifying the application runtime data according to a hierarchy, thereby providing classified application runtime data, the hierarchy comprising different levels which characterize the interacting; and

providing an output using the classified application runtime data.

38. The monitoring system of claim 37, wherein:

the providing an output comprises displaying an interface which allows viewing of a selected portion of the classified application runtime data according to a selected level of the hierarchy.

39. The monitoring system of claim 37, wherein:

the classifying comprises comparing components of at least one of a request provided to the application by the at least one client and a response provided to the at least one client by the application to a set of definitions to determine a matching definition, the matching definition being associated with at least one level of the hierarchy.

40. The monitoring system of claim 39, wherein:

the definitions comprise at least one of URLs, HTTP post parameters, cookie parameters, query parameters and session manager parameters.