INTEGRATING TRAFFIC MONITORING DATA AND APPLICATION RUNTIME DATA

• US 20070266149A1
• Filed: 12/04/2006
• 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, Cobb, Jeffrey R., O'Sullivan, Patrick C.
• Granted Patent: US 8,656,006 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/224
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0213 Standardised network management protocols, e.g. simple network management protocol [SNMP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5009 Determining service level performance parameters or violations of service level contracts, e.g. violations of agreed response time or mean time between failures [MTBF]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5083 wherein the managed service relates to web hosting
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/535 Tracking the activity of the user network monitoring arrangements H04L43/00; recording of computer activity G06F11/34

Abstract

Information is obtained from an application monitoring system which monitors the execution of an application and a traffic monitoring system which monitors traffic between clients and the application. The clients interact with the application to perform transactions or other tasks. Traffic monitoring data, such as information regarding defects and incidents, and application runtime data, such as traces of invoked application components, can be integrated in an output such as an interface to provide an enhanced understanding of system performance. Related traffic monitoring data and application runtime data can be linked by a request-response pair identifier associated with a request provided to the application and a response provided by the application.

Claims

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

monitoring traffic between at least one client and an application as the at least one client interacts with the application;

monitoring execution of the application; and

providing an output responsive to the monitoring of the traffic and the monitoring of the application.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

comparing the monitored traffic to a set of definitions to determine one or more of the definitions that correspond to the monitored traffic, the output identifying the one or more of the definitions that correspond to the monitored traffic.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein:

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

4. The method of claim 2, wherein:

the definitions identify at least one of defects and incidents.

5. The method of claim 2, wherein:

the definitions identify transaction components.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein:

the output includes traffic monitoring data obtained from the monitoring of the traffic and application runtime data obtained from the monitoring of the execution of the application.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein:

the application runtime data comprises a trace indicating components invoked by the application during execution of the application.

8. The method of claim 6, wherein:

the traffic monitoring data comprises at least one of defect data and incident data.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein:

the output comprises an interface display.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the at least one client provides a request to the application and the application provides a corresponding response to the at least one client, the method further comprising:

providing, in the response, an identifier associated with the request and the response.

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

generating traffic monitoring data based on traffic between at least one client and an application as the at least one client interacts with the application;

generating application runtime data based on execution of the application;

integrating the traffic monitoring data and the application runtime data; and

reporting based on the integrated traffic monitoring data and application runtime data.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein:

the application runtime data comprises a trace indicating components invoked by the application during execution of the application.

13. The method of claim 11, wherein:

the output comprises an interface display which presents the traffic monitoring data and the application runtime data in one or more windows.

14. The method of claim 11, wherein:

the traffic monitoring data comprises at least one of defect data and incident data.

15. The method of claim 11, wherein the at least one client provides a request to the application and the application provides a corresponding response to the at least one client, the method further comprising:

providing, in the response, an identifier associated with the request and the response, the output being provided using the identifier.

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

generating traffic monitoring data based on monitored traffic between at least one client and an application as the at least one client interacts with the application; and

providing an output which includes the traffic monitoring data, the output including a link to application runtime data which is generated based on execution of the application.

17. The method of claim 16, further comprising:

comparing the monitored traffic to a set of definitions to determine one or more of the definitions that correspond to the monitored traffic, the output identifying the one or more of the definitions that correspond to the monitored traffic.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein:

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

19. The method of claim 16, wherein:

the application runtime data comprises a trace indicating components invoked by the application during execution of the application.

20. The method of claim 16, wherein:

the output comprises an interface display.

21. The method of claim 16, wherein:

the traffic monitoring data comprises at least one of defect data and incident data.

22. The method of claim 16, wherein the at least one client provides a request to the application and the application provides a corresponding response to the at least one client, the method further comprising:

providing, in the response, an identifier associated with the request and the response, the link to the application runtime data being provided using the identifier.

23. 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:

monitoring traffic between at least one client and an application as the at least one client interacts with the application;

monitoring execution of the application; and

providing an output responsive to the monitoring of the traffic and the monitoring of the application.

24. The at least one processor readable storage device of claim 23, wherein:

the output includes traffic monitoring data obtained from the monitoring of the traffic and application runtime data obtained from the monitoring of the execution of the application.

25. The at least one processor readable storage device of claim 24, wherein:

the application runtime data comprises a trace indicating components invoked by the application during execution of the application.

26. The at least one processor readable storage device of claim 24, wherein:

the traffic monitoring data comprises at least one of defect data and incident data.

27. The at least one processor readable storage device of claim 23, wherein the at least one client provides a request to the application and the application provides a corresponding response to the at least one client, the method further comprising:

providing, in the response, an identifier associated with the request and the response, the output being provided using the identifier.

28. 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;

monitoring traffic between at least one client and an application as the at least one client interacts with the application;

monitoring execution of the application; and

providing an output responsive to the monitoring of the traffic and the monitoring of the application.

29. The monitoring system of claim 28, wherein:

the output includes traffic monitoring data obtained from the monitoring of the traffic and application runtime data obtained from the monitoring of the execution of the application.

30. The monitoring system of claim 29, wherein:

the application runtime data comprises a trace indicating components invoked by the application during execution of the application.

31. The monitoring system of claim 29, wherein:

the traffic monitoring data comprises at least one of defect data and incident data.

32. The monitoring system of claim 29, wherein the at least one client provides a request to the application and the application provides a corresponding response to the at least one client, the method further comprising:

providing, in the response, an identifier associated with the request and the response, the output being provided using the identifier.

33. A monitoring system, comprising:

an application performance monitoring system; and

a network traffic monitoring system in communication with said application performance monitoring system.

34. The monitoring system of claim 33, wherein:

the application performance monitoring system monitors execution of an application as at least one client interacts with the application; and

the network traffic monitoring system monitors traffic between the at least one client and the application as the at least one client interacts with the application.

35. The monitoring system of claim 33, further comprising:

means for providing an output based on application runtime data generated by the application performance monitoring system and traffic monitoring data generated by the network traffic monitoring system.

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

generating traffic monitoring data at a network traffic monitoring system based on network traffic between at least one client and a set of one or more servers;

generating application runtime data based on performance of said one or more servers, said application runtime data being generated by an application performance monitoring system monitoring at least one application on said one or more servers;

communicating between said network traffic monitoring system and said application performance monitoring system; and

reporting results based on said steps of generating traffic monitoring data, generating application runtime data and communicating.

37. The method of claim 36, further comprising:

the communicating comprising providing an identifier from the application performance monitoring system to the network traffic monitoring system for use in associating the application runtime data and the traffic monitoring data.

38. The method of claim 37, wherein:

the identifier identifies a transaction comprising a request provided from the at least one client to the set of one or more servers and an associated response provided from the set of one or more servers to the at least one client.