METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR MONITORING AND SYNCHRONIZING USER INTERFACE EVENTS WITH NETWORK DATA

• US 20080005793A1
• Filed: 12/27/2006
• Published: 01/03/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 06/30/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Acoustic, L.P.
• Original Assignee: Tealeaf Technology Incorporated (International Business Machines Corporation)
• Inventors: Austin, Paul, Knudsen, Ted, Wenig, Robert, Berkley, John, Dawes, John, Herda, Wolf, Saathoff, Kirk, Gettier, Al
• Granted Patent: US 8,127,000 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 726/22
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3438 monitoring of user actions tracking the activity of the user H04L67/535
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3476 Data logging G06F11/14, G06F11/2205 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3495 for systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/875 Monitoring of systems including the internet

Abstract

Network data associated with a network session is captured at a first location. The network data includes, but is not limited to, web page data transmitted over a network between a web server and a user terminal. User interface events associated with the same network session are separately captured at a second user terminal location. The user interface events include, but are not limited to, user inputs for interacting with the web page data. Both the captured network data and the separately captured user interface events are then used for analyzing the network session.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

capturing network data associated with a network session at a first location, the network data including, but not limited to, web page data transmitted over a network between a web server and a user terminal;

separately capturing user interface events associated with the same network session at a second user terminal location, the user interface events including, but not limited to, user inputs for interacting with the web page data; and

using both the captured network data and the separately captured user interface events for analyzing the network session.

2. The method according to claim 1 including sending a user interface monitor along with some of the web page data sent to the user terminal, the user interface monitor capturing the user interface events for the network session.

3. The method according to claim 2 including:

capturing the network data either at the web server location or at another network location remote from the user terminal; and

independently using the user interface monitor to capture the user interface events at the user terminal.

4. The method according to claim 1 including assigning a common session identifier to both the network data and the user interface events associated with the network session and then using the assigned session identifier to associate the captured network data and the captured user interface events with the same network session.

5. The method according to claim 1 including synchronizing replay of the captured user inputs with the captured web page data in a similar order as previously occurring between the user interface events and network data during the network session.

6. The method according to claim 1 including:

replaying the captured user inputs with the captured web page data to virtually recreate a same network session rendering; and

conducting analytics using the virtually recreated network session rendering.

7. The method according to claim 6 including:

scanning the rendering for messages or events that only occur locally on the user terminal, that are not persistently stored on the user terminal after being rendered, and are never transferred over the network;

identifying the messages or events; and

using the identified messages or events for analyzing the network session.

8. A monitoring system, comprising:

one or more processing devices configured to capture both network data transferred over a network during a web session and also capture local input events generated by a terminal when interacting with the network data during the web session;

the same or other processing devices further configured to use both the captured network data and the captured local input events to analyze the network session.

10. The monitoring system according to claim 8 including:

a first processing device that captures the network data sent and received by a web server during the web session;

a second processing device that captures the local input events generated by the web terminal that interact with the network data; and

a third processing device that receives the captured network data from the first processing device and the captured local input events from the second processing device for analyzing the network session.

11. The monitoring system according to claim 10 wherein the third processing device virtually replays the network session by automatically synchronizing the execution of the captured network data with the captured local input events to recreate a terminal rendering from the original network session.

12. The monitoring system according to claim 8 including the same or another processing device configured to send a monitoring script along with some of the network data sent to the terminal that captures the local input events for the network session at the terminal.

13. The monitoring system according to claim 8 wherein one or more of the processing devices applies time stamps in the captured network data and the captured local input events and one or more of the processing devices use the timestamps to identify an amount of time taken to complete different operations during the network session.

9. The monitoring system according to claim 9 wherein one or more of the processing devices are configured to synchronize replay of the captured network data and captured local input events to recreate a previous rendering of the network session.

14. A network monitoring system, comprising:

a processing device configured to use both network data captured for a web session at a first remote location and user interface events captured for the same web session at a second user terminal location to perform analytics on the web session.

15. The network monitoring system according to claim 14 wherein the processing device is configured to use pre-assigned session identifiers to identify the captured network data and captured user interface events associated with the same network session.

16. The network monitoring system according to claim 14 wherein the processing device is further configured to synchronize a rendering of at least some of the captured network data with execution of at least some of the captured user interface events so that the network session is re-rendered in substantially the same manner as originally rendered during the network session.

17. The network monitoring system according to claim 16 wherein the processing device is further configured to scan the re-rendered network session to identify messages or events that only occurred locally on the web terminal, that were not persistently stored after originally being rendered on the web terminal, and were never transferred over a network to a web server during the web session.

18. A method for analyzing a network session, comprising:

receiving network data that was captured while being transmitted over a network during a network session;

receiving user inputs that were captured at a user terminal while a user was interacting with the network data during the network session; and

virtually replaying the network session by executing and rendering portions of the network data according to the captured user inputs.

19. The method according to claim 18 including using the virtual replay to identify non-persistent network session events that only existed during the network session, were not stored at the user terminal, and were not transferred over the network during the original network session.

20. The method according to claim 18 including:

at least initially conducting the network session with a first web application operating on a first web server;

capturing the user events associated with the first web application at the user terminal and capturing the network data exchanged over the network between the first web application and the user terminal;

conducting at least a portion of the network session with a second web application on a second different web server;

capturing the user events associated with the second different web application; and

using the captured user events and network data associated with the first web application and the captured user events associated with the second web application to analyze the network session.

21. The method according to claim 18 including:

capturing the network data exchanged over the network between a web application and a the user terminal during the network session;

assigning time stamp values to the captured network data;

capturing the user inputs at the user terminal that interact with the network data;

assigning time stamp values to the captured user inputs; and

comparing the time stamp values for the captured network data with the time stamp values for the captured user inputs to determine times for different events in the network session.

22. A method, comprising:

receiving a request to conduct a network session; and

responding to the request with network session data that includes an event monitor that captures user events during the network session that when used along with portions of the network session allow recreation of the network session.

23. The method according to claim 22 including:

sending web page logic along with the network session data that performs different logic operations at a client terminal according to the user responses; and

using both the captured network session data and the captured user responses to replay the different logic operations performed by the web page logic at the client terminal during the network session.

24. The method according to claim 23 including sending a java script along with a web page in the network session data that operates as the event monitor.