REAL-TIME SYSTEM EXCEPTION MONITORING TOOL

• US 20080263556A1
• Filed: 04/17/2007
• Published: 10/23/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 04/17/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Oracle International Corporation (Oracle Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Oracle International Corporation (Oracle Corporation)
• Inventors: Chan, Wilson Wai Shun, Zoll, Michael, Pruscino, Angelo, Wang, Tak Fung
• Granted Patent: US 9,027,025 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 718/104
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3409 for performance assessment
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/81 Threshold
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/86 Event-based monitoring

Abstract

Techniques for monitoring resources of a computer system are provided. A monitoring process collects and reports utilization data for one or more resources of a computer system, such as CPU, memory, disk I/O, and network I/O. Instead of reporting just an average of the collected data over a period of time (e.g., 10 seconds), the monitoring process at least reports individually collected resource utilization values. If one or more of the utilization values exceed specified thresholds for the respective resources, then an alert may be generated. In one approach, the monitoring process is made a real-time priority process in the computer system to ensure that the memory used by the monitoring process is not swapped out of memory. Also, being a real-time priority process ensures that the monitoring process obtains a CPU in order collect resource utilization data even when the computer system is in a starvation mode.

Claims

1. A method for monitoring a computer system, comprising:

establishing a monitoring process as a real-time priority process in the computer system;

the monitoring process collecting a plurality of values, wherein each value of the plurality of values indicates a measure of utilization or responsiveness of a resource in the computer system at a different instant; and

based at least in part on the plurality of values, determining that one or more exceptional events occurred; and

in response to determining that the one or more exceptional events occurred, performing one or more specified actions.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the memory used by the monitoring process is never swapped out of memory while the computer system is operating.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the monitoring process obtains a CPU of the computer system whenever the monitoring process requests the CPU.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein:

a threshold value is associated with the resource; and

wherein an exceptional event occurs when one or more values of the plurality of values exceeds the threshold value.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein performing one or more specified actions includes issuing an alert to a user of the computer system.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein:

the computer system is connected to a network; and

performing one or more specified actions includes denying one or more requests from other nodes in the network for one or more resources of the computer system.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein performing one or more specified actions includes issuing an alert to one or more other processes, of the computer system, that perform one or more other actions in response to the alert.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the alert is issued to an interpretive engine, wherein the interpretive engine predicts, based on the alert and previous alerts, a probability that the one or more exceptional events may cause performance problems for the computer system.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein performing one or more specified actions includes generating one or more suggestions of possible actions that should be taken by a user of the computer system to avoid a decrease in performance of the computer system.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the resource is one of the CPU, a memory, a network queue, or a disk queue.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the computer system is a database instance in a cluster of a plurality of database instances that collectively manage a single database.

12. The method of claim 1, further comprising, for each other resource in the computer system:

the monitoring collecting a second plurality of values, wherein each value of the second plurality of values indicate a measure of utilization or responsiveness of said each other resource at a different instant, wherein a different threshold value is associated with said each other resource; and

determining whether one or more other exceptional events occurred, wherein each of the one or more exceptional events occur when one or more values of the set of values exceeds the different threshold value; and

performing one or more of the specified actions if the one or more other exceptional events occurred.

13. A machine-readable medium carrying one or more sequences of instructions which, when executed by one or more processors, causes the one or more processors to perform the method recited in claim 1.

14. A machine-readable medium carrying one or more sequences of instructions which, when executed by one or more processors, causes the one or more processors to perform the method recited in claim 2.

15. A machine-readable medium carrying one or more sequences of instructions which, when executed by one or more processors, causes the one or more processors to perform the method recited in claim 3.

16. A machine-readable medium carrying one or more sequences of instructions which, when executed by one or more processors, causes the one or more processors to perform the method recited in claim 4.

17. A machine-readable medium carrying one or more sequences of instructions which, when executed by one or more processors, causes the one or more processors to perform the method recited in claim 5.

18. A machine-readable medium carrying one or more sequences of instructions which, when executed by one or more processors, causes the one or more processors to perform the method recited in claim 6.

19. A machine-readable medium carrying one or more sequences of instructions which, when executed by one or more processors, causes the one or more processors to perform the method recited in claim 7.

20. A machine-readable medium carrying one or more sequences of instructions which, when executed by one or more processors, causes the one or more processors to perform the method recited in claim 8.

21. A machine-readable medium carrying one or more sequences of instructions which, when executed by one or more processors, causes the one or more processors to perform the method recited in claim 9.

22. A machine-readable medium carrying one or more sequences of instructions which, when executed by one or more processors, causes the one or more processors to perform the method recited in claim 10.

23. A machine-readable medium carrying one or more sequences of instructions which, when executed by one or more processors, causes the one or more processors to perform the method recited in claim 11.

24. A machine-readable medium carrying one or more sequences of instructions which, when executed by one or more processors, causes the one or more processors to perform the method recited in claim 12.