Software reliability analysis using alerts, asserts and user interface controls

• US 20080313507A1
• Filed: 06/15/2007
• Published: 12/18/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 06/15/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Li, Yantao, Wang, Qiang, Zhang, Haidong, Dang, Yingnong, Wang, Jian, Zhu, Wenli, Mahmud, Adnan Azfar
• Granted Patent: US 7,681,085 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 714/49
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/008 Reliability or availability analysis
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3616 using software metrics
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/366 using diagnostics G06F11/0703 takes precedence

Abstract

Described is a technology by which software instrumentation data collected during software program usage sessions is analyzed to identify potential problems with software program usage, such as based on frequency of problem occurrence during the usage sessions. Reliability metrics may be calculated from the information. Failure data additionally collected during the usage sessions may be accessed to derive details that correspond to the potential problems. In one example, the information may be analyzed to determine which alerts and/or asserts occurred most often, and/or to determine a relationship between user interface control operations (e.g., clicks and usage of commands) and alerts or asserts.

Claims

1. In a computing environment, a method comprising:

analyzing information corresponding to a set of software instrumentation data collected during software program usage sessions to identify potential problems with at least one software program corresponding to the software instrumentation data, in which the potential problems are identified by frequency of occurrence during the usage sessions; and

accessing, based upon the potential problems, failure data additionally collected during the usage sessions, to derive details from the failure data that correspond to the potential problems.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein analyzing the information includes, filtering the software instrumentation data to locate a subset of session data corresponding to only program sessions that terminated abnormally.

3. The method of claim 2 wherein analyzing the information further comprises processing the subset to determine which alerts or asserts, or both alerts and asserts, occurred most often within that subset of sessions.

4. The method of claim 2 wherein analyzing the information further comprises calculating reliability metrics from the information.

5. The method of claim 4 wherein calculating the reliability metrics comprises computing at least one of:

crash information corresponding to a number of sessions of a user that crashed, failure information corresponding to a number of sessions that failed of a user, mean time to crash information corresponding to session length and sessions of a user that crashed, mean time to failure information corresponding to session length and number of sessions of a user that failed, mean commands to crash information, or mean commands to failure information, or any combination of crash information, failure information, mean time to crash information, mean commands to crash information, or mean commands to failure information.

6. The method of claim 5 further comprising, outputting a distribution mapping for at least one calculated reliability metric.

7. The method of claim 1 further comprising, determining the frequency of consecutive failures for a software product.

8. The method of claim 1 further comprising, determining which computer programs including at least one application of a selected software product were running concurrently when a problem occurred.

9. The method of claim 1 wherein analyzing the information comprises determining a relationship between user interface control operations and alerts or asserts.

10. The method of claim 1 wherein analyzing the information comprises performing an analysis on a selected group of users, or a selected program version, or a combination of a selected group of users and a selected program version.

11. A computer-readable medium having computer executable instructions, which when executed perform steps comprising, locating a set of users having problems with a software product, including determining from recorded session data one or more reliability metrics comprising at least one of:

crash information corresponding to a number of sessions of a user that crashed, failure information corresponding to a number of sessions that failed of a user, mean time to crash information corresponding to session length and sessions of a user that crashed, mean time to failure information corresponding to session length and number of sessions of a user that failed, mean commands to crash information, or mean commands to failure information, or any combination of crash information, failure information, mean time to crash information, mean commands to crash information, or mean commands to failure information, and for that set of users, determining whether each user belongs to a class of users for which failure data was recorded, and if so, accessing the failure data to derive details from the failure data that correspond to the recorded session data for that user.

12. The computer-readable medium of claim 11 having further computer-executable instructions comprising, outputting information corresponding to a subset of users based on their problems with the software product.

13. The computer-readable medium of claim 11 having further computer-executable instructions comprising, filtering the recorded session data to locate the set of users based on filtering criterion or criteria corresponding to at least one parameter in the recorded session data.

14. The computer-readable medium of claim 11 having further computer-executable instructions comprising, outputting a distribution mapping for each determined reliability metric.

15. The computer-readable medium of claim 11 having further computer-executable instructions comprising, determining the frequency of consecutive failures for a software product.

16. The computer-readable medium of claim 11 having further computer-executable instructions comprising, determining which computer programs including at least one application of the software product were running concurrently when a problem occurred.

17. In a computing environment, a system comprising:

an analyzer that processes information corresponding to software instrumentation data recorded from user software program usage sessions to determine which alerts or asserts, or both alerts and asserts, occurred during sessions;

a locator component that accesses failure data for at least one alert or assert determined by the analyzer; and

means for outputting results corresponding to alert or assert, or alert and assert occurrences, and any located failure data for each alert or assert.

18. The system of claim 17 wherein the analyzer processes the information to determine a relationship between user interface operations and alerts.

19. The system of claim 17 wherein the analyzer processes the information to determine a relationship between user interface operations and asserts.

20. The system of claim 17 further comprising means for filtering the information based on one or more session criteria or user criteria, or both session criteria and user criteria, to determine which alerts or asserts, or both alerts and asserts occurred during only those sessions that meet the criteria.