RULE-BASED SYSTEM FOR CLIENT-SIDE QUALITY-OF-SERVICE TRACKING AND REPORTING

• US 20090299940A1
• Filed: 05/30/2008
• Published: 12/03/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 05/30/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: KASIOLAS, ANASTASIOS, SANDKE, STEVEN ROBERT, EILEBRECHT, ERIC LYNN, POWER, MARC ANDREW, HAYES, MATTHEW TERENCE, JAGER, MARCUS J.
• Granted Patent: US 8,612,572 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 706/47
• CPC Class Codes: G06N 5/025 Extracting rules from data
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/50 Network service management, e.g. ensuring proper service fulfilment according to agreements
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/80 Responding to QoS
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/61 taking into account QoS or priority requirements

Abstract

Server-side control of client-side quality-of-service tracking is provided. When an event occurs at a client, a measurement client collects event parameters and generates aggregated measurement data in accordance with aggregation rules that are provided to the measurement client from a server-side measurement service. The measurement client periodically reports the aggregated measurement data to the measurement service for storage and analysis.

Claims

1. A method for tracking, at a client device, aggregated measurement data regarding interaction between the client device and a distributed system, the method comprising:

identifying the occurrence of an event at the client device, the event involving interaction between the distributed system and the client device;

accessing one or more aggregation rules for generating aggregated measurement data for the event, wherein the one or more aggregation rules are provided to the client device from at least one server device;

collecting event parameters from the event;

generating aggregated measurement data based on at least a portion of the event parameters in accordance with the one or more aggregation rules; and

communicating the aggregated measurement data for server-side storage.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein accessing the one or more aggregation rules comprises:

determining that the one or more aggregations rules have previously been received and stored by the client device; and

accessing the one or more aggregation rules stored at the client device.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein accessing the one or more aggregation rules comprises:

determining that the one or more aggregation rules are not currently available at the client device;

requesting the one or more aggregation rules from the at least one server; and

receiving the one or more aggregation rules from the at least one server.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein requesting the one or more aggregation rules from the at least one service comprises:

determining an event service name for the event; and

using DNS to resolve the event service name to a location for the at least one server device.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more aggregation rules comprise a tree of conditions and nodes with instructions for calculating aggregated measurement data and wherein generating the aggregated measurement data comprises:

traversing the tree of conditions based on conditions that are satisfied by the event to identify nodes attached to satisfied conditions; and

calculating the aggregated measurement data based on instructions corresponding with nodes attached to the satisfied conditions.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein generating the aggregated measurement data comprises updating previously collected aggregated measurement data using the one or more event parameters from the event in accordance with the one or more aggregation rules.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the method further comprises storing the aggregated measurement data at the client device until a reporting period specified by the one or more aggregation rules has expired.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein communicating the aggregated measurement data to at least one server device comprises determining that the reporting period has expired.

9. The method of claim 7, wherein the method further comprises updating the aggregated measurement data stored at the client device based on event parameters collected from at least one subsequent event.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the method further comprises:

updating the one or more aggregations rules with one or more new aggregation rules from the at least one server device to generate one or more updated aggregation rules;

collecting event parameters from a new event;

generating additional aggregated measurement data based on the event parameters from the new event in accordance with the one or more updated aggregation rules; and

communicating the additional aggregated measurement data for server-side storage.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the event is a cluster event that is associated with a particular server cluster.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein the event is a global event that is not associated with a particular server cluster.

13. One or more computer-storage media embodying computer-useable instructions that, when used by a server device, causes the server device to perform a method comprising:

receiving a request from a client device for one or more aggregation rules for generating aggregated measurement data for an event at the client device;

accessing one or more aggregation rules for the event;

communicating the one or more aggregation rules to the client device;

receiving aggregated measurement data for the event from the client device, wherein the client device generated the aggregated measurement data based on event parameters collected from the event and in accordance with the one or more aggregation rules; and

storing the aggregated measurement data.

14. The one or more computer-storage media of claim 13, wherein the server device maintains a plurality of sets of aggregations rules for a plurality of different types of event producers producing events at client devices and wherein accessing the one or more aggregations rules for the event comprises determining a set of aggregation rules corresponding with an event producer producing the event at the client device.

15. The one or more computer-storage media of claim 13, wherein the one or more aggregation rules specify a collection interval over which events are aggregated at the client device.

16. The one or more computer-storage media of claim 13, wherein the one or more aggregation rules specify a reporting interval indicating a frequency with which aggregated measurement data is reported from the client device to the server device.

17. The one or more computer-storage media of claim 13, wherein one or more aggregation rules specify information regarding how aggregated measurement data received from the client device is stored.

18. The one or more computer-storage media of claim 13, wherein storing the aggregated measurement data comprises providing the aggregated measurement data to a datastore service, wherein the datastore service stores the aggregated measurement data in a datastore.

19. A system providing client-side event tracking, the system comprising:

at least one server device including a measurement service, the measurement service having access to one or more aggregation rules for generating aggregated measurement data at a client device and a reporting period specifying a frequency with which aggregated measurement data is reported;

at least one client device including an event producer comprising an application or library that produces an event involving interaction with a distributed system, the event having an event service name, the at least one client device also including a measurement client for tracking aggregated measurement data associated with the event from the event producer, wherein the measurement client uses DNS to resolve the event service name and identify the server device and communicates with the measurement service to access the one or more aggregation rules, wherein the measurement client collects event parameters from the event and generates aggregated measurement data from the event parameters in accordance with the one or more aggregation rules, and wherein the measurement client communicates the aggregated measurement data to the measurement service based on the reporting period in the event configuration.

20. The system of claim 19, wherein the event configuration further includes information specifying how the measurement service handles QoS metrics received from the client device.