DYNAMICALLY CONFIGURABLE SESSION AGENT

• US 20110029665A1
• Filed: 10/14/2010
• Published: 02/03/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 08/14/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Acoustic, L.P.
• Original Assignee: Tealeaf Technology Incorporated (International Business Machines Corporation)
• Inventors: Punjabi, Manoj, Wenig, Robert I.
• Granted Patent: US 8,583,772 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/224
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3409 for performance assessment
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3438 monitoring of user actions tracking the activity of the user H04L67/535
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3495 for systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/86 Event-based monitoring
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/875 Monitoring of systems including the internet
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/44505 Configuring for program initiating, e.g. using registry, configuration files
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/542 Event management; Broadcasting; Multicasting; Notifications
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0213 Standardised network management protocols, e.g. simple network management protocol [SNMP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/01 Protocols
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/04 specially adapted for terminals or networks with limited capabilities; specially adapted for terminal portability
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/10 in which an application is distributed across nodes in the network software deployment G06F8/60; multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/46
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/133 Protocols for remote procedure calls [RPC]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/14 Session management for real-time applications in data packet communications networks H04L65/1066
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/142 Managing session states for stateless protocols; Signalling session states; State transitions; Keeping-state mechanisms
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/306 User profiles
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/535 Tracking the activity of the user network monitoring arrangements H04L43/00; recording of computer activity G06F11/34

Abstract

A monitoring system captures the behavior of distributed applications and also provides a framework for augmenting functionality of the application in response to user interactions and different states of the application and network. Network events exchanged between an application and an application server are captured and the local client events on the client device are also selectively captured. The different disparate network events and client events are then combined together during a replay operation to simulate the user experience during the previous application session.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

monitoring network events exchanged between an application located on a client and an application server located on a web server device;

identifying a state of the application session according to the network events; and

sending feedback instructions to a session agent on the client according to the state of the application session, wherein the feedback instructions dynamically determine what operations are performed by the session agent during the application session.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the feedback instructions dynamically determine what local client events are captured on the client by the session agent during the application session.

3. The method according to claim 2 wherein the feedback instructions cause the session agent to capture particular screen images during the application session.

4. The method according to claim 3 wherein the feedback instructions cause the session agent to capture different selectable sections of the screen images.

5. The method according to claim 3 wherein the session agent is configured to:

assign identifiers to the screen images associating the screen images with application sessions;

capture other client events and network events for the application session; and

assign an ordering to the screen images, client events, and network events identifying what order that the screen images, client events, and network events were captured.

6. The method of claim 2 wherein the feedback instructions direct the session agent to buffer at least some of the client events during the application session.

7. The method of claim 6 wherein the feedback instructions control when the session agent sends or discards the buffered client events to a session monitor.

8. The method of claim 1 wherein the feedback instructions cause the session agent to activate a support window according to an identified state of the application session.

9. The method of claim 1 wherein the feedback instructions cause the session agent to provide incentives for completing a transaction according to an identified state of the application session.

10. The method according to claim 9 wherein the feedback session agents are loaded onto different clients and the feedback instructions cause the session agents to capture the client events for a fixed percentage of the clients, for a random set of clients, according to the clients operating the application session, according to geographic zones where the clients are located, according to IP addresses of the clients, or according to prior application states of the clients.

11. The method according to claim 1 further comprising:

determining a capture operation length according to an amount of captured data, a time period, or a state of the application session; and

sending the feedback instructions to the session agent identifying the capture operation length.

12. An apparatus, comprising:

a processor configured to monitor network events sent from an application on a client to an application server during an application session and send feedback instructions back to an agent on the client according to the network events, wherein the feedback instructions are configured to vary actions performed by the session agent during the application session.

13. The apparatus of claim 12 wherein the processor is further configured to:

generate a user profile of user actions during the application session; and

send the feedback instructions to the agent according to the user profile.

14. The apparatus of claim 13 wherein the processor is further configured to:

monitor user activities during the application session;

update the user profile with the user activities; and

send different feedback instructions to the session agent according to the updated user profile.

15. The apparatus of claim 14 wherein the user activities include browsing, selecting, or ordering items during the application session, and the feedback instructions cause the session agent to display incentives when the user browsing, selection, or ordering activities identified in the user profile reach browsing, selecting, or ordering thresholds.

16. The apparatus of claim 12 wherein the feedback instructions determine what client events are captured by the agent on the client during the application session.

17. The apparatus of claim 12 wherein the processor is further configured to:

identify a conversion rate for transactions completed during application sessions with different users; and

send feedback instructions that vary an amount of user events captured by the agent during the application session according to the conversion rate.

18. The apparatus of claim 17 wherein the processor is configured to:

increase the amount of client events captured when the conversion rate is low or when a previous increase in the amount of client events captured increases the conversion rate; and

reduce the amount of client events captured when the conversion rate is high or when a previous decrease in the amount of captured client events increases the conversion rate.

19. The apparatus of claim 12 wherein the feedback instructions determine when the session agent captures screen images during the application session.

20. The apparatus of claim 12 wherein the processor is further configured to identify a communication bandwidth for the client and send feedback instructions back to the session agent to either send, delete, or maintain data in a client buffer according to the communication bandwidth.

21. A computing device, comprising:

a configuration file; and

a processor configured to modify operating parameters or code in the configuration file according to feedback instructions received from a session monitor during an application session and capture local client events during the application session according to the operating parameters in the configuration file.

22. The computing device according to claim 21 wherein the configuration file identifies what client events to capture for different states of the application session.

23. The computing device of claim 21 wherein operating parameters or code include support operations for assisting a user during associated states of the application session, and wherein the processor is configured to conduct the support operations when the associated states are detected during the application session.

24. The computing device of claim 21 wherein the feedback instructions identify incentives associated with application session transactions and the processor is configured to present the incentives to a user when the application session transactions are identified during the application session.

25. The computing device of claim 21 wherein the configuration file identifies what application sessions to capture, what application states to capture, what user events to capture, what screen images to capture, what client events from the application session to buffer, and what client events to forward to a session monitor.

26. The computing device of claim 21 wherein the processor is configured to vary an amount of events captured during the application session according to a transaction completion rate associated with the application session.

27. The computing device of claim 21 wherein the processor is further configured to store the local client events in a local buffer and send, delete, or maintain the local client events in the local buffer according to a communication bandwidth available for transmitting the local client events.