SYSTEM IDENTIFYING AND INFERRING WEB SESSION EVENTS

• US 20110320880A1
• Filed: 06/23/2010
• Published: 12/29/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 06/23/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Acoustic, L.P.
• Original Assignee: Tealeaf Technology Incorporated (International Business Machines Corporation)
• Inventors: Wenig, Robert I., Punjabi, Manoj, Townsend, Geoff
• Granted Patent: US 8,533,532 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 714/39
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3414 Workload generation, e.g. scripts, playback
• 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 11/3664 Environments for testing or debugging software
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/86 Event-based monitoring
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/87 Monitoring of transactions
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/875 Monitoring of systems including the internet

Abstract

A test system uses an instrumented browser to identify events that were not successfully captured during a client web session. The identified events can be used to modify a capture system that captures the client web session. Alternatively, the test system may generate replay rules that are used by a replay system to infer the missed events while replaying of the previously captured client web session. The events can include changes to Document Object Models (DOMs) for web pages used during the web sessions. The DOMs can be used to identify significant web session events and force replay sessions into the correct states.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

capturing a first set of events on an instrumented browser for a first web session with a web application;

capturing a second set of events with a capture system operating with a non-instrumented browser for a second web session with the web application;

identifying differences between the first set of events and the second set of events; and

using the identified differences to analyze performance of the capture system.

2. The method according to claim 1 further comprising using the differences to generate replay rules that infer events missed by the capture system during the second web session.

3. The method according to claim 2 further comprising:

capturing a third set of events with the capture system, wherein the capture system operates with a client browser on a user processing device for a user web session with the web application;

logging the third set of events;

replaying the logged third set of events during a replay session; and

using the replay rules during the replay session to infer events that are not captured by the capture system during the user web session.

4. The method according to claim 3 further comprising:

identifying a missing User Interface (UI) event that was captured on the instrumented browser during the first web session but was not captured by the capture system during the second web session; and

generating a replay rule that generates the missing UI event during the replay session of the third set of events.

5. The method according to claim 4 wherein the replay rule triggers the missing UI event during the replay session in the same order that the corresponding UI event was identified during the first web session.

6. The method according to claim 1 further comprising:

identifying a first set of Document Object Models (DOMs) in the first set of events;

identifying a second set of DOMs in the second set of events; and

comparing the first set of DOMs with the second set of DOMs to identify the differences between the first set of events and the second set of events.

7. The method according to claim 6 further comprising:

identifying a difference between a first DOM change in the first set of DOMs and a second DOM change in the second set of DOMs; and

generating a replay rule according to the difference.

8. The method according to claim 6 further comprising:

identifying a first DOM change (DOM1 Δ

) between a first DOM state and a second DOM state in the first set of DOMs;

identifying a second DOM difference (DOM2 Δ

) between a first DOM state and a second DOM state in the second set of DOMs; and

generating a replay rule when DOM1 Δ

does not match DOM2 Δ

, wherein the replay rule infers DOM1 Δ

.

9. The method according to claim 1 further comprising:

identifying a User Interface (UI) event in the first set of events;

identifying a first Document Object Model change (DOM1 Δ

) in the first set of events associated with the first UI event;

identifying a same UI event in the second set of events;

identifying any second Document Object Model change (DOM2 Δ

) in the second set of events associated with the UI event; and

generating an event list that identifies the UI event and DOM1 Δ

when there are differences between the DOM1 Δ and

the DOM2 Δ

.

12. The test system according to claim 1 wherein the computer system is further configured to generate an event list according to the comparison between the reference events and the captured events, the event list identifying a User Interface (UI) event, a UI identifier, a Document Object Model change (DOM Δ

) between two DOM states of a web page, and a web page identifier.

13. The test system according to claim 12 wherein the computer system is further configured to generate replay rules from the event list that infer events that were missed by the capture system during the second web session.

10. A test system, comprising:

a computer system configured to compare reference events for a first web session with captured events captured by a capture system during a second web session, the computer system further configured to identify missed events during the second web session according to the comparisons between the reference events and the captured events.

11. The test system according to claim 10 wherein the computer system is further configured to operate an instrumented browser that generates the reference events and is further configured to operate a non-instrumented browser in conjunction with the capture system to generate the captured events.

14. The test system according to claim 10 wherein the computer system is configured to:

identify a first Document Object Model (DOM) state in the reference events;

identify a second DOM state in the reference events;

identify a first DOM change (DOM1 Δ

) between the first DOM state and the second DOM state of the reference events;

identify a first DOM state for the captured events;

identify a second DOM state for the captured events;

identify a second DOM change (DOM2 Δ

) between the first DOM state and the second DOM state of the captured events;

identify the missed events by comparing the DOM1 Δ

with the DOM2 Δ

.

15. The test system according to claim 14 wherein the computer system is further configured to generate a replay rule that forces the DOM1 Δ

during a replay session when the DOM2 Δ

does not match the DOM1 Δ

.

16. The test system according to claim 15 wherein the computer system is configured to identify a User Interface (UI) event associated with DOM1 Δ

and DOM2 Δ and

generate the replay rule that forces DOM1 Δ

when the UI event is detected in the captured events.

17. The test system according to claim 10 wherein the computer system is further configured to:

associate a User Interface (UI) event with a Document Object Model change (DOM Δ

) between a first Document Object Model state and a second DOM state in the reference events; and

determine if the same UI event causes a similar (DOM Δ

) in the captured events.

18. The test system according to claim 17 wherein the computer system is further configured to generate a replay rule that infers the UI event during a replay session when the captured events change from the first DOM state to the second DOM state.

19. The test system according to 10 wherein the computer system is configured to:

identify a particular one of the reference events;

identify any changes in a Document Object Model (DOM) state associated with the particular one of the reference events; and

determine whether or not to capture the particular one of the reference events according the changes, if any, identified in the DOM state.

20. A replay system, comprising:

a replay log configured to log events captured from a monitored client web session;

a session replay controller configured to replay the logged events; and

an inference engine comprising a set of replay rules that correspond with missed events that were not detected during the client web session, the inference engine configured to generate the missed events during a replay session of the logged events according to the replay rules.

21. The replay system according to claim 20 wherein the replay rules include User Interface (UI) events, UI identifiers, Document Object Model differences (DOM Δ

s), and/or web page identifiers associated with the missed events.

22. The replay system according to claim 20 wherein the inference engine is configured to identify logged events that correspond with a first replay event in the replay rules and generate a second replay event in the replay rules prior to the replaying the identified logged events.

23. The replay system according to claim 20 wherein the inference engine is configured to force Document Object Model (DOM) changes that are not normally generated during the replay session.

24. The replay system according to claim 20 wherein the replay rules are configured to associate a state of the client web session with a Document Object Model change (DOM Δ

), and the inference engine is configured to force the same DOM change when the state is detected during the replay session.

25. The replay system according to claim 20 wherein the inference engine is configured to compare Document Object Model changes (DOM Δ

s) in the replay rules with DOM Δ

s in the logged events.

26. A tangible computer-readable medium comprising executable instructions that, in response to execution by a computing device, cause the computing device to:

log events from a monitored client web session;

infer events that were missed during the client web session; and

generate the inferred events when replaying the logged events.

27. The tangible computer-readable storage medium of claim 26, further comprising executable instructions configured to instruct a computing device to generate the inferred events according to replay rules that associate the inferred events with the logged events.

28. The tangible computer-readable storage medium of claim 27, further comprising executable instructions configured to instruct a computing device to automatically generate the replay rules by comparing a first set of reference events generated from an instrumented version of a browser with a second set of test events captured by a capture system from a client version of the browser.

29. The tangible computer-readable storage medium of claim 27, wherein the replay rules identify User Interface (UI) events where a user initiates an action or enters data into a web page during the client web session.

30. The tangible computer-readable storage medium of claim 29, wherein the replay rules identify Document Object Model changes (DOM Δ

s) associated with the UI events.