CONTROLLING REPORTING BY AN INSTRUMENT ENCAPSULATION MODULE ENCAPSULATING AN APPLICATION PROGRAM ON A USER TERMINAL

• US 20160182322A1
• Filed: 12/19/2014
• Published: 06/23/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 12/19/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: CA, Inc. (d/b/a CA Technologies) (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: CA, Inc. (d/b/a CA Technologies) (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Inventors: Lindo, Jonathan
• Granted Patent: US 9,985,851 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0813 characterised by the conditions triggering a change of settings
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/04 Processing captured monitoring data, e.g. for logfile generation
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/06 Generation of reports
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/16 Threshold monitoring

Abstract

A method includes performing operations as follows on a processor that include receiving metrics reported by user terminals via a data network. The metrics indicating a measured operation of an application program processed by the user terminals. The operations further include determining when a collection of the metrics received from across the user terminals satisfies a rule for modifying metric reporting, and communicating a metric reporting modification command to the user terminals, based on the collection of the metrics received from across the user terminals satisfying the rule for modifying metric reporting, to control future metrics reported by the user terminals for the measured operation of the application program. Related computer program products and systems are disclosed.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

performing operations as follows on a processor of an application analysis computer;

receiving metrics reported by user terminals via a data network, the metrics indicating a measured operation of an application program processed by the user terminals;

determining when a collection of the metrics received from across the user terminals satisfies a rule for modifying metric reporting; and

communicating a metric reporting modification command to the user terminals, based on the collection of the metrics received from across the user terminals satisfying the rule for modifying metric reporting, to control future metrics reported by the user terminals for the measured operation of the application program.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein:

the determining when a collection of the metrics received from across the user terminals satisfies the metric reporting rule, comprises

determining when a threshold number of metrics have been received from across a first threshold number of the user terminals; and

the communicating a metric reporting modification command to the user terminals, based on the collection of the metrics received from across the user terminals satisfying the metric reporting rule, to control future metrics reported by the user terminals for the measured operation of the application program, comprises

communicating the metric reporting modification command to the user terminals to decrease how many future metrics are reported by the user terminals for the measured operation of the application program.

3. The method of claim 2, further comprising:

determining when an error condition indicated by the metrics has been received from across a second threshold number of the user terminals; and

communicating another metric reporting modification command to the user terminals to increase how many future metrics are reported by the user terminals for the measured operation of the application program, based on the error condition indicated by the metrics being received from across the second threshold number of the user terminals.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein:

the communicating a metric reporting modification command to the user terminals, based on the collection of the metrics received from across the user terminals satisfying the metric reporting rule, to control future metrics reported by the user terminals for the measured operation of the application program, comprises

communicating the metric reporting modification command to the user terminals to report a defined subset of a defined set of a plurality of different measured operations of the application program to the application analysis computer while preventing reporting of the plurality of different measured operations of the defined set that are outside the defined subset; and

the communicating another metric reporting modification command to the user terminals to increase how many future metrics are reported by the user terminals for the measured operation of the application program, based on the error condition indicated by the metrics being received from across the second threshold number of the user terminals, comprises

communicating the other metric reporting modification command to the user terminals to report the defined set of the plurality of different measured operations of the application program to the application analysis computer.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein:

the defined subset of the defined set of the plurality of different measured operations of the application program comprises a listing of features of the application program that have been performed by the user terminals; and

the defined set of the plurality of different measured operations of the application program comprises the listing of features of the application program that have been performed by the user terminals, a listing of operations performed by the application program to accomplish at least one of the features, and a digital picture screen shot of an application window which is generated by the application program and displayed on a display device of the user terminals.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein:

the determining when a collection of the metrics received from across the user terminals satisfies the metric reporting rule, comprises

determining when an error condition indicated by the metrics has been received from across a threshold number of the user terminals; and

the communicating a metric reporting modification command to the user terminals, based on the collection of the metrics received from across the user terminals satisfying the metric reporting rule, to control future metrics reported by the user terminals for the measured operation of the application program, comprises

communicating the metric reporting modification command to the user terminals to increase how many future metrics are reported by the user terminals for the measured operation of the application program.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein:

the determining when a collection of the metrics received from across the user terminals satisfies the metric reporting rule, comprises

determining when a threshold number of completed operation cycles of the application program have been indicated by the metrics received from across a threshold number of the user terminals; and

the communicating a metric reporting modification command to the user terminals, based on the collection of the metrics received from across the user terminals satisfying the metric reporting rule, to control future metrics reported by the user terminals for the measured operation of the application program, comprises

communicating the metric reporting modification command to the user terminals to decrease how many future metrics are reported by the user terminals for the measured operation of the application program based on the threshold number of completed operation cycles of the application program having been indicated by the metrics received from across the threshold number of the user terminals.

8. The method of claim 7,

wherein the communicating the metric reporting modification command to the user terminals to decrease how many future metrics are reported by the user terminals for the measured operation of the application program based on the threshold number of completed operation cycles of the application program having been indicated by the metrics received from across the threshold number of the user terminals, comprises

communicating the metric reporting modification command to the user terminals to report a defined subset of a defined set of a plurality of different measured operations of the application program to the application analysis computer while preventing reporting of the plurality of different measured operations of the defined set that are outside the defined subset;

and

further comprising communicating another metric reporting modification command to the user terminals to report the defined set of the plurality of different measured operations of the application program to the application analysis computer, based on identifying that an error condition indicated by the metrics has been received from across another threshold number of the user terminals.

9. A computer program product, comprising:

a tangible computer readable storage medium comprising computer readable program code embodied in the medium that when executed by a processor of a user terminal causes the processor to perform operations comprising;

modifying a condition defined by a metric reporting rule based on a metric reporting modification command received from an application analysis computer via a data network;

measuring operation of an application program that is encapsulated by the computer readable program code and processed by the processor;

determining when the measured operation satisfies the condition of the metric reporting rule; and

communicating a metric, which indicates an operation of the application program processed by the processor, via the data network to the application analysis computer when the measured operation satisfies the condition of the metric reporting rule.

10. The computer program product of claim 9, wherein the measuring operation of the application program which is encapsulated by the computer readable program code and processed by the processor, comprises:

monitoring application programming interface calls by the application program; and

measuring operation of the application program based on the application programming interface calls.

11. The computer program product of claim 10, wherein:

the monitoring application programming interface calls by the application program, comprises measuring a number of the application programming interface calls by the application program;

the measuring operation of the application program based on the application programming interface calls, comprises measuring operation of the application program based on the number of the application programming interface calls by the application program; and

the determining when the measured operation satisfies the condition of the metric reporting rule, comprises determining when the number of the application programming interface calls by the application program satisfies a defined threshold value.

12. The computer program product of claim 11, wherein modifying a condition defined by a metric reporting rule based on the metric reporting modification command, comprises:

increasing the defined threshold value based on the metric reporting modification command.

13. The computer program product of claim 12, wherein modifying a condition defined by a metric reporting rule based on the metric reporting modification command, further comprises:

decreasing the defined threshold based on identifying an error condition in the measured operation of the application program.

14. The computer program product of claim 10, wherein:

the monitoring application programming interface calls by the application program, comprises identifying content of the application programming interface calls by the application program;

the measuring operation of the application program based on the application programming interface calls, comprises measuring operation of the application program based on the content of the application programming interface calls by the application program; and

the determining when the measured operation satisfies the condition of the metric reporting rule, comprises determining when the content satisfies the condition of the metric reporting rule.

15. The computer program product of claim 10, wherein:

the measuring operation of the application program based on the application programming interface calls, comprises selecting an operational state of the application program, based on the content of the application programming interface calls, from among a plurality of different defined operational states in which the application program can operate; and

the determining when the measured operation satisfies the condition of the metric reporting rule, comprises determining when the operational state satisfies the condition of the metric reporting rule.

16. The computer program product of claim 15, wherein communicating a metric, which indicates an operation of the application program processed by the processor, via the data network when the measured operation satisfies the condition of the metric reporting rule, comprises:

communicating a defined subset of a defined set of a plurality of different measured operations of the application program, while preventing communicating of the plurality of different measured operations of the defined set that are outside the defined subset, to the application analysis computer based on the condition of the metric reporting rule being satisfied; and

communicating the defined set of the plurality of different measured operations of the application program to the application analysis computer based on the condition of the metric reporting rule not being satisfied.

17. The computer program product of claim 16, wherein:

the defined subset of the defined set of the plurality of different measured operations of the application program comprises a listing of features of the application program that have been performed by the user terminal; and

the defined set of the plurality of different measured operations of the application program comprises the listing of features of the application program that have been performed by the user terminal, and a listing of operations performed by the application program to accomplish at least one of the features.

18. The computer program product of claim 15, wherein the determining when the operational state satisfies the condition of the metric reporting rule, comprises:

determining when the application program has transitioned from a defined other one of the operational states to the operational state a threshold number of times.

19. The computer program product of claim 15, wherein the selecting an operational state of the application program, based on the content of the application programming interface calls, from among the plurality of different defined operational states in which the application program can operate, comprises:

identifying that a defined feature of the application program has transitioned from a locked state preventing processing by the processor to an unlocked state allowing processing by the processor.

20. The computer program product of claim 9, wherein the measuring operation of the application program which is encapsulated by the computer readable program code and processed by the processor, comprises:

monitoring application programming interface calls by the application program;

measuring memory utilization and communication latency by the application program being processed by the processor based on the application programming interface calls; and

generating the metric based on the memory utilization and the communication latency.