System and method for automatically categorizing and characterizing data derived from a computer-based system

• US 6,266,788 B1
• Filed: 07/01/1998
• Issued: 07/24/2001
• Est. Priority Date: 07/01/1998
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Aptean, Inc. (Aptean Superior Holdings, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Support.com Incorporated (Greenidge Generation Holdings, Inc.)
• Inventors: Othmer, Konstantin, Derossi, Chris
• Primary Examiner(s): HOMERE, JEAN RAYMOND
• Application Number:
  US09/108,273
• Time in Patent Office: 1,119 Days
• Field of Search: 395/704, 395/712, 714/38, 707/202
• US Class Current: 714/38.11
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3636 by tracing the execution of the program
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/366 using diagnostics G06F11/0703 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99953 Recoverability

Abstract

A system and method for automatically categorizing and characterizing data from a computer-based system is provided in which the data is classified based on information within the data in order to permit a user of the system to easily group similar incidents within software code based on various criteria and the contents of the data in the incident report. The system may also automatically attempt to recreate any incident indicated by the data. The system may also permit the user of the system to debug a software application whereby parameters that characterize an incident are correlated.

Claims

1. A system for processing a data set retrieved from a computer-based system, each data set indicating the state of the computer-based system when a predetermined incident occurs within the computer-based system, the system comprising:

means for receiving the incident state data from the computer-based system;

means for processing the incident state data to derive one or more keys that characterizes this incident;

means for comparing the generated keys to other previously generated incident reports to classify the incident report, based on the data contained in the incident report; and

means for generating a report to indicate similar incident reports.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the processing means further comprises means for hashing the incident state data to derive the keys.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein said processing means comprises means for deriving a key based on the values in a stack call chain.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein said processing means comprises means for deriving a key based on an event history.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein said report generating means comprises means for grouping incident reports based on the function name of the function in which the predetermined incident occurred.

6. The system of claim 1 further comprising means for automatically eliminating a duplicate incident report and means for incrementing a counter for the duplicate incident report that is eliminated.

7. The system of claim 1 further comprising means for notifying a predetermined system a first time an incident with a particular classification occurs.

8. The system of claim 7, wherein said predetermined system comprises one of a bug tracking system and a call tracking system.

9. The system of claim 7, wherein said predetermined system comprises a pager.

10. The system of claim 7, wherein said predetermined system comprises an electronic mail box of a user.

11. The system of claim 1, wherein said predetermined incident comprises a bug in software being executed by the computer-based system.

12. The system of claim 1, wherein the computer-based system further comprise a plurality of different computer platforms using different operating systems executing the similar software applications.

13. A method for processing a data set retrieved from a computer-based system, each data set indicating the state of the computer-based system when a predetermined incident occurs within the computer-based system, the method comprising:

receiving the incident state data from the computer-based system;

processing the incident state data to derive one or more keys that characterizes this incident;

comparing the generated keys to other previously generated incident reports to classify the incident report, based on the data contained in the incident report; and

generating a report to indicate similar incident reports, wherein the report further comprises grouping incident reports based on the function name of the function in which the predetermined incident occurred.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the processing further comprises hashing the incident state data to derive the key.

15. The method of claim 13, wherein said processing further comprises deriving a key based on values in a stack call chain.

16. The method of claim 13, wherein said processing comprises deriving a key based on an event history.

17. The method of claim 13 further comprising automatically eliminating a duplicate incident report and incrementing a counter for the duplicate incident report that is eliminated.

18. The method of claim 13 further comprising notifying a predetermined system a first time an incident with a particular classification occurs.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein said predetermined system comprises one of a bug tracking system and a call tracking system.

20. The method of claim 18, wherein said predetermined system comprises a pager.

21. The method of claim 18, wherein said predetermined system comprises an electronic mail box of a user.

22. The method of claim 13, wherein said predetermined incident comprises a bug in software being executed by the computer-based system.

23. The method of claim 13, wherein the computer-based system further comprise a plurality of different computer platforms using different operating systems executing the similar software applications.

24. A system for processing a data set retrieved from a computer-based system, each data set indicating the state of the computer-based system when a predetermined incident occurs within the computer-based system, the system comprising:

means for receiving the incident state data from the computer-based system;

means for processing the incident state data to derive one or more keys that characterizes this incident;

means for identifying characteristics which uniquely identify an incident report associated with a particular predetermined incident;

means for automatically simulating the predetermined incident using the identified characteristics;

means for identifying an incident report as reproducible if the predetermined incident is reproduced using the identified characteristics;

means for generating a plurality of characteristic subsets, said characteristic subset comprising one or more of the identifying characteristics in said set of characteristics, means for automatically simulating the predetermined incident using each of the characteristic subsets to generate a simulation result for each characteristic subset, and means for determining particular characteristics which caused the predetermined incident based on the simulation results; and

wherein said means for automatically simulating the predetermined incident using each of the characteristic subsets comprises a plurality of computer-based systems, each computer-based system being configured so that the computer-based system exhibits the characteristics from the characteristic subset.

25. A system for processing a data set retrieved from a computer-based system, each data set indicating the state of the computer-based system when a predetermined incident occurs within the computer-based system, the system comprising:

means for receiving the incident state data from the computer-based system;

means for processing the incident state data to derive one or more keys that characterizes this incident;

means for identifying a set of characteristics which uniquely identify an incident report associated with a particular predetermined incident, means for automatically simulating the predetermined incident using the identified characteristics, and means for identifying an incident report as reproducible if the predetermined incident is reproduced using the identified characteristics;

means for generating a plurality of characteristic subsets, said characteristic subset comprising one or more of the identifying characteristics in said set of characteristics, means for automatically simulating the predetermined incident using each of the characteristic subsets to generate a simulation result for each characteristic subset, and means for determining particular characteristics which caused the predetermined incident based on the simulation results; and

wherein said means for automatically simulating the predetermined incident using each of the characteristic subsets comprises a plurality of computer-based systems, each computer-based system being configured so that the computer-based system exhibits the characteristics from the characteristic subset.

26. A method for processing a data set retrieved from a computer-based system, each data set indicating the state of the computer-based system when a predetermined incident occurs within the computer-based system, the method comprising:

receiving the incident state data from the computer-based system;

processing the incident state data to derive one or more keys that characterizes this incident;

identifying a set of characteristics which uniquely identify an incident report associated with a particular predetermined incident, automatically simulating the predetermined incident using the identified characteristics, and identifying an incident report as reproducible if the predetermined incident is reproduced using the identified characteristics;

generating a plurality of characteristic subsets, said characteristic subset comprising one or more of the identifying characteristics in said set of characteristics, automatically simulating the predetermined incident using each of the characteristic subsets to generate a simulation result for each characteristic subset, and determining particular characteristics which caused the predetermined incident based on the simulation results; and

wherein said automatically simulating the predetermined incident using each of the characteristic subsets comprises using a plurality of computer-based systems, each computer-based system being configured so that the computer-based system exhibits the characteristics from the characteristic subset.