Break and optional hold on failure

• US 7,673,178 B2
• Filed: 01/31/2007
• Issued: 03/02/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 01/31/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Callahan, Christopher, Merriman, Loren, Hardy, Gordon, Anderson, Curtis, Robinson, Michael, Boyed, Dipak
• Primary Examiner(s): DUNCAN, MARC M
• Application Number:
  US11/701,122
• Publication Number:
  US 20080184075A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,126 Days
• Field of Search: 714/35, 714/38, 714/49, 717/124, 717/129
• US Class Current: 714/35
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3664 Environments for testing or debugging software
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3688 for test execution, e.g. scheduling of test suites

Abstract

Break and optional hold preserves a state of a computing environment on which a software program has failed. Being able to examine the status of the environment existing upon the occurrence of the failure, including the condition of various processes and values facilitates resolution of the cause of the failure. Upon occurrence of a failure during the execution of a first software program in a first computing environment, execution of the first software program breaks. A first state of the first computing environment existing upon the breaking in execution of the first software program is then held. A failure notification is generated to signal the failure to a monitoring system. The monitoring system accesses hold information to determine whether the first computing environment should hold its current state and whether one or more other computing environments interacting with the first computing environment should also hold their states.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method for preserving a state of a first computing environment supporting execution of a first software program, comprising:

upon occurrence of a failure during the execution of the first software program, breaking execution of the first software program and breaking execution of a second software program that is interacting with the first software program;

holding a first state of the first computing environment existing upon the breaking of execution of the first software program; and

generating a failure notification to signal the failure to a monitoring system.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the execution of the first software program includes performing at least one test of the first software program.

3. The method of claim 2, further comprising operating a test client within the first computing environment, the test client being configured to cause:

the breaking of the execution of the first software program upon the occurrence of the failure;

the holding of the first state of the first computing environment; and

the generating of the failure notification.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the test client is configured to cause the breaking of execution of the first software program following execution of a test instruction preceding the occurrence of the failure and prior to executing a next test instruction.

5. The method of claim 3, further comprising a test support system in communication with the test client, wherein the test client engages the test support system to perform the at least one test of the first software program.

6. The method of claim 3, further comprising continuing the holding of the current state until the monitoring system directs the test client to one of:

continue the holding of the first state; and

discontinue the holding of the first state and resume the execution of the first software program.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the monitoring system directs the test client to continue the holding of the first state based upon failure data accessible to the monitoring system, the failure data including at least one of:

submission data included in initiating the execution of the first software program indicating that the execution of the first software program is to be held upon occurrence of a first failure; and

failure tag data indicating the execution of the first software program is to be held upon occurrence of a selected failure type represented by the failure in the execution of the first software program.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein a second software program executing in a second computing environment interacts with the first software program, further comprising:

the monitoring system initiating a breaking of the execution of the second software program; and

holding a second state of the second computing environment existing upon the breaking of the execution of the second software program.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein:

the first software program includes a client application and the second software program includes a server application that serves the client application;

the first software program includes the server application and the second software program includes the client application that is served by the server application; and

the first software program and the second software program each include an instance of the client application.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising terminating the execution of the first software program and logging information about the first state.

11. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising at least one of:

holding the state of the computing environment until a time limit is reached;

holding the state of the computing environment upon receiving a hold instruction responding to the failure notification to hold the state of the computing environment;

holding the state of the computing environment unless instructed to resume execution of the software program; and

resuming execution of the software program upon receiving a continue instruction responding to the failure notification.

12. A system, comprising:

a monitoring system;

a computing environment in communication with the monitoring system and configured to execute;

a first software program being tested by a plurality of test instructions; and

a test client program configured, upon occurrence of a failure during execution of the first software program, to;

break execution of the first software program;

signal a failure type describing the failure to the test monitoring system; and

hold a first state of the first computing environment existing upon the break in the execution of the first software program; and

a second computing environment executing a second test client, wherein the second computing environment is in communication with the monitoring system and the first computing environment executing a second software program that interacts with the first software program, wherein;

upon receiving the signal describing the failure during the execution of the first software program, the monitoring system is configured to cause the second test client to break execution of the second software program; and

the second test client breaks execution of the second software program.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the test client is further configured to cause the breaking of execution of the first software program following execution of a last test instruction preceding the occurrence of the failure and prior to executing a next test instruction.

14. The system of claim 12, wherein the test client program is further configured to continue holding the first state of the first computing environment until the monitoring system directs the test client to one of:

continue the holding of the first state; and

discontinue the holding of the first state and resume the execution of the first software program.

15. The system of claim 12, further comprising a failure tagging system accessible to the monitoring system, wherein the failure tagging system is configured to:

maintain failure tag data identifying at least one identified failure type potentially occurring during the execution of the first software program; and

process requests from the monitoring system to determine if the occurrence of failure manifested the identified failure type.

16. The system of claim 12, wherein the monitoring system is further configured to cause the test client to continue holding the first state when the failure includes the identified failure type.

17. The system of claim 12, wherein the monitoring system is further configured to cause the test client to continue holding the first state when submission data included in initiating the execution of the first software program indicates that the execution of the first software program is to be held upon occurrence of at least one failure.

18. The method of claim 12, wherein:

the first software program includes a client application and the second software program includes a server application that services the client application;

the first software program includes the server application and the second software program includes the client application that is serviced by the sewer application; and

the first software program and the second software program each include an instance of the client application.

19. A computer-readable medium having stored thereon computer-executable instructions, comprising:

monitoring execution of a software program being tested in a computing environment in response to a plurality of test instructions;

breaking execution of the software program upon occurrence of a failure in the execution of the software program prior to applying a next text instruction;

holding a state of the computing environment existing upon the breaking of the execution of the software program;

holding a second state of a second computing environment existing upon the break in the execution of a second software program that is interacting with the software program; and

generating a failure notification indicating the failure has occurred.