Exposing application performance counters for .NET applications through code instrumentation

• US 8,051,332 B2
• Filed: 07/15/2009
• Issued: 11/01/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 07/15/2008
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: AVIcode, Inc. (Microsoft Corporation)
• Inventors: Mushkatin, Victor, Zakonov, Alex
• Primary Examiner(s): Iqbal; Nadeem
• Application Number:
  US12/503,313
• Publication Number:
  US 20100037101A1
• Time in Patent Office: 839 Days
• Field of Search: 714 18- 20, 714/26, 714/32, 714/33, 714 37- 39, 714 45- 47
• US Class Current: 714/38.1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/302 where the computing system component is a software system
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3409 for performance assessment
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3419 by assessing time
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3476 Data logging G06F11/14, G06F11/2205 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/88 Monitoring involving counting

Abstract

Disclosed is a method for adding performance counters to a .NET application after compilation of the .NET application to Common Intermediate Language code without a requirement for code changes to the original .NET application code or application recompilation from the development side. With regard to a further aspect of a particularly preferred embodiment, the invention may provide a method for adding the performance counters by declarative instrumentation of a .NET application at runtime or compile time, without the need for an application developer to hardcode instrumentation logic into the application. An instrumentation configuration file provides declarative definition for performance counters that are to be added to a particular application, and particularly includes a complete list of performance counters that need to be added and settings for each performance counter.

Claims

1. A computer implemented method for instrumenting performance counters in a .NET application, comprising:

loading an instrumentation configuration to determine one or more .NET application methods requiring performance counter instrumentation and one or more types of performance counter that are to be instrumented for each such .NET application method;

locating a segment of Common Intermediate Language method body that is to be instrumented with said one or more types of performance counter; and

modifying the segment of Common Intermediate Language method body to expose one or more types of performance counter, wherein said modifying step further comprises;

inserting declarative instrumentation filtering code into said Common Intermediate Language method body, said declarative instrumentation filtering code comprising computer executable instructions configured to;

retrieve values from application method runtime parameters and class member variables;

calculate filtering expressions; and

determine if a method runtime context matches a filtering rule set associated with said one or more types of performance counters that are to be instrumented.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of incrementing an instrumented performance counter upon determining that said instrumented performance counter was previously registered with an operating system on which said .NET application runs.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein said modifying step further comprises:

inserting declarative instrumentation naming code into said Common Intermediate Language method body, said declarative instrumentation naming code comprising computer executable instructions configured to;

retrieve values from application method runtime parameters and class member variables; and

calculate a performance counter class, a performance counter name, and a performance counter instance name.

4. The method of claim 3, further comprising the step of inserting declarative instrumentation analysis code into said Common Intermediate Language method body, said declarative instrumentation analysis code comprising computer executable instructions configured to determine whether or not a performance counter instance name was previously registered with an operating system on which said .NET application runs.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein said declarative instrumentation analysis code is further configured to create a new performance counter instance and instrument a performance counter value upon determining that said performance counter instance name was not previously registered.

6. The method of claim 4, wherein said declarative instrumentation analysis code is further configured to increment a performance counter value upon determining that said performance counter instance name was previously registered.

7. The method of claim 4, wherein said declarative instrumentation analysis code is further configured to execute only upon said method runtime context matching said filtering rule set.

8. The method of claim 1, said reading step further comprising:

reading a naming rule set in said instrumentation configuration defining counter class and counter name, and retrieving a method name and static application properties to define said counter class and counter name.

9. The method of claim 8, further comprising the step of generating regular expressions describing naming rules for defining counter class and counter name.

10. The method of claim 1, said reading step further comprising:

reading a naming rule set in said instrumentation configuration defining counter instance name for a designated performance counter type, and retrieving one or more method parameters, class member variables, and static classes member variables to define said counter instance name.

11. The method of claim 10, further comprising the step of generating naming rules for defining counter instance name.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein said naming rules for defining counter instance name further comprise computer executable instructions configured to retrieve values from application method runtime parameters and class member variables, and to calculate a performance counter instance name.

13. The method of claim 1, said reading step further comprising:

reading a filtering rule set in said instrumentation configuration associated with said one or more types of performance counter that are to be instrumented, wherein said filtering rule set comprises computer executable instructions configured to filter said one or more types of performance counters to a subset of method executions; and

retrieving one or more method parameters, class member variables, and static classes member variables that are used by said filtering rule set.

14. The method of claim 13, further comprising the step of generating filtering rules for filtering said one or more types of performance counters to a subset of method executions.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein said filtering rules further comprise computer executable instructions configured to retrieve values from application method runtime parameters and class member variables, to calculate filtering expressions, and to determine whether the values match the filtering rules.

16. The method of claim 1, said reading step further comprising:

generating analysis instructions comprising computer executable instructions configured to determine whether a performance counter instance name was previously registered with an operating system on which said .NET application runs.