Method and system for problem notification and processing

• US 8,407,686 B2
• Filed: 09/07/2007
• Issued: 03/26/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 09/07/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: eBay Inc.
• Original Assignee: eBay Inc.
• Inventors: Huang, Qinping, Maheshwari, Manish, Gupta, Amit, Vasavada, Maulin
• Primary Examiner(s): KENDALL, CHUCK O
• Application Number:
  US11/852,163
• Publication Number:
  US 20090070733A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,027 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 717/170
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0751 Error or fault detection not based on redundancy power supply failures G06F1/30; network fault management H04L41/06
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0772 Means for error signaling, e.g. using interrupts, exception flags, dedicated error registers
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/366 using diagnostics G06F11/0703 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling

Abstract

A notification of a problem associated with an application may be received. A difference may be determined between a problem version of the application and an operational version of the application to identify a change associated with the problem. A person associated with the change may be determined. A task of resolving the problem may be assigned to the person associated with the change. A person may be notified of the problem and of the assigning of the task based on the identified change. A modification may be performed to resolve the problem associated with the change based on the determining of the difference.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

receiving notification of a problem associated with an application;

determining, using one or more processors, a difference between a problem version of the application and an operational version of the application, to identify a change associated with the problem;

determining a person associated with the change;

assigning a task of resolving the problem to the person associated with the change; and

based on the identified change, notifying the person of the problem and of the assigning of the task, wherein the determining of the difference comprises;

accessing a sequence of methods associated with the problem from the problem version of the application;

identifying at least one method of the sequence of methods that has been changed between the operational version of the application to the problem version of the application; and

obtaining a difference between the at least one method of the problem version of the application and the operational version of the application, the difference being identified change.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining a performance difference between the problem version of the application and the operational version of the application;

wherein the problem associated with the application is based on the determining of the performance difference.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the accessing of the sequence comprises:

accessing a portion of a stack trace of the application associated with the problem from an alert, the stack trace including the sequence of methods;

wherein the notification of the problem includes the alert, the alert including a link to the stack trace.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the accessing of the sequence comprises:

reproducing the problem associated with the application; and

capturing the sequence of the methods of the application during the reproducing of the problem.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the identifying of the at least one method comprises:

accessing at least one data value of an accessed method of the sequence of methods of the problem version and the operational version of the application; and

comparing the at least one data value of the accessed method of the operational version to the problem version to identify the at least one method of the sequence of methods that has been changed.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the obtaining of the difference comprises:

accessing a materialized method difference between the at least one method of the problem version of the application and the operational version of the application, the materialized method difference being the identified change.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the obtaining of the difference comprises:

determining a class difference between the at least one method of the problem version of the application and the operational version of the application, the class difference being the identified change.

9. The method of claim of 1, wherein the determining of the difference further comprises:

determining an environmental difference between the problem version of the application and the operational version of the application, the environmental difference being the identified change.

10. The method of claim of 1, wherein the determining of the difference further comprises:

accessing a sequence of methods associated with the problem from the problem version of the application and the sequence of methods from a corresponding operation of the operational version of the application; and

comparing the sequence of methods associated the problem version and the operational version to determine the change in a flow of the sequence of methods, the identified change being the change in the flow.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the determining of the person comprises:

determining a plurality of associated persons associated with the change; and

identifying the person from the plurality of associated persons based on a selection criterion, the selection criterion including at least one of a greatest number of changes to the application, a greatest knowledge of the application, association with a last method change in a sequence of methods, association with a first method change in the sequence of methods, association with a method change in the sequence of methods occurring before detection of the exception, a manual examination of the change, or combinations thereof.

17. The method of claim 11, wherein the performing of the modification comprises:

deploying the operational version of the application.

6. The method of claim l, wherein the obtaining of the difference comprises:

determining a file difference between the at least one method of the problem version of the application and the operational version of the application, the file difference being the identified change.

12. A method comprising:

receiving notification of a problem associated with an application;

determining, using one or more processors, a difference between a problem version of the application and an operational version of the application to identify a change associated with the problem; and

performing a modification to resolve the problem associated with the change based on the determining of the difference, wherein the determining of the difference comprises;

accessing a sequence of methods associated with the problem from the problem version of the application;

identify at least one method of the sequence of methods that has been changed between the operational version of the application to the problem version of the application; and

obtaining a difference between the at least one method of the problem version of the application and the operational version of the application, the difference being the identified change.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the obtaining of the difference comprises:

determining a class difference between the at least one method of the problem version of the application and the operational version of the application, the class difference being the identified change.

14. The method of claim 12, wherein the obtaining of the difference comprises:

determining a configuration difference between the problem version of the application and the operational version of the application, the configuration difference being the identified change.

15. The method of claim 12, wherein the performing of the modification comprises:

performing the modification on the problem version of the application to create a modified version of the application; and

comparing an output from the modified version of the application with an output of the operational version of the application to confirm that the problem associated with the change is not present in the modified version.

16. The method of claim 12, further comprising:

determining the difference associated with the modified version of the application and the operational version of the application to identify an additional change associated with the problem; and

performing an additional modification on the modified version of the application to resolve the problem associated with the change.

18. The method of claim 12, further comprising:

testing an updated version of the application to determine whether the updated version fixes the problem or includes a new problem;

wherein the updated version of the application includes the problem version of the application with the updated version of the class.

19. A non-transitory machine-readable medium having embodied thereon instructions executable by one or more machines to perform operations comprising:

detecting a change associated with an application,

determining a plurality of differences between a current version of the application and a prior version of the application in accordance with the change;

storing the plurality of differences;

receiving a request for a requested difference;

accessing the requested difference from the plurality of the materialized differences; and

providing the requested difference in response to the receiving of the request.

20. The machine-readable medium of claim 19, wherein the plurality of differences is stored based on at least one of a version identifier of the application, a code identifier of the application, or combinations thereof.

21. A system comprising:

a notification receiver module to receive notification of a problem associated with an application;

a difference determination module implemented by one or more processors to determine a difference between a problem version of the application and an operational version of the application to identify a change associated with the problem;

a person determination module to determine a person associated with the change;

a task assignment module to assign a task of resolving the problem to the person associated with the change; and

a notification provider module to notify the person of the problem and of the assigning of the task based on the identified change, wherein the difference determination module is further configured to determine the difference by;

accessing a sequence of methods associated with the problem from the problem version of the application;

identifying at least one method of the sequence of methods that has been changed between the operational version of the application to the problem version of the application; and

obtaining a difference between the at least one method of the problem version of the application and the operational version of the application, the difference being the identified change.

22. The system of claim 21, further comprising:

an application modification module to perform a modification to resolve the problem associated with the change based on the determining of the difference.

23. A method comprising:

receiving an application request;

processing the application request;

assigning, using one or more processors, an operation identifier with the processing of the application request, the operation identifier being capable of identifying a portion of the stack trace associated with the processing of the application request; and

storing the portion of the stack trace with the operation identifier, the portion capable of being retrieved using the operation identifier.