Health monitoring of applications in a guest partition

• US 8,713,378 B2
• Filed: 07/07/2011
• Issued: 04/29/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 07/07/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Eck, Christopher, Reuther, Lars, Dave, Rajesh, Koppolu, Lokesh Srinivas, Ekren, Steven, Dion, David, Meshcheryakov, Sergey, Fischer, Jonathan, Bezbaruah, Angshuman
• Primary Examiner(s): Wilson, Yolanda L
• Application Number:
  US13/177,578
• Publication Number:
  US 20130013953A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,027 Days
• Field of Search: 714 10- 12, 714/48, 714/38.1
• US Class Current: 714/48
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0712 in a virtual computing platform, e.g. logically partitioned systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0766 Error or fault reporting or storing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0793 Remedial or corrective actions recovery from an exception in an instruction pipeline G06F9/3861; by retry G06F11/1402; for recovering from a failure of a protocol instance or entity H04L69/40
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3409 for performance assessment
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3466 Performance evaluation by tracing or monitoring
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3476 Data logging G06F11/14, G06F11/2205 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/45591 Monitoring or debugging support
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/815 Virtual
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45545 Guest-host, i.e. hypervisor is an application program itself, e.g. VirtualBox
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45558 Hypervisor-specific management and integration aspects

Abstract

A health monitoring technique monitors the health and performance of applications executing in a guest partition in a virtualized environment. In an embodiment, a guest integration component interacts with an application through an application programming interface in order for the virtualization platform to monitor the health and performance of the application. In another embodiment, the guest integration component may include a monitoring agent that accesses an event log and/or a performance monitor log to access the health and performance of the application. The health and performance of the application may then be analyzed by the virtualization platform to determine an appropriate remedial action.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method, comprising:

configuring, by a virtualization platform, at least one guest partition, each guest partition configured to execute at least one application, each guest partition configured to execute independent of other guest partitions and the virtualization platform, the at least one guest partition including a guest integration component;

monitoring, by the virtualization platform, execution of the application;

detecting, via the guest integration component, at least one event associated with execution of the application;

applying, by the guest integration component, a first remedial action to remedy the event;

determining, via the virtualization platform, a second remedial action to remedy the event after the first remedial action fails; and

applying the second remedial action.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the guest integration component is provided by the virtualization platform.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

communicating, by the application, to the guest integration component through an application programming interface, health and performance information pertaining to the application.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the guest integration component communicates with the virtualization platform through a dedicated channel.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the guest partition includes a monitoring agent and at least one log file, the log file including health and/or performance information pertaining to the application;

the method further comprising;

monitoring, by the monitoring agent, the application through the at least one log file.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the at least one log file includes an anomalous event occurring during execution of the application.

7. The method of claim 5, further comprising:

accessing, by the monitoring agent, a performance monitor log, the performance monitor log having at least one performance measurement;

wherein the second remedial action is associated with the performance measurement.

8. A computer-readable storage device, storing thereon processor-executable instructions, that when executed perform a method, the method comprising:

configuring a guest partition as an independent execution environment to execute at least one application, the guest partition including a guest integration component;

monitoring, by a virtualization platform, execution of the application, the virtualization platform independent of the guest partition;

detecting, via the guest integration component, at least one event associated with execution of the application;

applying, by the guest integration component, a first remedial action to remedy the event;

determining, via the virtualization platform, a second remedial action to remedy the event after the first remedial action fails; and

applying the second remedial action.

9. The computer-readable storage device of claim 8, wherein application of the first remedial action to remedy the event is performed after a guest operating system fails to remedy the event.

10. The computer-readable storage device of claim 9, further comprising:

attempting, by the application, to remedy the event unsuccessfully before the guest operating system attempts to remedy the event.

11. The computer-readable storage device of claim 8, further comprising:

executing in the guest partition a monitoring agent that monitors an event log for an anomalous event; and

notifying, by the monitoring agent to the guest integration component, occurrence of the anomalous event.

12. The computer-readable storage device of claim 11, further comprising:

updating, by the application, the occurrence of the anomalous event in the event log.

13. The computer-readable storage device of claim 8, further comprising:

monitoring, by the guest integration component, runtime performance criteria of the application.

14. A system, comprising:

a processor; and

a memory unit coupled to the processor, the memory unit having;

at least one guest partition and a virtualization platform, the guest partition operating independent of the virtualization platform, the guest partition including an application and a guest integration component, the guest partition configured to operate independent of the virtualization platform;

wherein the guest integration component detects at least one event requiring remediation to the application and applies a first remedial action,

wherein the virtualization platform determines a second remedial action for the at least one event when application of the first remedial action is unsuccessful, and

wherein the guest integration component applies the second remedial action.

15. The system of claim 14, further comprising:

a dedicated channel for communication between the guest partition and the virtualization platform only.

16. The system of claim 14, the guest integration component further comprising an application programming interface that enables the application to provide the guest integration component with health monitoring data associated with the application.

17. The system of claim 14, the guest integration component further comprising a monitoring agent that when executed by the processor is operative to monitor at least one log for the at least one event requiring remediation.

18. The system of claim 14, the guest integration component further comprising a monitoring agent that monitors a performance monitor log for performance degradation of the application.

19. The system of claim 14, wherein the guest integration component is installed as a plug-in to a guest operating system operative in the guest partition.

20. The system of claim 14, the virtualization platform comprising an application health monitor and recovery engine that when executed by the processor is operative to determine a remedial action to remedy anomalous events or performance degradation of the application.