Contextual exception management in multi-tenant systems

• US 8,756,588 B2
• Filed: 02/14/2012
• Issued: 06/17/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 08/01/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Salesforce.com, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Salesforce.com, Inc.
• Inventors: Zheng, Zuye, Iry, James, Kulkarni, Nagraj
• Primary Examiner(s): Zhen, Li B
• Assistant Examiner(s): NGUYEN, DUY KHUONG THANH
• Application Number:
  US13/396,504
• Publication Number:
  US 20130036406A1
• Time in Patent Office: 854 Days
• Field of Search: 717/135
• US Class Current: 717/135
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0709 in a distributed system consisting of a plurality of standalone computer nodes, e.g. clusters, client-server systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0775 Content or structure details of the error report, e.g. specific table structure, specific error fields
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0781 Error filtering or prioritizing based on a policy defined by the user or on a policy defined by a hardware/software module, e.g. according to a severity level

Abstract

Methods and systems are provided for managing exceptions in a multi-tenant system providing instances of a virtual application over a network to multiple tenants. One exemplary method involves obtaining, from an instance of the virtual application, context information associated with an anomalous condition identified by the virtual application and automatically creating an exception record maintaining an association between the anomalous condition and the context information.

Claims

1. A method of managing exceptions in a multi-tenant system providing instances of a virtual application over a network to a plurality of tenants, the method comprising:

obtaining, from an instance of the virtual application, context information associated with an anomalous condition identified by the virtual application;

obtaining, from the instance of the virtual application, a thread corresponding to a state of execution at the time of the anomalous condition;

filtering the thread by removing code segments that vary depending on a particular tenant of the plurality of tenants accessing the instance of the virtual application, wherein each tenant of the plurality of tenants comprises a group of one or more users that shares access to a common subset of data, the filtering resulting in a filtered code path;

determining a numerical representation of the anomalous condition based at least in part on the filtered code path;

creating a record maintaining an association between the anomalous condition, the numerical representation, and the context information; and

associating the record with one or more additional records based on the numerical representation, each of the one or more additional records corresponding to a different anomalous condition having the same numerical representation.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein determining the numerical representation comprises performing a hash function on the filtered code path to obtain a hash value representative of the anomalous condition.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein filtering the thread further comprises removing a lower level method call from the thread.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining a unique numerical identifier for the anomalous condition; and

assigning the unique numerical identifier to the exception record, wherein the unique numerical identifier distinguishes the exception record from the one or more additional records having the same numerical representation.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein obtaining the context information associated with the anomalous condition comprises obtaining a first tenant of the plurality of tenants, the first tenant being associated with the instance of the virtual application.

6. The method of claim 5, further comprising displaying a graphical representation of the record on a display device, wherein the graphical representation of the record includes a tenant identification field indicating the association between the first tenant and the anomalous condition.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising obtaining a query statement corresponding to the anomalous condition, the query statement being provided from the instance of the virtual application to a multi-tenant database supporting the plurality of tenants, wherein the record maintains an association between the anomalous condition and the query statement.

8. The computer system of claim 1, wherein the virtual application comprises a customer relationship management application.

9. The method of claim 1, the thread indicating a place in a code path where the anomalous condition occurred, wherein filtering the thread further comprises removing portions of the code path that are not likely to be relevant to the anomalous condition.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein:

the anomalous condition comprises an exception generated by a code segment of the virtual application during execution;

the thread indicates a place in the code segment where the anomalous condition occurred; and

the context information is indicative of a state of an operating environment for the instance of the virtual application when the anomalous condition occurred.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the thread comprises a call stack or a stack trace at a time of the anomalous condition.

12. A method of managing exceptions in a multi-tenant system including an application server providing instances of a virtual application over a network to a plurality of tenants, the method comprising:

obtaining, by an exception management system from an instance of the virtual application executing on the application server, context information associated with an anomalous condition identified by the virtual application and a thread corresponding to a state of execution at the time of the anomalous condition;

filtering the thread by removing code segments that vary depending on a particular tenant of the plurality of tenants accessing the instance of the virtual application, resulting in a filtered code path, wherein the particular tenant accessing the instance of the virtual application comprises a group of one or more users that shares access to a common subset of data;

determining a numerical representation of the anomalous condition based at least in part on the filtered code path;

creating, by the exception management system, a record maintaining an association between the anomalous condition, the numerical representation, and the context information;

displaying, by the exception management system, a graphical representation of the record, wherein the graphical representation indicates the association between the anomalous condition, the numerical representation, and the context information; and

associating, by the exception management system, the record with one or more additional records based on the numerical representation of the anomalous condition, each of the one or more additional records corresponding to a different anomalous condition having the same numerical representation, the associating resulting in a plurality of associated records.

13. The method of claim 12, further comprising determining, by the exception management system, a unique numerical identifier for the record, wherein the graphical representation indicates an association between unique numerical identifier and the anomalous condition.

14. The method of claim 12, further comprising:

displaying, by the exception management system, a graphical representation of the plurality of associated records.

15. A multi-tenant system comprising:

an application server configured to provide an instance of a virtual application to a first tenant of a plurality of tenants over a network, each tenant of the plurality of tenants comprising a group of one or more users that shares access to a common subset of data, the virtual application being configured to identify an anomalous condition and obtain context information associated with the anomalous condition and a thread corresponding to a state of execution at the time of the anomalous condition, wherein the application server comprises processing hardware; and

an exception management system coupled to the application server, wherein the exception management system is configured to filter the thread by removing code segments that vary depending on a particular tenant of the plurality of tenants accessing the instance of the virtual application to obtain a filtered code path, determine a numerical representation of the anomalous condition based at least in part on the filtered code path, create a record maintaining an association between the anomalous condition, the numerical representation, and the context information, and associate the record with one or more additional records based on the numerical representation, each of the one or more additional records corresponding to a different anomalous condition having the same numerical representation.

16. The multi-tenant system of claim 15, wherein the exception management system is configured to display a graphical representation of the record within an application on a client device coupled to the exception management system over the network, the graphical representation including the context information and the numerical representation.

17. The multi-tenant system of claim 15, the context information identifying the first tenant as being associated with the instance of the virtual application, wherein the graphical representation of the record indicates the first tenant is associated with the anomalous condition.