Conducting a diagnostic session for monitored business transactions

• US 9,015,317 B2
• Filed: 11/04/2013
• Issued: 04/21/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 09/10/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Cisco Technology, Inc. (Cisco Systems, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: AppDynamics, Inc. (Cisco Systems, Inc.)
• Inventors: Bansal, Jyoti, Sunkara, Bhaskar
• Primary Examiner(s): Mejia, Anthony
• Application Number:
  US14/071,525
• Publication Number:
  US 20140068069A1
• Time in Patent Office: 533 Days
• Field of Search: 709/200, 709/224, 717/127, 718/101, 719/317
• US Class Current: 709/224
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/022 by sampling
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/04 Processing captured monitoring data, e.g. for logfile generation
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/045 for graphical visualisation of monitoring data
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/10 Active monitoring, e.g. heartbeat, ping or trace-route
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/16 Threshold monitoring
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/02 based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/535 Tracking the activity of the user network monitoring arrangements H04L43/00; recording of computer activity G06F11/34

Abstract

The present technology may determine an anomaly in a portion of a distributed business application. Data can automatically be captured and analyzed for the portion of the application associated with the anomaly. By automatically capturing data for just the portion associated with the anomaly, the present technology reduces the resource and time requirements associated with other code-based solutions for monitoring transactions. A method for performing a diagnostic session for a request may begin with initiating collection of diagnostic data associated with a request. An application thread on each of two or more servers may be sampled. The application threads may be associated with the same business transaction and the business transaction may be associated with the request. The diagnostic data may be stored.

Claims

1. A method for performing a diagnostic session for a request, comprising:

monitoring a request at a server, the request part of a distributed business transaction;

detecting an event associated with the request;

initiating a diagnostic session in response to the event and associated with the request at the server;

collecting diagnostic data by sampling an application thread on each of two or more servers, the two or more application threads associated with the same business transaction which is distributed over and processed by each of the two or more servers, the business transaction associated with the request, wherein sampling an application thread includes sampling a thread call stack handling a request received at a server of the two or more servers to determine the thread call stack state,

wherein the diagnostic data including the performance of one or more outgoing calls performed as part of the request, at least one outgoing call associated with an application thread at a second server of the two or more servers; and

storing the thread call stack state data.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the collection of diagnostic data is initiated by detection of an anomaly by a controller which receives runtime data from remote agents.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the collection of diagnostic data is initiated by detection of an anomaly by an agent monitoring a server which processes the request.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the collection of diagnostic data is initiated by an administrator of a monitoring system.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

detecting an outgoing call to a second server of the two or more servers; and

modifying the call to the second server with a diagnostic identifier,

wherein a thread call stack handling the call at the second server is sampled in response to detecting the diagnostic identifier at the second server.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the business transaction is associated with a diagnostic identifier.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the sampling is performed a first sampling rate for a first period and a second sampling rate for a second period of time.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein sampling a thread call stack includes detecting a current process handled by the thread associated with the call stack.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the current process handled by the thread is reported with all the processes detected to be handled by the thread though sampling the thread for the duration of the business transaction distributed over the two or more servers.

10. A non-transitory computer readable storage medium having embodied thereon a program, the program being executable by a processor to perform a method for performing a diagnostic session for a request, the method comprising:

monitoring a request at a server, the request part of a distributed business transaction;

detecting an event associated with the request;

initiating a diagnostic session in response to the event and associated with the request at the server;

collecting diagnostic data by sampling an application thread on each of two or more servers, the two or more application threads associated with the same business transaction which is distributed over and processed by each of the two or more servers, the business transaction associated with the request, wherein sampling an application thread includes sampling a thread call stack handling a request received at a server of the two or more servers to determine the thread call stack state,

wherein the diagnostic data including the performance of one or more outgoing calls performed as part of the request, at least one outgoing call associated with an application thread at a second server of the two or more servers; and

storing the thread call stack state data.

11. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 10, wherein the collection of diagnostic data is initiated by detection of an anomaly by a controller which receives runtime data from remote agents.

12. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 10, wherein the collection of diagnostic data is initiated by detection of an anomaly by an agent monitoring a server which processes the request.

13. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 10, wherein the collection of diagnostic data is initiated by an administrator of a monitoring system.

14. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 10, the method further comprising:

detecting an outgoing call to a second server of the two or more servers; and

modifying the call to the second server with a diagnostic identifier,

wherein a thread call stack handling the call at the second server is sampled in response to detecting the diagnostic identifier at the second server.

15. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 10, wherein the business transaction is associated with a diagnostic identifier.

16. A system for performing a diagnostic session for a request, comprising:

a first application server having memory; and

one or more modules stored in memory of the first application server and executable by a processor to monitor a request at a server, the request part of a distributed business transaction, detecting an event associated with the request, initiating a diagnostic session in response to the event and associated with the request at the server collect diagnostic data by sampling an application thread on each of two or more servers, the two or more application threads associated with the same business transaction which is distributed over and processed by each of the two or more servers, the business transaction associated with the request, wherein sampling an application thread includes sampling a thread call stack handling a request received at a server of the two or more servers to determine the thread call stack state, wherein the diagnostic data includes the performance of one or more outgoing calls performed as part of the request, at least one outgoing call associated with an application thread at a second server of the two or more servers, and store the thread call stack state data.

17. The system of claim 16, wherein the collection of diagnostic data is initiated by detection of an anomaly by a controller which receives runtime data from remote agents.

18. The system of claim 16, wherein the collection of diagnostic data is initiated by detection of an anomaly by an agent monitoring a server which processes the request.

19. The system of claim 16, wherein the collection of diagnostic data is initiated by an administrator of a monitoring system.

20. The system of claim 16, the one or more modules further executable to detect an outgoing call to a second server of the two or more servers, and modify the call to the second server with a diagnostic identifier, wherein a thread call stack handling the call at the second server is sampled in response to detecting the diagnostic identifier at the second server.

21. The system of claim 16, wherein the business transaction is associated with a diagnostic identifier.