Analyzing a process of software defects handling using percentile-based metrics

• US 9,021,308 B2
• Filed: 08/09/2011
• Issued: 04/28/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 08/09/2011
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Cantor, Murray, Fisher, Amit, Wasserkrug, Segev, Kannegala, Sateesh S, Zeltyn, Sergey N
• Primary Examiner(s): Bonzo, Bryce
• Assistant Examiner(s): Mehrmanesh, Elmira
• Application Number:
  US13/205,651
• Publication Number:
  US 20130042149A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,358 Days
• Field of Search: 714/38.1, 714/47.2, 714/47.3, 714/57
• US Class Current: 714/38.1
• 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 11/321 Display for diagnostics, e.g. diagnostic result display, self-test user interface

Abstract

A system for analyzing one or more process of software defect handling using one or more percentile-based statistical metric is provided herein. The system may include: a monitoring unit that is configured to monitor one or more processes of software defect handling, to yield monitored samples. The system further includes a percentile-based generator configured to generate one or more statistical metric that are at least partially based on percentile, further based on the monitored samples and further responsive to user selection; and a statistical calculation unit configured to apply the generated one or more statistical metric to real-time handling time samples obtained from the one or more processes of software defect handling, to yield a percentile-based analysis of the processes of software defect handling. The system may further include and a visual representation unit configured to visually present the percentile-based analysis responsive to preferences specified by the user.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

monitoring one or more processes of software defect handling, to yield samples representative of defects handling duration;

generating one or more statistical metrics that are at least partially percentile-based, further based on the monitored samples and further responsive to user selection;

applying the generated one or more percentile-based statistical metric to real-time handling duration samples, to yield a percentile based analysis of the one or more processes of software defect handling; and

visually representing the percentile responsive to preferences specified by the user, wherein the visual representation exhibits a comparison of the percentile-based metric between two periods of time, such that improvement of the metric is visually distinguishable from deterioration thereof and from random noise,

wherein at last one of;

the monitoring, the generating, and the applying, is carried out by at least one computer processor.

2. The method according to claim 1, wherein the statistical metric is associated with a value of approximately 80% percentile.

3. The method according to claim 1, wherein a smoothening window is applied to the visual representation of the percentile based metric over time, to yield a visual representation indicative of long-term trends.

4. The method according to claim 1, further comprising calculating level of confidence for each percentile-based metric over time, wherein the visual presenting is indicative of a corresponding level of confidence for each percentile-based metric.

5. The method according to claim 1, wherein the visual representation exhibits two or more different metrics that are at least partially percentile-based, over time for similar periods of time, thus enabling a user to extract a fuller statistical view of the defects handling process.

6. A system comprising:

a monitoring unit configured to monitor one or more processes of software defect handling, to yield samples representative of defects handling duration;

a percentile-based generator configured to generate one or more percentile-based statistical metric, further based on the monitored samples and further responsive to user selection;

a statistical calculation unit configured to apply the generated one or more statistical metrics that are at least partially percentile-based to real-time handling duration samples obtained from the one or more processes of software defect handling, to yield a percentile based analysis of the one or more processes of software defect handling; and

a visual representation unit configured to visually represent the percentile-based analysis responsive to preferences specified by the user, wherein the visual representation exhibits a comparison of the metric based at least partially on percentile, between two periods of time, such that improvement of the metric is visually distinguishable from deterioration thereof.

7. The system according to claim 6, wherein the percentile-based statistical metric is associated with a value of approximately 80% percentile.

8. The system according to claim 6, wherein a smoothening window is applied to the visual representation of the percentile based metric over time, to yield a visual representation indicative of long-term trends.

9. The system according to claim 6, further comprising calculating level of confidence for each percentile-based metric over time, wherein the visual presenting is indicative of a corresponding level of confidence for each percentile-based metric.

10. The system according to claim 6, wherein the visual representation exhibits two or more different percentile based metrics over time for similar periods of time, thus enabling a user to extract a fuller statistical view of the defects handling process.

11. A computer program product comprising:

a non-transitory computer readable storage medium having computer readable program embodied therewith, the computer readable program comprising;

computer readable program configured to monitor one or more processes of software defect handling, to yield samples representative of defects handling duration;

computer readable program configured to generate one or more percentile-based statistical metric, further based on the monitored samples and further responsive to user selection;

computer readable program configured to apply the generated one or more statistical metric that is at least partially percentile-based, to real-time handling duration samples obtained from the one or more processes of software defect handling, to yield a percentile based analysis of the one or more processes of software defect handling; and

computer readable program configured to visually represent the percentile-based analysis responsive to preferences specified by the user, wherein the visual representation exhibits a comparison of the percentile-based metric between two periods of time, such that an improvement of the metric is visually distinguishable from a deterioration thereof and from a random noise.

12. The computer program product according to claim 11, wherein the percentile-based statistical metric is associated with a value of approximately 80% percentile.

13. The computer program product according to claim 11, wherein a smoothening window is applied to the visual representation of the percentile based metric over time, to yield a visual representation indicative of long-term trends.

14. The computer program product according to claim 11, further comprising computer readable program configured to calculate a level of confidence for each percentile-based metric over time, wherein the visual presenting is indicative of a corresponding level of confidence for each percentile-based metric.

15. The computer program product according to claim 11, wherein the visual representation exhibits two or more different percentile based metrics over time for similar periods of time, thus enabling a user to extract a fuller statistical view of the defects handling process.