Monitoring distributed web application transactions

• US 9,167,028 B1
• Filed: 09/09/2010
• Issued: 10/20/2015
• 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:
  US12/878,919
• Time in Patent Office: 1,867 Days
• Field of Search: 709/200, 709/224, 717/127, 718/101, 719/317
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/00 Finance; Insurance; Tax strategies; Processing of corporate or income taxes
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5083 wherein the managed service relates to web hosting
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/04 Processing captured monitoring data, e.g. for logfile generation
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0876 Network utilisation, e.g. volume of load or congestion level
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/50 Testing arrangements
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/55 Testing of service level quality, e.g. simulating service usage
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/025 for remote control or remote monitoring of applications
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/10 in which an application is distributed across nodes in the network software deployment G06F8/60; multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/46

Abstract

The present technology monitors a web application provided by one or more services. A service may be provided by applications executing on a virtual machine. The monitoring system provides end-to-end business transaction visibility, identifies performance issues quickly and has dynamical scaling capability across monitored systems including cloud systems, virtual systems and physical infrastructures. Agents may be installed on one or more application servers at an application level, virtual machine level, or other level. An agent may monitor the virtual machine, application and application communications, may communicate with a controller, and may provide monitoring data to the controller. The controller may evaluate the performance of the application and/or virtual machine, model service and/or application flow, and determine information regarding distributed service and/or application performance. The monitoring technology determines how each service and/or application portion is operating, establishes a baseband for operation, and determines the architecture of the distributed system.

Claims

1. A method for monitoring a business transaction, comprising:

associating by an agent a received request with a thread that handles the request;

associating the thread with a monitoring parameter associated with the request, the monitoring parameter associated with the business transaction;

modifying thread data with a section of a call chain for a business transaction, the call chain identifying two or more computers or services that have processed the business transaction which includes the received request, wherein a first agent on a first computer or service of the two or more computers or services adds an identifier to the call chain after the request is received by the first computer or service and a second agent on a second computer or service of the two or more computers or services adds an identifier to the call chain after the request is received by the second computer or service;

modifying an external request with the monitoring parameter from thread data by the agent, the call associated with the thread; and

reporting runtime data associated with the received request to a first server, the runtime data including the monitoring parameter and the call chain.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising instrumenting bytecode of the application to modify exit point or entry points of the application.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein modifying a request and reporting runtime data are performed by an agent.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

detecting call chain data within the request;

modifying the call chain data with an identifier associated with the application; and

reporting the modified call chain data to the controller.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

aggregating data for a business transaction; and

reporting aggregated runtime data associated to the first server.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

detecting an identifier for an unknown recipient in the request; and

modifying the unknown recipient identifier.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the business transaction is distributed over one or more servers.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the thread is associated with an application executing on a server.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising modifying an exit point or entry point of the application by embedding code, wherein the agent detects a received request through the entry point and detects a sent request through the exit point.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving a first parameter from the first computer or service by a server;

receiving a second parameter from the second computer or service by the server; and

correlating a distributed application processed on the first computer and the second computer based on the first parameter and the second parameter.

11. The method of claim 1, further comprising

the external request includes placing a message in an asynchronous queue;

associating the message with a business transaction;

retrieving the message from the asynchrounous queue by a third computer; and

transmitting business transaction information associated with the message to a server by the third computer.

12. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

detecting by the first computer or service the external request to a second computer or service;

sending the request and a first name to the second computer or service by the first computer or service;

transmitting the first name and request information to the first server by the first computer or service; and

transmitting the first name and a second computer identifier to the first server by the second computer or service.

13. The method of claim 12, further comprising:

detecting by the second computer or service that the first computer or service does not recognize the second computer or service based on the first name received by the second computer,

wherein the first name and second computer or service identifier transmitted by the second computer or service is in response to the detection by the second computer.

14. A non-transitory computer readable storage medium having embodied thereon a program, the program being executable by a processor to perform a method for monitoring a business transaction, the method comprising:

associating by an agent a received request with a thread that handles the request;

associating the thread with a monitoring parameter associated with the request, the monitoring parameter associated with the business transaction;

modifying thread data with a section of a call chain for a business transaction, the call chain identifying two or more computers or services that have processed the business transaction which includes the received request, wherein a first agent on a first computer or service of the two or more computers or services adds an identifier to the call chain after the request is received by the first computer or service and a second agent on a second computer or service of the two or more computers or services adds an identifier to the call chain after the request is received by the second computer or service;

modifying an external request with the monitoring parameter from thread data by the agent, the call associated with the thread; and

reporting runtime data associated with the received request to a first server, the runtime data including the monitoring parameter and the call chain.

15. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 14, the method further comprising instrumenting bytecode of the application to modify exit point or entry points of the application.

16. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 14, wherein modifying a request and reporting runtime data are performed by an agent.

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

detecting call chain data within the request;

modifying the call chain data with an identifier associated with the application; and

reporting the modified call chain data to the controller.

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

aggregating data for a business transaction; and

reporting aggregated runtime data associated to the controller.

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

detecting an identifier for an unknown recipient in the request; and

modifying the unknown recipient identifier.

20. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 14, wherein the business transaction is distributed over one or more servers.

21. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 14, wherein the thread is associated with an application executing on a server.

22. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 14, the method further comprising modifying an exit point or entry point of the application by embedding code, wherein the agent detects a received request through the entry point and detects a sent request through the exit point.

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

receiving a first parameter from the first computer or service by a server;

receiving a second parameter from the second computer or service by the server; and

correlating a distributed application processed on the first computer or service and the second computer or service based on the first parameter and the second parameter.

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

the external request includes placing a message in an asynchronous queue;

associating the message with a business transaction;

retrieving the message from the asynchrounous queue by a third computer; and

transmitting business transaction information associated with the message to a server by the third computer.

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

detecting by a first computer the external request to the second computer or service;

sending the request and a first name to the second computer or service by the first computer;

transmitting the first name and request information to the first server by the first computer; and

transmitting the first name and a second computer identifier to the first server by the second computer.

26. The non-transitory computer readable storage of claim 25, the method further comprising:

detecting by the second computer or service that the first computer or service does not recognize the second computer or service based on the first name received by the second computer or service,

wherein the first name and second computer identifier transmitted by the second computer or service is in response to the detection by the second computer.

27. A system for monitoring a business transaction, comprising:

a processor;

a memory;

one or more modules stored in memory and executed by the processor, the one or more modules executable to associate by an agent a received request with a thread that handles the request, associate the thread with a monitoring parameter associated with the request, the monitoring parameter associated with the business transaction, modify thread data with a section of a call chain for a business transaction, the call chain identifying two or more computers or services that have processed the business transaction which includes the received request, wherein a first agent on a first computer or service of the two or more computers or services adds an identifier to the call chain after the request is received by the first computer or service and a second agent on a second computer or service of the two or more computers or services adds an identifier to the call chain after the request is received by the second computer or service, modify an external request with the monitoring parameter from thread data by the agent, the call associated with the thread, and report runtime data associated with the received request to a first server, the runtime data including the monitoring parameter and the call chain.

28. The system of claim 27, wherein the business transaction is distributed over one or more servers.

29. The system of claim 27, wherein the thread is associated with an application executing on a server.

30. The system of claim 27, the one or more modules executable by the processor to modify an exit point or entry point of the application by embedding code, wherein the agent detects a received request through the entry point and detects a sent request through the exit point.

31. The system of claim 27, the one or more modules executable to receive a first parameter from the first computer or service by a server, receive a second parameter from the second computer or service by the server, and correlate a distributed application processed on the first computer or service and the second computer or service based on the first parameter and the second parameter.

32. The system of claim 27, wherein the external request includes placing a message in an asynchronous queue, associating the message with a business transaction, retrieving the message from the asynchrounous queue by a third computer;

and transmitting business transaction information associated with the message to a server by the third computer.

33. The system of claim 27, the one or more modules executable to detect by the first computer or service the external request to the second computer or service, send the request and a first name to the second computer or service by the first computer or service, transmit the first name and request information to the first server by the first computer or service, and transmit the first name and a second computer identifier to the first server by the second computer or service.

34. The system of claim 33, the one or more modules executable to detect by the second computer or service that the first computer or service does not recognize the second computer or service based on the first name received by the second computer or service, wherein the first name and second computer identifier transmitted by the second computer or service is in response to the detection by the second computer or service.