Transaction model with structural and behavioral description of complex transactions

• US 9,202,185 B2
• Filed: 04/08/2011
• Issued: 12/01/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 04/08/2011
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: CA, Inc. (d/b/a CA Technologies) (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: CA, Inc. (d/b/a CA Technologies) (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Inventors: Umansky, Vladimir, Basak, Indranil, Sawant, Abhijit, Blackwell, Aaron Kenneth, Cobb, Jeffrey R
• Primary Examiner(s): Jasmin, Lynda
• Assistant Examiner(s): LINDSEY III, JOHNATHAN J
• Application Number:
  US13/082,710
• Publication Number:
  US 20120259793A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,698 Days
• Field of Search: 705/348, 717/123, 717/124, 717/125
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling

Abstract

A model is used to provide a user interface to track flows through at least one application of a computer system. The model relates the structural aspects of the at least one application to a behavioral model such as a business transaction hierarchy. The structural part of the model includes linked Vertex and Edge records. Vertex records for different instances of a component can be aggregated to provide a single vertex or node for display in a user interface. A Vertex record is linked to an Agent record and a Metric Path record. The Edge records identify tail and head components of a call. A set of Edge records can be associated with a Transaction record in the behavioral part of the model. A Transaction record can be associated with a Business Transaction Record, and a Business Transaction record can be associated with a Business Service Record.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method, the method comprising:

identifying software components which are invoked during individual transactions involving an application at an application server using instrumentation of the software components;

in response to the identifying, updating a model for tracking flows through the application, the model comprising;

vertex records which identify software components which are invoked during the individual transactions;

edge records which identify calls to the software components, the edge records are linked to the vertex records;

individual transaction records which identify the individual transactions and which are linked to the edge records, the individual transaction records represent a transaction hierarchy, the transaction hierarchy comprising the individual transactions at one level of the transaction hierarchy and groupings of the individual transactions at a first higher level of the transaction hierarchy;

business transaction records which identify the groupings of the individual transactions as business transactions at the first higher level of the transaction hierarchy;

business service records which represent business services at a second higher level of the transaction hierarchy, above the first higher level of the transaction hierarchy, and which are linked to groupings of the business transaction records; and

metric path records which identify one or more paths to performance metrics for the software components, each of the vertex records is linked to one or more of the metric path records;

providing a directed graph in a user interface display, the user interface display comprising a region identifying names of the business services based on the business service records, and next to the names of the business services based on the metric path records which indicate alert levels of the business services, the alert notation of each business service of the business services is set as a highest alert level of associated business transactions of the business service;

in response to a user selection of a particular business service of the business services, displaying the directed graph in a summary view based on the vertex records and the edge records, the displaying the directed graph in the summary view comprises

displaying;

a plurality of business transaction vertexes which identify names of particular business transactions associated with the particular business service;

individual transaction vertexes which identify names of particular individual transactions associated with each of the particular business transactions;

edges which indicate calling relationships among the particular individual transactions and associations with the particular business transactions;

alert notations in the business transaction vertexes based on the metric path records which indicate alert levels of the particular business transactions, the alert notation of each particular business transaction is set as a highest alert level of the particular individual transactions associated with the particular business transaction; and

alert notations in the individual transaction vertexes based on the metric path records which indicate alert levels of the particular individual transactions, the alert notation of each particular individual transaction is set as a highest alert level of child software components of the particular individual transaction; and

in response to a user selection of a detailed view of the directed graph, displaying the directed graph in the detailed view based on the vertex records and the edge records, the displaying the directed graph in the detailed view comprises;

displaying vertexes of the child software components within the individual transaction vertexes;

displaying, in the vertexes of the child software components, alert notations next to names of the child software components based on the metric path records to indicate alert levels of the child software components; and

displaying edges which indicate calling relationships among the child software components and associations with the particular business transactions.

2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein:

one of the software components comprises multiple instances which are monitored by different agents;

the vertex records comprise different vertex records for the different agents and a common vertex record which represents an aggregation of the different vertex records; and

for the one of the software components comprising multiple instances which are monitored by different agents, the edge records comprise different edge records associated with the different vertex records, and a common edge record which represents an aggregation of the different edge records, and which is linked to the common vertex record.

3. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein:

one of the individual transaction records is linked to an ordered set of records of the edge records.

4. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein:

one of the edge records comprises;

(a) a tail identifier which identifies one of the software components as a caller, and (b) a head identifier which identifies another of the software components as a callee.

5. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein:

the directed graph uses the vertex records and the edge records to provide, on the user interface display;

a sixth vertex which identifies the name of the second business transaction; and

a third edge between the fifth and sixth vertexes which indicates the second child software component was called in the second business transaction.

6. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein:

one of the software components comprises multiple instances which are monitored by different agents, and for the one of the software components comprising multiple instances which are monitored by different agents, the vertex records comprise different vertex records for the different agents, and a common vertex record which represents an aggregation of the different vertex records.

7. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein:

each individual transaction comprises an identifying component among the software components which are invoked during individual transactions.

8. A computer program product, comprising:

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

computer readable program code to provide a vertex records which identify software components which are invoked during individual transactions involving an application, wherein each individual transaction comprises an identifying component among the software components;

computer readable program code to provide edge records which identify calls to the software components, the edge records are linked to the vertex records;

computer readable program code to provide individual transaction records which identify the individual transactions, and which are linked to the edge records, the individual transaction records represent a transaction hierarchy, the transaction hierarchy comprising the individual transactions at one level of the transaction hierarchy and groupings of the individual transactions at a first higher level of the transaction hierarchy;

computer readable program code to provide business transaction records which identify the groupings of the individual transactions as business transactions at the first higher level of the transaction hierarchy;

computer readable program code to provide business service records which represent business services at a second higher level of the transaction hierarchy, above the first higher level of the transaction hierarchy, and which are linked to groupings of the business transaction records;

computer readable program code to provide metric path records which identify one or more paths to performance metrics for the software components, each of the vertex records is linked to one or more of the metric path records; and

computer readable program code to provide a directed graph in a user interface display, the user interface display comprising a region identifying names of the business services based on the business service records, and alert notations next to the names of the business services based on the metric path records which indicate alert levels of the business services, the alert notation of each business service of the business services is set as a highest alert level of associated business transactions of the business service;

computer readable program code to, in response to a user selection of a particular business service of the business services, display the directed graph in a summary view based on the vertex records and the edge records, the display of the directed graph in the summary view comprises a display of;

a plurality of business transaction vertexes which identify names of particular business transactions associated with the particular business service;

individual transaction vertexes which identify names of particular individual transactions associated with each of the particular business transactions;

edges which indicate calling relationships among the particular individual transactions and associations with the particular business transactions;

alert notations in the business transaction vertexes based on the metric path records which indicate alert levels of the particular business transactions, the alert notation of each particular business transaction is set as a highest alert level of the particular individual transactions associated with the particular business transaction; and

alert notations in the individual transaction vertexes based on the metric path records which indicate alert levels of the particular individual transactions, the alert notation of each particular individual transaction is set as a highest alert level of child software components of the particular individual transaction; and

computer readable program code to, in response to a user selection of a detailed view of the directed graph, display the directed graph in the detailed view based on the vertex records and the edge records, the display of the directed graph in the detailed view comprises;

a display of vertexes of the child software components within the individual transaction vertexes;

a display, in the vertexes of the child software components, of alert notations next to names of the child software components based on the metric path records to indicate alert levels of the child software components; and

a display of edges which indicate calling relationships among the child software components and associations with the particular business transactions.

9. The computer program product of claim 8, wherein:

one of the software components comprises multiple instances which monitored by different agents; and

for the one of the software components comprising multiple instances which are monitored by different agents, the vertex records comprise different vertex records for the different agents, and a common vertex record which represents an aggregation of the different vertex records.

10. The computer program product of claim 9, wherein:

the vertexes in the directed graph are based on the common vertex record, to allow a user to view a flow through the application based on an aggregation across the different agents.

11. The computer program product of claim 9, wherein:

the vertexes in the directed graph are based on one or more of the different vertex records, to allow a user to view a flow through the application, where the flow is specific to one or more of the different agents.

12. The computer program product of claim 8, wherein:

one of the software components is a child component and another of the software components is an associated parent component;

one of the vertex records is for the associated parent component, and another of the vertex records is for the child component and comprises an identifier of the associated parent component; and

the vertexes in the directed graph depict a child-parent relationship of the child component and the associated parent component.

13. The computer program product of claim 8, wherein:

the vertexes are arranged according to the transaction hierarchy such that one of the vertexes is identified in the directed graph as being associated with the one level of the transaction hierarchy and another of the vertexes is identified in the directed graph as being associated with the first higher level of the transaction hierarchy.

14. The computer program product of claim 8, wherein:

one of the edge records comprises;

(a) a tail identifier which identifies one of the software components as a caller of one of the calls, and (b) a head identifier which identifies another of the software components as a callee of the one of the calls, to allow the directed graph to depict an edge from the caller to the callee.

15. The computer program product of claim 14, wherein:

the one of the edge records comprises a name of an owner of the caller, and a name of an owner of the callee, to allow the directed graph to depict the name of the owner of the caller and the name of the owner of the callee.

16. The computer program product of claim 8, wherein:

one of the edge records comprises an identifier which indicates whether an associated one of the calls represents a synchronous or asynchronous call.

17. The computer program product of claim 8, wherein:

one of the edge records comprises an identifier which indicates one or more name-value pairs; and

the directed graph is provided using the name-value pairs.

18. The computer program product of claim 8, wherein:

at least one of;

(a) the edge records or (b) the vertex records comprise an identifier of an associated Uniform Resource Locator, to allow the user interface to depict the associated Uniform Resource Locator.

19. The computer program product of claim 8, wherein:

the vertex records identify one or more types of the software components, to allow the user interface to depict the one or more types, the one or more types comprise at least one of an servlet, EJB, database, database socket, socket, Web Service, messaging server or EJB Client.

20. The computer program product of claim 8, wherein:

one of the vertex records comprises an identifier which indicates an associated level in a hierarchy of software components, the hierarchy of software components comprises at least one of a class, a class-method pair, a process or a JVM, the identifier indicates a granularity of information in the one of the vertex records.

21. The computer program product of claim 8, wherein:

one of the vertex records comprises a vertex properties identifier which indicates one or more name-value pairs, and the directed graph is provided using the name-value pairs.

22. The computer program product of claim 8, further comprising:

computer readable program code to provide one or more metric path records which identify one or more paths to performance metrics for the software components, each of the vertex records which identify the software components is linked to one or more of the metric path records.

23. The computer program product of claim 8, further comprising:

computer readable program code to provide, for use in the user interface display, one or more owner records which identify one or more owners of the calls, each of the owner records is linked to one or more of the edge records.