Parallel tracing for performance and detail

• US 9,207,969 B2
• Filed: 01/25/2013
• Issued: 12/08/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 01/25/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Inventors: Krajec, Russell S.
• Primary Examiner(s): DAO, TUAN C.
• Application Number:
  US13/751,006
• Publication Number:
  US 20140019985A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,047 Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3006 where the computing system is distributed, e.g. networked systems, clusters, multiprocessor systems multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/46; allocation of resources G06F9/50
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3409 for performance assessment
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3466 Performance evaluation by tracing or monitoring
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3636 by tracing the execution of the program
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/44 Program or device authentication
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/53 by executing in a restricted environment, e.g. sandbox or secure virtual machine
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/865 Monitoring of software
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/4806 Task transfer initiation or dispatching

Abstract

A parallel tracer may perform detailed or heavily instrumented analysis of an application in parallel with a performance or lightly instrumented version of the application. Both versions of the application may operate on the same input stream, but with the heavily instrumented version having different performance results than the lightly instrumented version. The tracing results may be used for various analyses, including optimization and debugging.

Claims

1. A method performed by at least a computer processor, said method comprising:

a workload distributor executing a first instance of an application in a first environment in a first computing device and also executing a second instance of the application in a second environment in a second computing device,

said first environment being a performance environment with minimal tracing,

said second environment being a secure instrumented environment;

receiving by the workload distributor an input stream for said application;

identifying a first unit of work for said application within said input stream and causing said first unit of work to be executed within said first environment;

identifying a second unit of work for said application within said input stream and causing said second unit of work to be executed within said first environment and said second environment;

receiving performance results from said first environment for said second unit of work;

receiving obfuscated detailed trace data from said second environment for said second unit of work;

combining said performance results and said detailed trace data into a results set for said second unit of work; and

wherein said units of work comprise portions of said application written in a functional manner.

2. The method of claim 1, said first environment being an instrumented environment configured with a set of performance measurements.

3. The method of claim 1, said first device having hardware differences from said second device.

4. The method of claim 3, said second device being remotely located from said first device.

5. The method of claim 1, said first environment being operated on a first set of processors on said first computing device, said second environment being operated on a second set of processors on said second computing device.

6. The method of claim 1, said combining comprising identifying an identifier for said second unit of work in said detailed trace data and said identifier for said second unit of work in said performance trace data.

7. The method of claim 1, said performance environment comprising performance monitoring instrumentation.

8. The method of claim 1, said instrumented environment comprising process tracing instrumentation.

9. The method of claim 8, said instrumented environment further comprising memory management instrumentation.

10. The method of claim 9, said instrumented environment further comprising input/output instrumentation.

11. The method of claim 1, said first execution environment being a virtual machine.

12. The method of claim 11, said virtual machine being a process virtual machine.

13. The method of claim 1, further comprising de-obfuscating said received detailed trace data.

14. A system comprising:

a first secure execution environment having a detailed tracer and executing on a first processor;

a second execution environment having a performance tracer which performs minimal tracing;

a workload distributor that;

receives an input stream for an application;

identifies a first unit of work of said application within said input stream and causes a first instance of said first unit of work to be executed within said first secure execution environment and generates a first detailed trace result, which first detailed trace result is obfuscated;

identifies a second unit of work of said application within said input stream and causes said second unit of work to be executed within said second execution environment and generates a first performance trace result;

causes a second instance of said first unit of work to be executed within said second execution environment and generates a second performance trace result;

a combiner that combines said first detailed trace result and said second performance trace result;

wherein

said units of work comprise portions of said application written in a functional manner; and

said execution environments are in different computing devices.

15. The system of claim 14:

said first detailed trace result comprising an identifier for said first unit of work; and

said second performance trace result comprising said identifier for said first unit of work.

16. The system of claim 15, said identifier being an identifier within said first unit of work.

17. The system of claim 15, said identifier being an identifier created by said workload distributor.

18. The system of claim 14 further comprising:

an external interface that receives said input stream from a requestor.

19. The system of claim 18 further comprising:

an application programming interface executed on said first execution environment and said second execution environment.