Health monitoring using snapshot backups through test vectors

• US 9,405,666 B2
• Filed: 06/03/2013
• Issued: 08/02/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 06/03/2013
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Empire Technology Development LLC (Allied Inventors Management, LLC)
• Original Assignee: Empire Technology Development LLC (Allied Inventors Management, LLC)
• Inventors: Kruglick, Ezekiel
• Primary Examiner(s): Lottich, Joshua P
• Application Number:
  US14/342,333
• Publication Number:
  US 20150347286A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,156 Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1464 for networked environments
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3409 for performance assessment
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/36 Preventing errors by testing or debugging software
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3684 for test design, e.g. generating new test cases
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3688 for test execution, e.g. scheduling of test suites
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3692 for test results analysis
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/84 Using snapshots, i.e. a logical point-in-time copy of the data
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5012 determining service availability, e.g. which services are available at a certain point in time
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5096 wherein the managed service relates to distributed or central networked applications
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0817 by checking functioning
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0852 Delays
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0888 Throughput
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/50 Testing arrangements
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/55 Testing of service level quality, e.g. simulating service usage

Abstract

Technologies are described for health monitoring using snapshot backups through test vectors. In some examples, health of an application deployed at a datacenter may be monitored and key metrics recorded in the metadata of progressive backup snapshots of an instance of the application such that warning metrics can be reviewed retrospectively upon failure of the instance and a snapshot can be automatically selected for restoration of the application instance based on lack of high incidence of suspect metric values. Moreover, an operating state associated with snapshot backups may be assessed as the snapshots are captured and selected ones with operating conditions desired as part of a test suite may be saved for use as test scenarios. In particular, state information from added or existing deployment monitoring may be used by a test logic process to evaluate whether each snapshot is needed for testing scenarios.

Claims

1. A method to generate a test vector in datacenter health monitoring using snapshots, the method comprising:

collecting a series of the snapshots and metric values associated with monitored health aspects of an application, wherein the application is executed at a source computing environment;

identifying state information associated with the series of the snapshots, wherein the state information includes a range of operating states and health performance metrics associated the application;

in response to assessing the state information associated with the series of the snapshots, selecting a snapshot from the series of the snapshots based on a historical record associated with the application operating at the source computing environment, wherein the selected snapshot is associated with an operating state from the range of operating states;

preserving the snapshot as the test vector associated with a test suite, wherein the test vector is utilized to evaluate a performance of the application at a destination computing environment;

capturing incoming messages and outgoing messages for a test period;

packaging the selected snapshot from the series of the snapshots and a captured message of the incoming messages and the outgoing messages into a number of test units; and

providing the number of test units to a test logic of the test suite for use in a test scenario.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

in response to collecting the number of test units, restoring at least one test unit at the destination computing environment using the captured message of the incoming messages and the outgoing messages; and

comparing a final state of the application executed at the destination computing environment to a final state of the application executed at the source computing environment to evaluate a robustness of the application at the destination computing environment.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

selecting a subset of snapshots for testing, wherein the subset of the snapshots include one or more conditions that include a predefined stress condition, a normal operating condition, and an expected stress condition;

comparing the one or more conditions between the selected snapshot and the subset of the snapshots; and

in response to a determination of a failure to match the one or more conditions between the selected snapshot and the subset of the snapshots, adding the selected snapshot to the subset of the snapshots.

4. The method of claim 3, further comprising:

receiving another snapshot from the series of the snapshots after a period; and

comparing the other snapshot with the selected snapshot prior to the addition of the selected snapshot to the subset of the snapshots.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving the series of the snapshots from one of a production server at the source computing environment, a monitoring server external to the source computing environment, and a state information server at the source computing environment.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

providing the selected snapshot to an analytics server.

7. A server operable to generate a test vector for datacenter health monitoring using snapshots, the server comprising:

a memory configured to store instructions; and

a processor coupled to the memory, the processor configured to execute a snapshot processing module, wherein the snapshot processing module is configured to;

collect a series of the snapshots and metric values associated with monitored health aspects of an application, wherein the application is executed at a source computing environment;

identify state information associated with the series of the snapshots, wherein the state information includes a range of operating states and health performance metrics associated the application;

in response to assessing the state information associated with the series of the snapshots, select a snapshot from the series of the snapshots based on a historical record associated with the application operating on the source computing environment, wherein the selected snapshot is associated with an operating state from the range of operating states;

preserve the snapshot as the test vector associated with a test suite, wherein the test vector is utilized to evaluate a performance of the application at a destination computing environment;

capture incoming messages and outgoing messages for a test period;

package the selected snapshot from the series of the snapshots and a captured message of the incoming messages and the outgoing messages into a number of test units; and

provide the number of test units to a test logic of the test suite for use in a test scenario.

8. The server of claim 7, wherein the series of the snapshots of the application are captured during a performance monitoring of the application.

9. The server of claim 7, wherein the test logic is configured to test the application at the destination computing environment using the test scenario.

10. The server of claim 7, wherein the series of the snapshots include system states associated with one or more of a processor demand, a memory usage, a threading, user sessions per second, a network storage demand, an availability, a response time, a channel capacity, a latency, a completion time, a service time, a bandwidth, a throughput, a relative efficiency, a scalability, a performance per watt, a compression ratio, an instruction path length, a rate of change in processor demand, and a rate of change in memory usage.

11. The server of claim 7, wherein the test logic is further configured to:

in response to collecting the number of test units, restore at least one test unit at the destination computing environment using the captured message of the incoming messages and the outgoing messages; and

compare a final state of the application executed at the destination computing environment to a final state of the application executed at the source computing environment to evaluate a robustness of the application at the destination computing environment.

12. The server of claim 7, wherein the snapshot processing module is further configured to:

maintain a table of desired test targets;

compare the state information from the selected snapshot to contents of the table of the desired test targets; and

in response to a determination that the state information is not in the table of the desired test targets, add the selected snapshot to a collection of desired snapshots.

13. The server of claim 12, wherein the snapshot processing module is further configured to:

receive another snapshot from the series of the snapshots after a period; and

compare the other snapshot with the selected snapshot prior to the addition of the selected snapshot to the subset of the snapshots.

14. The server of claim 7, wherein the snapshot processing module is further configured to provide the selected snapshot to an analytics server.

15. The server of claim 7, wherein the snapshot processing module is executed in one of a snapshot server, a monitoring server, and an analytics server implemented in one of the source computing environment, a destination computing environment, and a third party entity.

16. A datacenter operable to generate a test vector for health monitoring using snapshots, the datacenter comprising:

servers configured to execute one or more virtual machines each server; and

a virtual machine manager configured to manage the one or more virtual machines; and

a snapshot processing, module configured to;

collect a series of the snapshots and metric values associated monitored health aspects an application, wherein the application is executed at the datacenter;

identify state information associated with the series of the snapshots, wherein the state information includes a range of operating states and health performance metrics associated the application;

in response to assessing the state information associated with the series of the snapshots, select a snapshot from the series of the snapshots based on a historical record associated with the application operating on the datacenter, wherein the selected snapshot is associated with an operating state from the range of operating states;

preserve the snapshot as the test vector associated with a test suite, wherein the test vector is utilized to evaluate a performance of the application at a destination datacenter;

provide the number of test units to a test logic of the test suite for use in a test scenario; and

in response to detecting a failure of an application,

determine one or more metrics associated with the failure;

evaluate the series of the snapshots based on the one or more metrics associated with the failure, wherein the series of the snapshots are collected with associated values for the application executed at the datacenter;

select another snapshot from the series of the snapshots having another desired operating state from the range of operating states to perform a failure recovery based on the values of the one or more metrics associated with the failure captured in the series of the snapshots; and

launch a recovery measure based on the other snapshot at a recovery module.

17. The datacenter of claim 16, wherein the test logic is configured to test the application at the destination datacenter using the test scenario.

18. The datacenter of claim 16, wherein the snapshot processing module is further configured to:

upon selection of the snapshot from the series of the snapshots,

capture incoming messages and outgoing messages for a test period; and

package the selected snapshot from the series of the snapshots and a captured message of the incoming messages and the outgoing messages into a number of test units.

19. The datacenter of claim 18, wherein the test logic is further configured to:

in response to collecting the number of test units, restore at least one test unit at the destination datacenter using the captured message of the incoming messages and the outgoing messages; and

compare a final state of the application executed at the destination datacenter to a final state of the application executed at the datacenter to evaluate a robustness of the application at the destination datacenter.

20. The datacenter of claim 16, wherein the snapshot processing module is further configured to:

maintain a table of desired test targets;

compare the state information from the selected snapshot to contents of the table of the desired test targets; and

in response to a determination that the state information is not in the table of the desired test targets, add the selected snapshot to a collection of desired snapshots.

21. The datacenter of claim 16, wherein the snapshot processing module is further configured to receive the series of the snapshots from one of a production server at the datacenter, a monitoring server external to the datacenter, and a state information server at the datacenter.