Systems and/or methods for handling erroneous events in complex event processing (CEP) applications

• US 9,547,547 B2
• Filed: 11/28/2014
• Issued: 01/17/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 11/28/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Software AG
• Original Assignee: Software AG
• Inventors: Heinz, Christoph, Schaefer, Daniel, Kraemer, Juergen, Cammert, Michael, Riemenschneider, Tobias
• Primary Examiner(s): DUNCAN, MARC M
• Application Number:
  US14/555,894
• Publication Number:
  US 20160154692A1
• Time in Patent Office: 781 Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0709 in a distributed system consisting of a plurality of standalone computer nodes, e.g. clusters, client-server systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0721 within a central processing unit [CPU]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0751 Error or fault detection not based on redundancy power supply failures G06F1/30; network fault management H04L41/06
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0772 Means for error signaling, e.g. using interrupts, exception flags, dedicated error registers
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/079 Root cause analysis, i.e. error or fault diagnosis in a hardware test environment G06F11/22; in a software test environment G06F11/36
• 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

Abstract

Certain example embodiments address issues associated with erroneous events produced in Complex Event Processing (CEP) applications. An error handler is controlled to at least: receive, via an event bus, events from external input event sources; receive, via the event bus, error events from an application configured to process events received from the event bus, and to provide to the event bus results obtained from processing received events, and error events corresponding to errors detected at its input and/or processing layer(s); generate, for a given error, an error analysis event and an error impact event by executing a CEP query on at least a corresponding received error event; and provide to the event bus generated error analysis events and generated error impact events. Error analysis events describe for administrators detailed information analyzing corresponding errors. Error impact events describe for business users impacts corresponding errors have for their business user applications.

Claims

1. A computing system, comprising:

processing resources including at least one processor and a memory;

an event bus configured to receive events from a plurality of external input event sources;

an application, including input, processing, and output layers, the application being configured to process events received from the event bus, and to provide to the event bus (a) results obtained from processing received events, and (b) error events corresponding to errors detected at the input layer and/or the processing layer; and

an error handler that, under control of the processing resources, is configured to;

receive, via the event bus, events from the plurality of external input event sources;

receive, via the event bus, error events from the application;

generate, for a given error, an error analysis event and an error impact event by executing a Complex Event Processing (CEP) query on at least a corresponding received error event; and

provide to the event bus generated error analysis events and generated error impact events,

wherein generated error analysis events describe for an administrator detailed information analyzing the corresponding errors, and generated error impact events describe for a non-technical user impacts the corresponding errors have for a user application used by the non-technical user, and

wherein the administrator and the non-technical user are different parties, and wherein generated error analysis events and generated error impact events differ from one another in both structure and content.

2. The system of claim 1, further comprising an administrator tool configured to visualize error analysis events received from the event bus, wherein the user application used by the non-technical user is configured to visualize error impact events received from the event bus.

3. The system of claim 1, further comprising a first CEP engine, wherein the application configured to process events received from the event bus is a CEP application backed by the first CEP engine.

4. The system of claim 3, wherein the error handler includes a second CEP engine that is separate from the first CEP engine, the second CEP engine being configured to facilitate execution of the CEP query in generating error analysis and error impact events.

5. The system of claim 4, wherein the error handler is centralized such that the error handler is configured to receive error events from a plurality of different applications.

6. The system of claim 3, wherein the error handler is configured to share with the application configured to process events received from the event bus such that the first CEP engine is configured to facilitate execution of the CEP query in generating error analysis and error impact events.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein error analysis events include error statistics and/or more complicated derived error models.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein error impact events identify components and/or queries associated with the corresponding error.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein the error handler is further configured to generate query rerun events in response to a request from the non-technical user, the query rerun events providing query results obtained using source events including an event previously associated with an error that has been adjusted.

10. The system of claim 1, wherein the error handler is configured to automatically resolve at least some errors based on user- and/or administrator-defined rules.

11. The system of claim 10, wherein the user- and/or administrator-defined rules previously were manually provided.

12. The system of claim 1, wherein the error handler is configured to automatically resolve at least some errors based on actions taken to resolve errors of the same type.

13. The system of claim 1, wherein the error handler is further configured to assign priorities to generated error analysis events and/or generated error impact events.

14. The system of claim 13, wherein the assigned priorities indicate whether, when, and/or how error messages are to be displayed to the non-technical user and/or the administrator.

15. The system of claim 1, wherein the error events, error analysis events, and error impact events are structured as XML-based documents.

16. A method of handling errors in a computing system, the method comprising, at an error handler under control of processing resources including at least one processor and a memory:

receiving, via an event bus, events from a plurality of input event sources external to the error handler;

receiving, via the event bus, error events from an application that includes input, processing, and output layers, the application being configured to process events received from the event bus, and to provide to the event bus (a) results obtained from processing received events, and (b) error events corresponding to errors detected at the input layer and/or the processing layer;

generating, for a given error, an error analysis event and an error impact event by executing a Complex Event Processing (CEP) query on at least a corresponding received error event; and

providing to the event bus generated error analysis events and generated error impact events,

wherein generated error analysis events describe for an administrator detailed information analyzing the corresponding errors, and generated error impact events describe for a non-technical user impacts the corresponding errors have for a user application used by the non-technical user, and

wherein the administrator and the non-technical user are different parties, and wherein generated error analysis events and generated error impact events differ from one another in both structure and content.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein the non-technical user is a business user.

18. The method of claim 16, wherein the application configured to process events received from the event bus is a CEP application backed by a first CEP engine.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein the error handler includes a second CEP engine that is separate from the first CEP engine, the second CEP engine being configured to facilitate execution of the CEP query in generating error analysis and error impact events.

20. The method of claim 16, wherein error analysis events include error statistics and/or more complicated derived error models and/or error impact events identify components and/or queries associated with the corresponding error.

21. The method of claim 16, further comprising generating query rerun events in response to a request received from the non-technical user, the query rerun events providing query results obtained using source events including an event previously associated with an error that has been adjusted.

22. The method of claim 16, further comprising automatically resolving at least some errors based on predefined rules and/or based on actions taken to resolve errors of the same type.

23. The method of claim 16, wherein errors are resolvable by modifying events associated therewith and rerunning related queries.

24. The method of claim 16, further comprising assigning priorities to generated error analysis events and/or generated error impact events.

25. The method of claim 24, wherein the assigned priorities indicate whether, when, and/or how error messages are to be displayed to the non-technical user and/or the administrator.

26. A non-transitory computer readable storage medium tangibly storing instructions that, when performed by a processor of an error handler in a computing system, execute functionality corresponding to the method of claim 16.

27. An error handler, comprising:

processing resources including at least one processor and a memory; and

a Complex Event Processing (CEP) engine;

wherein the processing resources are configured to control the error handler to at least;

receive, via an event bus, events from a plurality of input event sources external to the error handler;

receive, via the event bus, error events from an application that includes input, processing, and output layers, the application being configured to process events received from the event bus, and to provide to the event bus (a) results obtained from processing received events, and (b) error events corresponding to errors detected at the input layer and/or the processing layer;

generate, for a given error, using the CEP engine, an error analysis event and an error impact event by executing a CEP query on at least a corresponding received error event; and

provide to the event bus generated error analysis events and generated error impact events,

wherein generated error analysis events describe for an administrator detailed information analyzing the corresponding errors, and generated error impact events describe for a non-technical user impacts the corresponding errors have for a user application used by the non-technical user, and

wherein the administrator and the non-technical user are different parties, and wherein generated error analysis events and generated error impact events differ from one another in both structure and content.