Method and system for associating crash reports with end user analytics

• US 9,846,607 B2
• Filed: 03/12/2015
• Issued: 12/19/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 03/12/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: NVIDIA Corporation
• Original Assignee: NVIDIA Corporation
• Inventors: Spitzer, John, Salyakhov, Oleg
• Primary Examiner(s): KO, CHAE M
• Application Number:
  US14/645,851
• Publication Number:
  US 20160266953A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,013 Days
• Field of Search: 714 3811
• 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 11/0772 Means for error signaling, e.g. using interrupts, exception flags, dedicated error registers
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0778 Dumping, i.e. gathering error/state information after a fault for later diagnosis
• 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

Abstract

A method for linking information related to a computer crash. The method includes establishing a network of computing resources communicatively coupled to a network, wherein each computing resource is associated with a corresponding hardware configuration capable of executing and displaying at least one application, wherein each of the network of computing resources is associated with a globally unique identifier (GUID). The method includes receiving configuration information relating to the network of computing resources. The method includes receiving a crash report of a crash occurring on a crashed computing system within the network of computing resources. The method includes extracting a GUID from the crash report, wherein the GUID identifies said crashed computing resource. The method includes determining configuration information for the crashed computing resource, and correlating the configuration information with the crash information.

Claims

1. A method for linking information, comprising;

determining a crash on a computing resource;

gathering crash information related to said crash, the crash information being comprised in a crash report;

extracting a globally unique identifier (GUID) from the crash information, the GUID identifying the computing resource and comprising usage data of one or more applications executing in the computing resource;

accessing the crash report from a database communicatively coupled to the crashed computing resource and comprising a storage of a plurality of GUIDs;

identifying a plurality of computing resources corresponding to the crashed computing resource,

wherein the GUID is pre-pended with a tag identifying the GUID as one of the plurality of GUIDs,

further wherein, extracting the GUID comprises parsing the crash report for the tag.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein extracting the GUID further comprises:

reporting the crash information to a third party affiliated with the database.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the crash information comprises a stack trace.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the computing resource is communicatively coupled to a back-end network facilitator, further wherein the GUID is assigned to the computing resource by the back-end network facilitator.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

storing said GUID locally as a variable within a stack trace.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the computing resource is configured to receive computing and graphics processing performed in a back-end server of a GRID system.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the GRID system provides cloud-based virtualized computing and graphics processing for the computing resource.

8. A method for linking information, comprising:

receiving a crash report of a crash occurring on a computing resource within a network of computing resources;

extracting a GUID from said crash report, wherein said GUID identifies the computing resource and comprises configuration information corresponding to the computing resource;

accessing the crash report from a database communicatively coupled to the crashed computing resource and comprising a storage of a plurality of GUIDs identifying a plurality of computing resources corresponding to the crashed computing resource,

wherein the GUID is pre-pended with a tag identifying the GUID as one of the plurality of GUIDs,

further wherein, extracting the GUID comprises parsing the crash report for the tag.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein said configuration information comprises information associated with one or more applications executing in the computing resource.

10. The method of claim 8, wherein said configuration information comprises hardware and software configuration operational settings corresponding to the computing resource.

11. The method of claim 8, wherein the computing resource is communicatively coupled to a back-end network facilitator, further wherein the GUID is assigned to the computing resource by the back-end network facilitator.

12. The method of claim 8, wherein the computing resource is configured to receive computing and graphics processing performed in a back-end server of a GRID system.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the GRID system provides cloud-based virtualized computing and graphics processing for the computing resource.

14. The method of claim 8, further comprising:

receiving a plurality of similar crash reports comprising a plurality of GUIDs;

determining a plurality of configuration information used with a plurality of computing resources associated with said plurality of GUIDs; and

correlating said plurality of configuration information with crash information in the plurality of similar crash reports.

15. The method of claim 14, further comprising:

analyzing the plurality of configuration information and crash information of the plurality of crash reports to determine a root cause of a plurality of crashes associated with the plurality of similar crash reports.

16. A non-transitory computer-readable medium having computer executable instructions for causing a computer system to perform a method for updating optimal settings, the instructions comprising:

instructions to determine a crash on a computing resource;

instructions to gather crash information related to said crash, the crash information being comprised in a crash report;

instructions to extract a globally unique identifier (GUID) from the crash information, the GUID identifying the computing resource and comprising usage data of one or more applications executing in the computing resource;

instructions to access the crash report from a database communicatively coupled to the crashed computing resource and comprising a storage of a plurality of GUIDs identifying a plurality of computing resources corresponding to the crashed computing resource,

wherein the GUID is pre-pended with a tag identifying the GUID as one of the plurality of GUIDs,

further wherein, the instructions to extract the GUID comprises instructions to parse the crash report for the tag.

17. The computer-readable medium of claim 16, wherein the instructions to access the crash report comprises:

linking said instructions to provide a link to the crash information within said configuration information.

18. The computer-readable medium of claim 16, wherein the computing resource is communicatively coupled to a back-end network facilitator, further wherein the GUID is assigned to the computing resource by the back-end network facilitator.

19. The computer-readable medium of claim 16, wherein the computing resource is configured to receive computing and graphics processing performed in a back-end server of a GRID system.

20. The computer-readable medium of claim 16, wherein the GRID system provides cloud-based virtualized computing and graphics processing for the computing resource.