AUTOMATED GROUPING OF MESSAGES PROVIDED TO AN APPLICATION USING EXECUTION PATH SIMILARITY ANALYSIS

• US 20080134205A1
• Filed: 12/01/2006
• Published: 06/05/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 12/01/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: CA, Inc. (d/b/a CA Technologies) (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Computer Associates Think Inc. (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Inventors: Seidman, David Isaiah, Bansal, Jyoti Kumar, Addleman, Mark J.
• Granted Patent: US 7,917,911 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 719/315
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3409 for performance assessment
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3447 Performance evaluation by modeling
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3612 by runtime analysis performance monitoring G06F11/3466
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/87 Monitoring of transactions
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/875 Monitoring of systems including the internet

Abstract

An application is monitored to identify different execution paths, e.g., sequences of invoked components, which occur due to the receipt of messages by the application. Similarities between the execution paths are determined based on a distance algorithm, in one approach, and execution paths which are similar are assigned to a common group. Additionally, application runtime data such as response times is obtained for the execution paths and aggregated for the group. The messages can also be grouped based on the grouping of the execution paths. Further, a representative execution path can be determined for each execution path group for comparison to subsequent execution paths. A representative message can similarly be determined for each message group. Results can be reported which include a group identifier, representative message, representative execution path, count, and aggregated runtime data.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method for characterizing execution paths, comprising:

identifying execution paths of at least one application, the execution paths are responsive to receipt by the at least one application of messages;

responsive to the identifying, calculating metrics which represent distances between the execution paths;

grouping the execution paths according to the metrics into a plurality of groups of execution paths; and

responsive to the grouping of the execution paths, grouping the messages into a plurality of groups of messages.

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

each execution path identifies components which are invoked during execution of the at least one application.

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

the metrics are calculated by considering an order in which the components are invoked.

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

the metrics are calculated by considering a predetermined subset of the invoked components.

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

the metrics are calculated by according different weights to different components.

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

the execution paths are grouped according to whether a predetermined portion of components in different execution paths are the same.

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

the execution paths are grouped so that execution paths whose distance from one another is less than a threshold are grouped together.

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

the execution paths are grouped so that each of the plurality of groups of execution paths has a similar number of execution paths.

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

the execution paths are grouped into a hierarchy of groups.

10. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising:

reporting, responsive to the grouping of the messages.

11. The computer-implemented method of claim 10, wherein:

the reporting identifies a count of messages grouped into each of the plurality of groups of messages.

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

at least one of the execution paths extends across multiple applications, and an identifier which represents invoked components in at least a first application of the multiple applications is used in the calculating of the metrics.

13. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising:

providing a representative execution path for at least one of the groups of execution paths.

14. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising:

providing a representative execution path for at least one of the groups of execution paths by determining an execution path in the at least one of the groups of execution paths for which a sum of the distances relative to other execution paths in the at least one of the groups of execution paths is a minimum.

15. A computer-implemented method for characterizing execution paths, comprising:

identifying an execution path of at least one application, the execution path is responsive to receipt by the at least one application of a message;

responsive to the identifying, calculating metrics which represent distances between the identified execution path and representative execution paths of each of a plurality of groups of execution paths;

grouping the identified execution path into one of the plurality of groups of execution paths for which the metric indicates a minimum distance; and

responsive to the grouping of the identified execution path, grouping the message into one of a plurality of groups of messages.

16. The computer-implemented method of claim 15, wherein:

the identified execution path identifies components which are invoked during execution of the at least one application.

17. The computer-implemented method of claim 16, wherein:

the metrics are calculated by considering an order in which the components are invoked.

18. The computer-implemented method of claim 16, wherein:

the metrics are calculated by considering a predetermined subset of the invoked components.

19. The computer-implemented method of claim 16, wherein:

the metrics are calculated by according different weights to different components.

20. The computer-implemented method of claim 16, wherein:

the identified execution path is grouped according to whether a predetermined portion of the invoked components are the same as the associated invoked components of the representative execution paths.

21. The computer-implemented method of claim 15, further comprising:

reporting, responsive to the grouping of the messages.

22. The computer-implemented method of claim 15, wherein:

at least one of the execution paths extends across multiple applications, and an identifier which represents invoked components in at least a first application of the multiple applications is used in the calculating of the metrics.

23. The computer-implemented method of claim 15, wherein:

the representative execution paths are set based on a learning period in which execution paths of the at least one application are identified.

24. A computer-implemented method for characterizing execution paths, comprising:

identifying an execution path of at least one application, the execution path is responsive to receipt by the at least one application of a message;

responsive to the identifying, calculating metrics which represent distances between the identified execution path and representative execution paths of each of a plurality of groups of execution paths, one of the metrics representing a minimum distance;

if the metric which represents the minimum distance exceeds a threshold, grouping the identified execution path into a new execution path group; and

if the metric which represents the minimum distance does not exceed the threshold, grouping the identified execution path into one of the plurality of groups of execution paths for which the metric indicates the minimum distance.

25. The computer-implemented method of claim 24, further comprising:

if the metric which represents the minimum distance does not exceed the threshold, grouping the message into one of a plurality of previously-defined groups of messages.

26. The computer-implemented method of claim 24, further comprising:

if the metric which represents the minimum distance exceeds the threshold, grouping the message into a new message group.

27. At least one processor readable storage device having processor readable code embodied thereon for programming at least one processor to perform a method, the method comprising:

identifying execution paths of at least one application, the execution paths are responsive to receipt by the at least one application of messages;

responsive to the identifying, calculating metrics which represent distances between the execution paths;

grouping the execution paths according to the metrics into a plurality of groups of execution paths; and

responsive to the grouping of the execution paths, grouping the messages into a plurality of groups of messages.

28. The at least one processor readable storage device of claim 27, wherein:

each execution path identifies components which are invoked during execution of the at least one application.

29. The at least one processor readable storage device of claim 27, wherein:

the execution paths are grouped so that execution paths whose distance from one another is less than a threshold are grouped together.

30. The at least one processor readable storage device of claim 27, wherein:

the execution paths are grouped so that each of the plurality of groups of execution paths has a similar number of execution paths.

31. The at least one processor readable storage device of claim 27, wherein:

the execution paths are grouped into a hierarchy of groups.

32. The at least one processor readable storage device of claim 27, wherein the method performed further comprises:

reporting, responsive to the grouping of the messages.

33. The at least one processor readable storage device of claim 32, wherein:

the reporting identifies a count of messages grouped into each of the plurality of groups of messages.

34. At least one processor readable storage device having processor readable code embodied thereon for programming at least one processor to perform a method, the method comprising:

identifying an execution path of at least one application, the execution path is responsive to receipt by the at least one application of a message;

responsive to the identifying, calculating metrics which represent distances between the identified execution path and representative execution paths of each of a plurality of groups of execution paths;

grouping the identified execution path into one of the plurality of groups of execution paths for which the metric indicates a minimum distance; and

responsive to the grouping of the identified execution path, grouping the message into one of a plurality of groups of messages.

35. The at least one processor readable storage device of claim 34, wherein:

the identified execution path identifies components which are invoked during execution of the at least one application.

36. The at least one processor readable storage device of claim 34, wherein the method performed further comprises:

reporting, responsive to the grouping of the messages.

37. The at least one processor readable storage device of claim 34, wherein:

the representative execution paths are set based on a learning period in which execution paths of the at least one application are identified.

38. At least one processor readable storage device having processor readable code embodied thereon for programming at least one processor to perform a method, the method comprising:

identifying an execution path of at least one application, the execution path is responsive to receipt by the at least one application of a message;

responsive to the identifying, calculating metrics which represent distances between the identified execution path and representative execution paths of each of a plurality of groups of execution paths, one of the metrics representing a minimum distance;

if the metric which represents the minimum distance exceeds a threshold, grouping the identified execution path into a new execution path group; and

if the metric which represents the minimum distance does not exceed the threshold, grouping the identified execution path into one of the plurality of groups of execution paths for which the metric indicates the minimum distance.

39. The at least one processor readable storage device of claim 38, wherein:

if the metric which represents the minimum distance does not exceed the threshold, the method performed further comprises grouping the message into one of a plurality of previously-defined groups of messages.

40. The at least one processor readable storage device of claim 38, wherein:

if the metric which represents the minimum distance exceeds the threshold, the method performed further comprises grouping the message into a new message group.