Failsafe mechanism for dynamic instrumentation of software using callbacks

• US 8,782,612 B2
• Filed: 05/11/2010
• Issued: 07/15/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 05/11/2010
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: CA, Inc. (d/b/a CA Technologies) (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: CA, Inc. (d/b/a CA Technologies) (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Inventors: Gagliardi, Marco, Sun, Yitao
• Primary Examiner(s): Dao, Thuy
• Assistant Examiner(s): Nguyen, Mongbao
• Application Number:
  US12/777,506
• Publication Number:
  US 20110283265A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,526 Days
• US Class Current: 717/130
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1438 Restarting or rejuvenating
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3495 for systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3644 by instrumenting at runtime
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/875 Monitoring of systems including the internet

Abstract

A failsafe mechanism for installing and removing temporary instrumentation during a runtime of an application. Initially, an application is configured with a baseline set of instrumented components such as methods. Additional instrumentation is then deployed in the application, such as to diagnose a performance problem. The failsafe mechanism ensures that the additional instrumentation is automatically removed, even when there is an interruption in a communication link to the application, a computing device failure, a software failure, or some other type of failure, which renders it impossible to manually roll back the instrumentation from a remote user interface. The failsafe mechanism can be provided using callbacks between the computing devices which detect when a connection is unexpectedly lost or closed. Termination of one callback can cascade to one or more other callbacks. The instrumentation rollback can involve reloading un-instrumented byte code of the application.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method, comprising:

at an application server, establishing a persistent connection between a socket of the application server and a socket of a computing device;

receiving a request at the application server to add temporary dynamic instrumentation to an application at the application server, the request is received from a computing device via the respective connection;

with the request to add the temporary dynamic instrumentation, receiving a request to establish a callback to the computing device;

in response to the request to add the temporary dynamic instrumentation, adding the temporary dynamic instrumentation to the application during a runtime of the application;

in response to the request to establish the callback, monitoring the socket of the application server to determine if the persistent connection is unexpectedly lost, the monitoring is performed by code at the application server; and

if the callback determines that the persistent connection is unexpectedly lost, restoring the application to a state which does not comprise the temporary dynamic instrumentation, wherein the callback determines that the persistent connection is unexpectedly lost by determining that the socket of the application server generates an event indicating that the persistent connection is unexpectedly lost.

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

the request to add the temporary dynamic instrumentation comprises a directive to add the temporary dynamic instrumentation to a class of the application; and

the temporary dynamic instrumentation is added to the application by redefining the class of the application.

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

the callback automatically determines that the persistent connection is unexpectedly lost, and the application is automatically, without human intervention, restored to the state which does not comprise the temporary dynamic instrumentation.

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

the state to which the application is restored comprises static instrumentation but not dynamic instrumentation.

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

maintaining a record of directives, the directives identify classes of the application to which associated instrumentation was added before the temporary dynamic instrumentation was added, wherein the restoring comprises loading un-instrumented byte code of the application, and adding the associated instrumentation to the classes identified by the directives in the un-instrumented byte code.

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

the un-instrumented byte code of the application is accessed from a .JAR file.

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

if the persistent connection is not unexpectedly lost, receiving a request from the computing device, upon expiration of a timer at the computing device, to restore the application to a state which existed before the temporary dynamic instrumentation was added.

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

if the persistent connection is not unexpectedly lost, receiving a request from the computing device, upon expiration of a timer at the computing device, to terminate the callback to the computing device.

9. The computer-implemented method of claim 7, further comprising:

in response to the request to restore the application, restoring the application to the state which existed before the temporary dynamic instrumentation was added, where the state which existed before the temporary dynamic instrumentation was added comprises instrumentation other than the temporary dynamic instrumentation.

10. The computer-implemented method of claim 8, further comprising:

in response to the request to terminate the callback to the computing device, terminating the callback to the computing device, and restoring the application to a state which existed before the temporary dynamic instrumentation was added, where the state which existed before the temporary dynamic instrumentation was added comprises instrumentation other than the temporary dynamic instrumentation.

11. A computer-implemented method, comprising:

receiving a request at a first computing device from a second computing device, the request identifies an application server and comprises a directive for adding temporary dynamic instrumentation to an application at the application server;

in response to the request, implementing a timer, establishing a first persistent connection, which is between a socket of the first computing device and a socket of the application server, and providing, from the first computing device to the application server via the first persistent connection, the directive to add the temporary dynamic instrumentation to the application, and a request to implement a callback to the first computing device, the callback monitors the socket of the application server to determine if the first persistent connection is unexpectedly lost, wherein the callback determines if the first persistent connection is unexpectedly lost by determining if the socket of the application server generates an event indicating that the persistent connection is unexpectedly lost; and

upon expiration of the timer, if the first persistent connection is not unexpectedly lost, providing a request to the application server via the first persistent connection to restore the application to a state which existed before the temporary dynamic instrumentation was added.

12. The computer-implemented method of claim 11, further comprising:

upon expiration of the timer, if the first persistent connection is not unexpectedly lost, providing a request to the application server via the first persistent connection to terminate the callback to the first computing device.

13. The computer-implemented method of claim 11, further comprising:

at the first computing device, establishing a second persistent connection, which is between a socket of the first computing device and a socket of the second computing device, wherein the request received at the first computing device from the second computing device comprises a request to implement a callback to the second computing device via the second persistent connection, and the callback to the second computing device monitors the socket of the first computing device to determine if the second persistent connection is unexpectedly lost; and

upon expiration of the timer, terminating the callback to the second computing.

14. The computer-implemented method of claim 11, further comprising:

at the first computing device, establishing a second persistent connection, which is between a socket of the first computing device and a socket of the second computing device, wherein the request received at the first computing device from the second computing device comprises a request to implement a callback to the second computing device via the second persistent connection, and the callback to the second computing device monitors the socket of the first computing device to determine if the second persistent connection is unexpectedly lost; and

at the first computing device, listening to the first persistent connection to determine if the first persistent connection is unexpectedly lost, and in response to determining that the first persistent connection is unexpectedly lost, terminating the callback to the second computing device.

15. A computer-implemented method, comprising:

receiving one request at an application server to add temporary dynamic instrumentation to an application at the application server, the one request is received from a computing device via one connection between the computing device and the application server;

in response to the one request, adding the temporary dynamic instrumentation to the application during a runtime of the application, and implementing one callback to the computing device via the one connection, the one callback determines if the one connection is unexpectedly lost using code which monitors the one connection;

after the temporary dynamic instrumentation is added to the application, receiving an additional request to add additional temporary dynamic instrumentation to the application, the additional request is received at the application server from the computing device via another connection between the computing device and the application server;

in response to the additional request, adding the additional temporary dynamic instrumentation to the application during the runtime of the application, and implementing another callback to the computing device, the another callback determines if the another connection is unexpectedly lost; and

in response to the another callback determining that the another connection is unexpectedly lost, and the one callback determining that the one connection is not unexpectedly lost, restoring the application to a state which does not comprise the additional temporary dynamic instrumentation, but which does comprise the temporary dynamic instrumentation of the one request.

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

the one connection is made via a socket at the application server; and

the one callback determines that the one connection is not unexpectedly lost by determining that the socket does not generate an event indicating that the one connection is unexpectedly lost.

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

the another connection is made via a socket at the application server; and

the another callback determines that the another connection is unexpectedly lost by determining that the socket generates an event indicating that the another connection is unexpectedly lost.