Detection of outage in cloud based service using usage data based error signals

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10073726-B2
Application number	US-201414475543-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Sep 2, 2014
Priority date	Sep 2, 2014
Publication date	Sep 11, 2018
Grant date	Sep 11, 2018

Abstract

Outage detection in a cloud based service is provided using usage data based error signals. Usage data is collected from component of the cloud based service or client devices of the cloud based service based on customer actions on the cloud based service. The usage data is aggregated and normalized to generate an error signal from errors generated from a component of the cloud based service. An outage is detected from the error signal. An alert that includes information associated with the outage and one or more customers impacted by the outage is generated.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method executed on a computing device to provide detection of an outage in a cloud based service using usage data based error signals, the method comprising:
monitoring one or more customer actions with a client interface of the cloud based service, wherein the cloud based service includes one of: a document sharing service, an e-mail service and a storage service;
collecting the usage data from a first set of log files associated with one or more components of the cloud based service and a second set of log files associated with one or more client devices of the cloud based service;
aggregating and normalizing the collected usage data to generate an error signal by:
processing the collected usage data by comparing the collected usage data against an error threshold value within a range of values, and
detecting an error for each data point within the collected usage data that has a measurement value exceeding the error threshold value;

detecting an outage from the error signal, wherein the outage includes one or more regressions of one or more components of the cloud based service;
retrieving information associated with the outage, wherein the information associated with the outage includes a number of errors that cause the outage, identifying information associated with the errors and the one or more components generating the errors, and a time frame of the outage;
identifying one or more customers impacted by the outage from a subset of the one or more customer actions associated with the errors that cause the outage, wherein the one or more customer actions include one of: authentication actions, edit actions and save actions associated with a document;
generating an alert that includes the retrieved information associated with the outage; and
transmit the alert to the one or more customers impacted by the outage.

2. The method of claimed 1 , further comprising:
retrieving the collected usage data from the one or more components of the cloud based service that gather the collected usage data as measurements of the one or more customer actions on the cloud based service, wherein the measurements are stored in log files.

3. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
receiving the collected usage data from one or more client devices associated with the cloud based service that gather the collected usage data as measurements of the one or more customer actions on the cloud based service, wherein the measurements are stored in log files.

4. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
aggregating the collected usage data into one or more error signals based on one or more criteria that include an identification and a type of an associated component of the cloud based service.

5. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
anonymizing the collected usage data to remove one or more private information that include an identification and a location of one or more customer of the cloud based service, while aggregating the collected usage data.

6. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
normalizing the collected usage data by multiplying data points of the collected usage data with an adjustable factor to adjust the data points to be within the range of values.

7. The method of claim 6 , further comprising:
including the error in the error signal.

8. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
allowing a stakeholder to configure the adjustable factor, the range of values, and the error threshold value, wherein the stakeholder includes an administrator of the cloud based service and one or more customers who are associated with the collected usage data.

9. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
analyzing the error signal to compute an error count from a number of errors associated with a component of the cloud based service, in the error signal; and
comparing the error count to an outage threshold value.

10. The method of claim 9 , further comprising:
weighing the outage with a high value in response to a detection that the error count exceeds the outage threshold value.

11. The method of claim 9 , further comprising:
weighing the outage with a medium value in response to a detection that the error count falls below the outage threshold within a small variance of the outage threshold value.

12. A computing device to provide detection of an outage in a cloud based service using usage data based error signals, the computing device comprising:
a memory;
a processor coupled to the memory, the processor executing a management application in conjunction with instructions stored in the memory, wherein the management application is configured to:
monitor one or more customer actions with a client interface of the cloud based service, wherein the cloud based service includes one of: a document sharing service, an e-mail service and a storage service;
collect the usage data from a first set of log files associated with one or more components of the cloud based service and a second set of log files associated with one or more client devices of the cloud based service;
aggregate and normalize the collected usage data to generate an error signal by:
process the collected usage data by comparing the collected usage data against an error threshold value within a range of values, and
detect an error for each data point within the collected usage data that has a measurement value exceeding the error threshold value;

detect an outage from the error signal, wherein the outage includes one or more regressions of one or more components of the cloud based service;
retrieve information associated with the outage, wherein the information associated with the outage includes a number of errors that cause the outage, identifying information associated with the errors and the one or more components generating the errors, and a time frame of the outage;
identify one or more customers impacted by the outage from a subset of the one or more customer actions associated with the errors that cause the outage, wherein the one or more customer actions include one of: authentication actions, edit actions and save actions associated with a document;
generate an alert that includes the retrieved information associated with the outage; and
transmit the alert to the one or more customers impacted by the outage.

13. The computing device of claim 12 , wherein the management application is further configured to:
identify the one or more customers from a subset of errors in the error signal that cause the outage, wherein the one or customers are associated with the subset.

14. The computing device of claim 13 , wherein the management application is further configured to:
generate a customized alert for each one of the one or more customers, wherein the customized aim includes information associated with errors that impact the customer and the outage; and
transmit the customized alert to the customer.

15. The computing device of claim 12 , wherein the management application is further configured to:
identify a tenant that includes a subset of the one or more customers from an attribute of the one or more customers that associates the subset with the tenant.

16. The computing device of claim 15 , wherein the management application is further configured to:
generate a customized alert for the tenant, wherein the customized alert includes information associated with errors that impact the subset and the outage; and
transmit the customized alert to the tenant.

17. The computing device of claim 12 , wherein the management application is

Assignees

• Microsoft Technology Licensing Llc

Inventors

• Ivanova Olga
• Narayanan Venkat
• Ojha Smita
• He Lei
• Sadovsky Art
• Wang Yi
• Premaraj Ashish

Classifications

• H04L43/16

  Threshold monitoring · CPC title

• G06F11/0772 Primary

  Means for error signaling, e.g. using interrupts, exception flags, dedicated error registers · CPC title

• G06F21/6254

  by anonymising data, e.g. decorrelating personal data from the owner's identification · CPC title

• H04L41/5032

  Generating service level reports · CPC title

• H04L43/04

  Processing captured monitoring data, e.g. for logfile generation · CPC title