Adaptive session intelligence extender

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10616378-B2
Application number	US-201715438087-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Feb 21, 2017
Priority date	Feb 21, 2017
Publication date	Apr 7, 2020
Grant date	Apr 7, 2020

Abstract

A method for monitoring performance of customized applications at transaction level in a computer network is provided. The method includes receiving, from a user, information related to a customized application. The received information includes at least an application definition and information related to customized application protocol. A template is generated for the customized application based on the received information. Performance of the customized application is monitored at transaction level using the generated template.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method for monitoring performance of customized applications at transaction level in a computer network, the method comprising:
receiving from a user, by a processor, information related to a customized application, the received information comprising at least application definition and information related to customized application protocol;
generating, by a processor, a template for the customized application based on the received information;
receiving from a network interface transactional data packets associated with the customized application;
sending a first copy of the received transactional data packets to a first memory device;
generating Adaptive Session Intelligence (ASI) data sets from the received transactional data packets in an ASI extender associated with the first memory device wherein the ASI extender is configured to determine a start/end of a transaction without a transaction ID based on request/response messages;
storing the ASI data sets in the first memory device;
sending a second copy of the received transactional data packets to a second memory device to monitor, by a processor, performance of the customized application, at transaction level, using the generated template by analyzing received transactional data packets associated with the customized application to at least determine a status of the customized application;
determining a failure of the customized application at transaction level utilizing the AS data sets; and
determining a recovery action for the determined failure of the customized application by mapping the failure to a recovery action.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the customized application protocol comprises a fixed format protocol in which each transaction type has a fixed transaction length and a fixed offset.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the application definition includes an Internet Protocol (IP) address, a port number and a global application identification string of the customized application.

4. The method of claim 2 , wherein the fixed format protocol comprises a TCP/IP protocol or a UDP/IP protocol.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein monitoring performance of the customized application at transaction level further comprises collecting, by a processor, at least a portion of performance metrics associated with each customized application's transaction.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the application definition further includes information related to one or more transaction states of the customized application.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein the information related to the customized application protocol further comprises transaction definitions uniquely identifying one of a plurality of transactions.

8. The method of claim 2 , wherein at least some transactions in the fixed format protocol are associated with more than one transaction packets.

9. The method of claim 1 , wherein the generated template comprises an XML document.

10. The method of claim 5 , wherein the customized application's transaction is associated with a request message and a response message.

11. The method of claim 5 , wherein the collected performance metric represents a transaction response time.

12. The method of claim 5 , wherein the collected performance metric represents a transaction error code.

13. The method of claim 2 , further comprising extracting contents of one or more payload fields from the monitored transaction using the fixed protocol based on a user specified offset of the one or more payload fields.

14. A non-transitory computer readable storage medium structured to store instructions, the instructions when executed, cause a processor in a network device for monitoring performance of customized applications to:
receive, from a user, information related to a customized application, the received information comprising at least application definition and information related to customized application protocol;
generate a template for the customized application based on the received information;
receive from a network interface transactional data packets associated with the customized application;
send a first copy of the received transactional data packets to a first memory device;
generate Adaptive Session Intelligence (ASI) data sets from the received transactional data packets in an ASI extender associated with the first memory device wherein the ASI extender is configured to determine a start/end of a transaction without a transaction ID based on request/response messages;
store the ASI data sets in the first memory device;
send a second copy of the received transactional data packets to a second memory device to monitor performance of the customized application at transaction level using the generated template by analyzing received transactional data packets associated with the customized application to at least determine a status of the customized application;
determine a failure of the customized application at transaction level utilizing the ASI data sets;
determine a recovery action for the determined failure of the customized application by mapping the failure to a recovery action.

15. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium as recited in claim 14 wherein the generated ASI data sets include data associated with: service and user-related metrics on network devices, network subscribers, one or more network base station IDs, one or more Access Point Names (APN), Tracking Area Code (TAC) information and VLAN information.

16. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium as recited in claim 14 wherein generated ASI data sets related to one or more transactions are stored in memory for a longer time than generated ASI data sets not related to one or more transactions.

17. The method as recited in claim 1 wherein the generated ASI data sets include data associated with: service and user-related metrics on network devices, network subscribers, one or more network base station IDs, one or more Access Point Names (APN), Tracking Area Code (TAC) information and VLAN information.

18. The method as recited in claim 1 wherein generated ASI data sets related to one or more transactions are stored in memory for a longer time than generated ASI data sets not related to one or more transactions.

Assignees

• Netscout Systems Inc

Inventors

• Jenkins Catherine
• Wang Jinfeng
• Thompson Ted
• Tay Kok Pheng

Classifications

• G06F9/466

  Transaction processing · CPC title

• H04L69/329

  in the application layer [OSI layer 7] · CPC title

• G06F11/3006

  where the computing system is distributed, e.g. networked systems, clusters, multiprocessor systems (multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/46; allocation of resources G06F9/50) · CPC title

• H04L41/5067

  Customer-centric QoS measurements · CPC title

• H04L43/18

  Protocol analysers · CPC title