Integrated infrastructure and application performance monitoring

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10673706-B2
Application number	US-201715420517-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jan 31, 2017
Priority date	Jan 31, 2017
Publication date	Jun 2, 2020
Grant date	Jun 2, 2020

Abstract

Provided is a process of correlating information organized according to a logical architecture of a distributed application to information organized according to a network architecture of computers executing the distributed application, the process including: obtaining a logical-architecture topology of a logical architecture of a distributed application executing on a plurality of computing devices; obtaining a network-architecture topology of a physical architecture of the plurality of computing devices executing the distributed application; inferring pairs of logical-architecture host identifiers and network-architecture host identifiers that refer to the same computing device to produce a cross-namespace mapping that correlates the logical-architecture namespace with the network-architecture namespace; and storing the cross-namespace mapping in memory.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method of correlating information organized according to a logical architecture of a distributed application to information organized according to a network architecture of computers executing the distributed application, the method comprising:
obtaining a logical-architecture topology of a logical architecture of a distributed application executing on a plurality of computing devices, wherein:
the logical-architecture topology comprises logical-architecture host identifiers in a logical-architecture namespace, and
each logical-architecture host identifier identifies one computing device among the plurality of computing devices;

obtaining a network-architecture topology of a physical architecture of the plurality of computing devices executing the distributed application, wherein:
the network-architecture topology comprises network-architecture host identifiers in a network-architecture namespace,
the network-architecture namespace is different from the logical-architecture namespace, and
each network-architecture host identifier identifies one computing device among the plurality of computing devices;

inferring pairs of logical-architecture host identifiers and network-architecture host identifiers that refer to the same computing device to produce a cross-namespace mapping that correlates the logical-architecture namespace with the network-architecture namespace, wherein inferring comprises:
obtaining a first set of parameters of a computing device having a given logical-architecture host identifier,
obtaining a second set of parameters of a computing device having a given network-architecture host identifier, and
determining a match between the given logical-architecture host identifier and the given network-architecture host identifier based on correspondence between a plurality of the first set of parameters and a plurality of the second set of parameters; and

storing the cross-namespace mapping in memory, wherein:
a plurality of the logical-architecture host identifiers refer to the same computing device among the plurality of computing devices;
the logical-architecture host identifiers are provided by application agents each associated with a component of the distributed application, the application agents being configured to measure response times of respective components;
the network-architecture host identifiers are provided by infrastructure agents installed on the plurality of computing devices;
at least some of the infrastructure agents are installed after automatically discovering at least some of the computing devices by scanning a range of network addresses with requests to determine which addresses result in a response, the requests being formatted according to a protocol to collect information about managed devices on a network;
components of multiple distributed applications are executing on at least some of the computing devices;
the infrastructure agents are installed on some of the plurality of computing devices before the application agents; and
at least some of the application agents are added to at least some components of the distributed application before the at least some components are installed on a respective one of the plurality of computing devices.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the first set of parameters are obtained from a distributed performance monitor application configured to determine response times of each of a plurality of components of the distributed application being monitored.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the first set of parameters comprise parameters obtained by querying an operating system of the computing device having a given network-architecture host identifier for attributes of the computing device having the given network-architecture host identifier, the attributes including processor attributes, memory attributes, and networking attributes.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the second set of parameters are obtained from an infrastructure management application configured to discover the network-architecture topology and monitor the plurality of computing devices based on communications from infrastructure agents executing on the plurality of computing devices.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the second set of parameters include portions of a management information base (MIB) obtained via a network connecting the plurality of computing devices with a Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) request to the given network-architecture host, the MIB including a hierarchical arrangement of at least some of the second parameters.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein inferring pairs of logical-architecture host identifiers and network-architecture host identifiers comprises:
matching based on both host name strings and domain name strings.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein inferring pairs of logical-architecture host identifiers and network-architecture host identifiers comprises:
matching based on Internet Protocol address, medium access control address, agent instance identifiers, and virtual machine identifiers.

8. The method of claim 1 , wherein inferring pairs of logical-architecture host identifiers and network-architecture host identifiers comprises:
determining an edit distance between at least one parameter among the first set of parameters and at least one parameter among the second set of parameters;
parsing a prefix or suffix from at least one parameter among the first set of parameters or second set of parameters and matching another string to the prefix or suffix; or
parsing a substring denoted by delimiters in at least one parameter among the first set of parameters or second set of parameters and matching another string to the substring.

9. The method of claim 1 , comprising:
determining response times for each of a plurality of routines executed to service a transaction;
for a given routine, identifying a logical-architecture host identifier in the logical-architecture topology of a computing device upon which the given routine was executed to service the transaction;
accessing the mapping to identify a network-architecture host identifier in the network-architecture topology; and
associating the response time of the given routine with a host in the network-architecture based on the network-architecture host identifier.

10. The method of claim 9 , comprising:
retrieving utilization metrics of the associated host in the network-architecture.

11. The method of claim 1 , comprising:
associating infrastructure management monitoring data indexed according to the network-architecture topology with application performance data indexed according to the logical-architecture topology.

12. The method of claim 1 , comprising:
causing a display to be presented that includes an indication of a response time of at least one of a plurality of routines executed in the course of servicing one or more transactions with the distributed applications;
receiving a selection of a user interface associated with the indication of the response time;
using the cross-namespace mapping to identify a network-architecture host identifier of a host upon which the at least one of the plurality of routines was executed; and
causing a display to be presented that identifies the host upon which the at least one of the plurality of routines was executed in the context of the network-architecture host topology.

13. The method of claim 1 , wherein inferring pairs of logical-architecture host identifiers and network-architecture host identifiers comprises:
steps for inferring pairs of logical-architecture host identifiers and network-architectu

Assignees

• Ca Inc
• Ca Tech Inc

Inventors

• Garcia Julio Cesar
• Perkins James
• Costilow Mark

Classifications

• H04L41/12 Primary

  Discovery or management of network topologies · CPC title

• H04L41/046

  comprising network management agents or mobile agents therefor · CPC title

• H04L41/22

  comprising specially adapted graphical user interfaces [GUI] · CPC title

• H04L43/045

  for graphical visualisation of monitoring data · CPC title

• H04L41/0213

  Standardised network management protocols, e.g. simple network management protocol [SNMP] · CPC title