Systems and methods for troubleshooting and performance analysis of cloud based services

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10728113-B2
Application number	US-201615377051-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Dec 13, 2016
Priority date	Oct 26, 2016
Publication date	Jul 28, 2020
Grant date	Jul 28, 2020

Abstract

A method for troubleshooting and performance analysis of a cloud based system, the method implemented by an analyzer service executed on one or more servers, and the analyzer service communicatively coupled to a network and to user devices, the method includes receiving results from execution of an analyzer application on each of the user devices, wherein the analyzer application is executed locally on user devices to perform tests comprising traceroutes and web page loads, and wherein the plurality of tests are performed both through the cloud based system to the network and directly to the network; processing the results to determine a status of the cloud based system and associated user devices communicating therewith; utilizing the status to identify bottlenecks and issues associated with the cloud based system and the network; and causing performance of remedial actions based on the identified bottlenecks and the issues.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method for troubleshooting and performance analysis of a cloud-based system, the method implemented by an analyzer service executed on one or more servers, and the analyzer service communicatively coupled to a network and to a plurality of user devices, the method comprising:
receiving results from execution of an analyzer application on each of the plurality of user devices, wherein the analyzer application is executed locally on user devices to perform a plurality of tests comprising one or more traceroutes and one or more web page loads, and wherein the plurality of tests are performed both through the cloud based system to the network and directly to the network;
receiving additional results from execution of an additional analyzer application on the cloud-based system, wherein the additional analyzer application is executed on the cloud-based system to perform the plurality of tests comprising one or more traceroutes and one or more web page loads;
processing the results and additional results to determine a status of the cloud-based system and associated user devices communicating therewith, wherein the status is determined in part based on a comparison of the plurality of tests performed both through the cloud based system to the network and directly to the network;
utilizing the status to identify where bottlenecks exist in the cloud-based system and network and identify issues associated with the cloud-based system and the network; and
causing performance of one or more remedial actions based on the identified bottlenecks and the issues.

2. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
causing the execution of the analyzer application on a particular user device responsive to a troubleshooting notification associated with the particular user device.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the traceroutes comprise a My Traceroute (MTR) and the web page loads load one or more Uniform Resource Locators (URLs) either through a system proxy, a custom PAC (Proxy Auto Config) file, and a custom gateway.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the traceroutes detect host latency and latency per hop in the network and the web page loads detect a response time for loading one or more Uniform Resource Locators (URLs).

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the one or more remedial actions comprise:
causing maintenance on at least one of the user devices based on misconfigurations, out-of-date software, and hardware deficiencies;
causing maintenance on the network based on misconfigurations and hardware deficiencies; and
causing maintenance on the cloud-based system based on misconfigurations and hardware deficiencies.

6. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
monitoring the results over time; and
processing the monitored results over time to determine upgrades in network capacity, processing capacity, and geographic locations of the cloud-based system.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein the results comprise geographic location of the user devices and associated nodes in the cloud-based system, processing latency introduced by the cloud-based system, response time, application performance in the cloud-based system, and service availability of the cloud-based system.

8. The method of claim 1 , wherein the cloud-based system comprises a distributed security system monitoring and protecting the user devices from a plurality of security threats, wherein the distributed security system provides in-line protection of the user devices, independent of device type, hardware configuration, operating system, geographic location, and physical network location.

9. A cloud-based system configured for troubleshooting and performance analysis thereof, the cloud-based system comprising:
one or more cloud nodes executed on one or more servers and communicatively coupled to a plurality of user devices via a network for cloud access; and
an analyzer service executed on one or more servers and communicatively coupled to the one or more cloud nodes and the plurality of user devices, wherein the analyzer service is configured to:
receive results from execution of an analyzer application on each of the plurality of user devices, wherein the analyzer application is executed locally on user devices to perform a plurality of tests comprising one or more traceroutes and one or more web page loads, and wherein the plurality of tests are performed both through the cloud based system to the network and directly to the network;
process the results to determine a status of the cloud-based system and associated user devices communicating therewith, wherein the status is determined in part based on a comparison of the plurality of tests performed both through the cloud based system to the network and directly to the network;
utilize the status to identify where bottlenecks exist in the cloud-based system and network and identify issues associated with the cloud-based system and the network;
cause performance of one or more remedial actions based on the identified bottlenecks and the issues; and
cause the execution of the analyzer application on a particular user device responsive to a troubleshooting notification associated with the particular user device.

10. The cloud-based system of claim 9 , wherein the analyzer service is further configured to
receive additional results from execution of an additional analyzer application on the cloud-based system which corresponds to the results from the associated analyzer application executed locally on the associated user devices.

11. The cloud-based system of claim 9 , wherein the traceroutes comprise a My Traceroute (MTR) and the web page loads load one or more Uniform Resource Locators (URLs) either through a system proxy, a custom PAC (Proxy Auto Config) file, and a custom gateway.

12. The cloud-based system of claim 9 , wherein the traceroutes detect host latency and latency per hop in the network and the web page loads detect a response time for loading one or more Uniform Resource Locators (URLs).

13. The cloud-based system of claim 9 , wherein the one or more remedial actions comprise:
maintenance on at least one of the user devices based on misconfigurations, out-of-date software, and hardware deficiencies;
maintenance on the network based on misconfigurations and hardware deficiencies; and
maintenance on the cloud-based system based on misconfigurations and hardware deficiencies.

14. The cloud-based system of claim 9 , wherein the analyzer service is further configured to
monitor the results over time; and
process the monitored results over time to determine upgrades in network capacity, processing capacity, and geographic locations of the cloud-based system.

15. The cloud-based system of claim 9 , wherein the results comprise geographic location of the user devices and associated nodes in the cloud-based system, processing latency introduced by the cloud-based system, response time, application performance in the cloud-based system, and service availability of the cloud-based system.

16. The cloud-based system of claim 9 , wherein the cloud-based system comprises a distributed security system monitoring and protecting the user devices from a plurality of security threats, wherein the distributed security system provides in-line protection of the user devices, independent of device type, hardware configuration, operating system, geographic location, and physical network location.

17. A user device configured for troubleshooting and performance analysis of a cloud-based system, the user device comprising:
a network interfac

Assignees

• Zscaler Inc

Inventors

• Sinha Amit
• Mohan Prem
• Chadha Arshi
• Arora Preeti
• Singh Ajit
• Desai Purvi

Classifications

• H04L41/5067

  Customer-centric QoS measurements · CPC title

• H04L41/0654

  using network fault recovery (ring fault isolation or reconfiguration in loop networks without recovery actions by a network management system H04L12/437) · CPC title

• H04L43/10

  Active monitoring, e.g. heartbeat, ping or trace-route · CPC title

• H04L41/5009 Primary

  Determining service level performance parameters or violations of service level contracts, e.g. violations of agreed response time or mean time between failures [MTBF] · CPC title