Analyzing physical machine impact on business transaction performance

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10776245-B2
Application number	US-201715582701-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Apr 30, 2017
Priority date	Oct 31, 2014
Publication date	Sep 15, 2020
Grant date	Sep 15, 2020

Abstract

Application performance data and machine health are collected by a system. The system correlates the two data types to provide context as to how machine health affects the performance of an application. Performance data for an application, for example an application executing as part of a distributed business transaction, and health data for a machine which hosts the application are collected. The performance data and machine health data may be correlated for a particular period of time. The correlation may then be reported to a user. By viewing the correlation, a user may see when machine health was good and bad, and may identify the effects of the machine health on the performance of an application.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method for monitoring an application, comprising:
receiving, at a controller device in a computer network from an agent installed on a remote machine, performance data of an application that performs a portion of a distributed business transaction, wherein the application is hosted on the remote machine, further wherein the performance data is indicative of performance of the distributed business transaction;
receiving, at the controller device from the agent, machine health data for the remote machine;
analyzing, by the controller device, the machine health data to determine whether a machine health violation is detected;
determining, by the controller device, whether a count of the machine health violation detected exceeds or satisfies a threshold;
in response to determining that the count has exceeded the threshold, initiating, by the controller device, a machine health snapshot of at least CPU data, memory data and queue data;
correlating, by the controller device, the performance data and the machine health data for a period of time; and
reporting, by the controller device, the correlation of the performance data and machine health data for the period of time.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the machine health data includes the CPU data, the memory data, or the queue data.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein analyzing the machine health data includes comparing against a maximum threshold for each type of the machine health data.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein determining whether the count exceeds or satisfies a threshold includes determining whether the count exceeds or satisfies a maximum number of allowed violations.

5. The method of claim 4 , wherein the machine health snapshot is collected and stored when the maximum number of allowed violations is exceeded.

6. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
providing a graphical display with the correlated machine health data and application performance data.

7. The method of claim 6 , wherein providing the graphical display includes:
displaying for a particular time window a timeline of machine health metrics generated from the machine health snapshot; and
retrieving the correlated application performance data for the time window.

8. A non-transitory computer readable storage medium having embodied thereon a program, the program being executable by a processor on a controller device in a computer network to perform operations for monitoring an application, the operations comprising:
receiving, at the processor from an agent installed on a remote machine, performance data of an application that performs a portion of a distributed business transaction, wherein the application is hosted on the remote machine, further wherein the performance data is indicative of performance of the distributed business transaction;
receiving, at the processor from the agent, machine health data for the remote machine;
analyzing, by the processor, the machine health data to determine whether a machine health violation is detected;
determining, by the processor, whether a count of the machine health violation detected exceeds or satisfies a threshold;
in response to determining that the count has exceeded the threshold, initiating, at the processor, a machine health snapshot of at least CPU data, memory data and queue data;
correlating, by the processor, the performance data and the machine health data for a period of time; and
reporting, by the processor, the correlation of the performance data and machine health data for the period of time.

9. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 8 , wherein the machine health data includes the CPU data, the memory data, or the queue data.

10. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 8 , wherein analyzing the received machine health data includes comparing against a maximum threshold for each type of the machine health data.

11. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 10 , wherein determining whether the count exceeds or satisfies a threshold includes determining whether the count exceeds or satisfies a maximum number of allowed violations.

12. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 8 , further comprising:
providing a graphical display with the correlated machine health data and application performance data.

13. A controller device for monitoring an application, comprising:
a processor;
a memory; and
one or more modules stored in the memory and executable by the processor to perform operations comprising:
receive, at the controller from an agent installed on a remote machine, performance data of an application that performs a portion of a distributed business transaction, wherein the application is hosted on the remote machine, further wherein the performance data is indicative of performance of the distributed business transaction;
receive, at the controller from the agent, machine health data for the remote machine;
analyze, by the controller device, the machine health data to determine whether a machine health violation is detected;
determine, by the controller device, whether a count of the machine health violation detected exceeds or satisfies a threshold;
in response to a determination that the count has exceeded the threshold, initiate, by the controller device, a machine health snapshot of at least CPU data, memory data and queue data;
correlate, by the controller device, the performance data and the machine health data for a period of time; and
report, by the controller device, the correlation of the performance data and machine health data for the period of time.

14. The controller device of claim 13 , wherein the machine health data includes the CPU data, the memory data, or the queue data.

15. The controller device of claim 13 , wherein to analyze the machine health data includes comparing against a maximum threshold for each type of the machine health data.

16. The controller device of claim 13 , wherein to determine whether the count exceeds or satisfies a threshold includes determining whether the count exceeds or satisfies a maximum number of allowed violations.

17. The controller device of claim 16 , wherein the one or more modules are executable to store the machine health snapshot when the maximum number of allowed violations is exceeded.

18. The controller device of claim 13 , wherein the one or more modules are executable to perform operations further comprising:
provide a graphical display with the correlated machine health data and application performance data.

19. The controller device of claim 18 , wherein to provide the graphical display includes:
display for a particular time window a timeline of machine health metrics generated from the machine health snapshot; and
retrieve the correlated application performance data for the time window.

Assignees

• Appdynamics Llc
• Cisco Tech Inc

Inventors

• Gupta Amod
• Ericson Ryan

Classifications

• G06F11/3409

  for performance assessment · CPC title

• G06F2201/87

  Monitoring of transactions · CPC title

• G06F2201/81

  Threshold · CPC title

• G06F11/3495 Primary

  for systems · CPC title