Identifying the root cause of failure observed in connection to a workflow

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11789804-B1
Application number	US-202217589556-A
Country	US
Kind code	B1
Filing date	Jan 31, 2022
Priority date	Oct 18, 2021
Publication date	Oct 17, 2023
Grant date	Oct 17, 2023

Abstract

A method of identifying a root cause of a failure for a trace within a microservices-based application includes determining if a root span of the trace is an error span resulting in an error experienced by a user at a front end of the microservices-based application. If the root span of the trace is an error span, the method analyzes a plurality of spans comprising the trace to determine if the trace comprises at least one leaf error span. If the trace comprises a single leaf error span, the method attributes the root cause of the failure in the trace to a service associated with the single leaf error span. If the trace comprises multiple leaf error spans the method attributes the root cause of the failure in the trace to a service associated with a leaf error span of the multiple leaf error spans comprising a latest starting timestamp.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method of identifying a root cause of a failure for a trace within a microservices-based application, the method comprising:
determining if a root span of the trace is an error span resulting in an error experienced by a user at a front end of the microservices-based application;
responsive to a determination that the root span of the trace is the error span, analyzing a plurality of spans comprising the trace to determine if the trace comprises at least one leaf error span that is a last error span of a chain of unbroken error spans starting at the root span;
responsive to a determination that the trace comprises the at least one leaf error span, attributing the root cause of the failure in the trace to a service associated with the at least one leaf error span; and
responsive to a determination that the trace comprises multiple leaf error spans, attributing the root cause of the failure in the trace to a service associated with a leaf error span of the multiple leaf error spans that comprises a latest starting timestamp.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the trace is associated with a workflow, wherein the workflow is operable to group together a plurality of spans in the trace generated in response to a client process implemented by a group of services comprised within the microservices-based application.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the trace is tagged with a global tag comprising a name of the service associated with the root cause of the failure.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the trace is tagged with a global tag comprising a name of the service associated with the root cause of the failure, and further comprising:
computing metrics for the service associated with the root cause of the failure using the global tag.

5. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
displaying the trace as a graphical element in a graphical user interface, wherein the graphical element visually indicates which service in the trace is associated with the root cause of the failure.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the trace is tagged with a global tag comprising a name of the service associated with the root cause of the failure, and further comprising:
computing metrics for the service associated with the root cause of the failure using the global tag and a data set associated with a metric time series modality.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein the trace is tagged with a global tag comprising a name of the service associated with the root cause of the failure, and further comprising:
computing metrics for the service associated with the root cause of the failure using the global tag and a data set associated with a metric events modality.

8. The method of claim 1 , wherein the trace is tagged with a global tag comprising a name of the service associated with the root cause of the failure, and further comprising:
computing metrics for the service associated with the root cause of the failure using the global tag, wherein the metrics comprise: request; error; and latency related metrics.

9. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
displaying the trace as a graphical element in a graphical user interface, wherein the graphical element visually indicates which service in the trace is associated with the root cause of the failure; and
providing a client with information regarding a service team connected with the service associated with the root cause of the failure through the graphical user interface.

10. A non-transitory computer-readable medium having computer-readable program code embodied therein for causing a computer system to perform a method of identifying a root cause of a failure for a trace within a microservices-based application, the method comprising:
determining if a root span of the trace is an error span resulting in an error experienced by a user at a front end of the microservices-based application;
responsive to a determination that the root span of the trace is an error span, analyzing a plurality of spans comprising the trace to determine if the trace comprises at least one leaf error span that is a last error span of a chain of unbroken error spans starting at the root span;
responsive to a determination that the trace comprises at least one leaf error span, attributing the root cause of the failure in the trace to a service associated with the at least one leaf error span; and
responsive to a determination that the trace comprises multiple leaf error spans, attributing the root cause of the failure in the trace to a service associated with a leaf error span of the multiple leaf error spans that comprises a latest starting timestamp.

11. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 10 , wherein the trace is associated with a workflow, wherein the workflow groups together a plurality of spans in the trace generated in response to a client process implemented by a group of services comprised within the microservices-based application.

12. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 10 , wherein the trace is tagged with a global tag comprising a name of the service associated with the root cause of the failure.

13. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 10 , wherein the trace is tagged with a global tag comprising a name of the service associated with the root cause of the failure, and wherein the method further comprises:
computing metrics for the service associated with the root cause of the failure using the global tag.

14. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 10 , wherein the method further comprises:
displaying the trace as a graphical element in a graphical user interface, wherein the graphical element visually indicates which service in the trace is associated with the root cause of the failure.

15. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 10 , wherein the trace is tagged with a global tag comprising a name of the service associated with the root cause of the failure, and wherein the method further comprises:
computing metrics for the service associated with the root cause of the failure using the global tag and a data set associated with a metric time series modality.

16. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 10 , wherein the trace is tagged with a global tag comprising a name of the service associated with the root cause of the failure, and wherein the method further comprises:
computing metrics for the service associated with the root cause of the failure using the global tag and a data set associated with a metric events modality.

17. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 10 , wherein the trace is tagged with a global tag comprising a name of the service associated with the root cause of the failure, and wherein the method further comprises:
computing metrics for the service associated with the root cause of the failure using the global tag, wherein the metrics comprise: request; error; and latency related metrics.

18. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 10 , wherein the method further comprises:
displaying the trace as a service graph in a graphical user interface, wherein the service graph visually indicates which service in the trace is associated with the root cause of the failure; and
providing a client information regarding a service team connected with the service associated with the root cause of the failure through the graphical user interface.

19. A system for performing a method of identifying a root cause of a failure for a trace within a

Assignees

• Splunk Inc

Inventors

• Danyi Gergely
• Garg Sakshi
• Petazzoni Maxime
• Sanjani Sahinaz Safari
• Williamson Timothy Matthew Robin
• Wohlstadter Eric

Classifications

• G06F11/3698

  Environments for analysis, debugging or testing of software · CPC title

• G06F11/3636

  by tracing the execution of the program · CPC title

• G06F11/3612

  by runtime analysis (performance monitoring G06F11/3466) · CPC title

• G06F11/079 Primary

  Root cause analysis, i.e. error or fault diagnosis (in a hardware test environment G06F11/22; in a software test environment G06F11/36) · CPC title

• G06F11/0751

  Error or fault detection not based on redundancy (power supply failures G06F1/30; network fault management H04L41/06) · CPC title