Method And System For Real-time Modeling Of Communication, Virtualization And Transaction Execution Related Topological Aspects Of Monitored Software Applications And Hardware Entities

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2016105350-A1
Application number	US-201514879183-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Oct 9, 2015
Priority date	Oct 10, 2014
Publication date	Apr 14, 2016
Grant date	—

Abstract

A system and method for real-time discovery and monitoring of multidimensional topology models describing structural aspects of applications and of computing infrastructure used to execute those applications is disclosed. Different types of agents are deployed to the monitored application execution infrastructure dedicated to capture specific topological aspects of the monitored system. Virtualization agents detect and monitor the virtualization structure of virtualized hardware used in the execution infrastructure, operating system agents deployed to individual operating systems monitor resource utilization, performance and communication of processes executed by the operating system and transaction agents deployed to processes participating in the execution of transactions, providing end-to-end transaction trace and monitoring data describing individual transaction executions. The monitoring and tracing data of the deployed agents contains correlation data that allows to create a topology model of the monitored system that integrates transaction execution, process execution and communication and virtualization related aspects.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1 . A computer-implemented method for monitoring a distributed transaction by a monitoring system across a distributed computing environment, comprising:
receiving, by a transaction agent, transaction trace data that identifies a transaction being executed in part on a host computing device, where the transaction trace data includes an identifier for a thread executed by a process; receiving, by the transaction agent, service data that identifies a service used by the transaction to enter the process, where the service is executed within the process and the transaction agent is instrumented in the process; determining, by the transaction agent, identifying information for a process group to which the process belongs and identifying information for an operating system executing on the host computing device and upon which the process is running; combining, by the transaction agent, the transaction trace data and the service data with the identifying information for the process group and the operating system to form trace and topology correlation data; and sending, by the transaction agent, the trace and topology correlation data over a network to a monitoring node located remotely from the host computing device.

2 . The computer-implemented method for claim 1 further comprises receiving the transaction trace data and the service data from a service sensor instrumented in a method, where the method is configured to receive a request from another process.

3 . The computer-implemented method of claim 2 further comprises receiving a service request for the service and parsing the service request to determine the service data, where the service request includes a uniform resource locator (URL).

4 . The computer-implemented method of claim 3 wherein the service data includes an identifier for a server computer and an identifier for a protocol for accessing the server computer.

5 . The computer-implemented method of claim 1 further comprises
determining, by an OS agent, metadata for the process and metadata for the operating system, where the OS agent is running on the host computing device;
sending, by the OS agent, an OS topology event over the network to the monitoring node, where the OS topology event includes the metadata for the process and the operating system; and
correlating, by a topology processor, the topology correlation data with the metadata for the process and the operating system, where the topology processor resides on the monitoring node.

6 . The computer-implemented method of claim 3 further comprises determining, by a topology processor, a vertical relationship between a method servicing a service request and the service from the service data and creating a record in a topology repository for the vertical relationship, where the topology processor resides on the monitoring node.

7 . The computer-implemented method of claim 6 wherein the service is further defined as a remote method invocation (RMI) service, and the method is further defined as a specific remote method which is provided by the RMI service for remote execution.

8 . The computer-implemented method of claim 3 further comprises determining, by a topology processor, a vertical relationship between the service used by the transaction to enter the process and the process group to which the process belongs.

9 . The computer-implemented method of claim 3 further comprises determining, by a topology processor, a horizontal relationship between the service servicing the service request and another service called by the service from the service data and creating a record in a topology repository for the horizontal relationship, where the topology processor resides on the monitoring node.

10 . The computer-implemented method of claim 1 wherein the transaction agent interacts with an OS agent to determine the identifying information for a process group to which the process belongs and identifying information for an operating system upon which the process is running, where the OS agent is running on the host computing device.

11 . The computer-implemented method of claim 10 further comprises extracting, by the OS agent, identifying information for the process group from at least one of process metadata or from a command which initiates the process.

12 . The computer-implemented method of claim 1 wherein processes having the similar functions are mapped to the same process group.

13 . The computer-implemented method of claim 1 further comprises determining, by an OS agent, metadata for a given process and metadata for the operating system, where the given process is running on the host computing device and the OS agent is running on the host computing device;
detecting, by the OS agent, a communication with another process running on a second operating system on a second host device, where the given process is participating in the communication; and
sending, by the OS agent, a communication topology event over the network to the monitoring node, where the communication topology event includes identifying information for a process group to which the given process belongs, identifying information for the operating system, a network address and port identifier for host computing device and a network address and port identifier for the second host device.

14 . The computer-implemented method of claim 13 further comprises
receiving, by a topology processor, the communication topology event from the host computing device, where the topology processor resides on the monitoring node;
receiving, by the topology processor, a second communication topology event from the second host device, where the second communication topology event includes identifying information for a second process group to which the another process belongs, identifying information for the second operating system, the network address and port identifier for the host computing device and the network address and port identifier for the second host device;
determining, by the topology processor, a horizontal relationship between the process group of the given process and the second process group of the another process using the communication topology event and the second communication topology event; and
creating a record for the horizontal relationship in a topology repository.

15 . The computer-implemented method of claim 13 further comprises
sending, by the OS agent, an OS topology event over the network to the monitoring node, where the OS topology event includes metadata for the given process and the operating system and where the metadata for the given process includes identifying information for a process group to which the given process belongs;
determining, by a topology processor, a vertical relationship between the operating system and the process group to which the given process belongs using the OS topology event; and
creating a record for the vertical relationship in a topology repository.

16 . The computer-implemented method of claim 1 further comprises
detecting, by a virtualization agent, other host computing devices implemented as virtualized computer systems;
generating, by the virtualization agent, a virtualization topology event for the detected virtualized computer systems, where the virtualization topology event includes an identifier for the virtualized computer system and an identifier for a network interface assigned to the virtualized computer system;
sending, by the virtualization agent, the virtualization topology event over a network to a monitoring node located remo

Assignees

• Dynatrace Llc

Inventors

• Greifeneder Bernd
• Ambichl Ernst
• Lehofer Andreas
• Schwarzbauer Gunther
• Spiegl Helmut
• Mlotowski Rafat

Classifications

• H04L67/02 Primary

  based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP] · CPC title

• H04L41/046

  comprising network management agents or mobile agents therefor · CPC title

• H04L41/5058

  Service discovery by the service manager · CPC title

• H04L41/12

  Discovery or management of network topologies · CPC title

• H04L41/122

  of virtualised topologies, e.g. software-defined networks [SDN] or network function virtualisation [NFV] · CPC title