Detection of outage in cloud based service using synthetic measurements and anonymized usage data

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9444708-B2
Application number	US-201414447577-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jul 30, 2014
Priority date	Jul 30, 2014
Publication date	Sep 13, 2016
Grant date	Sep 13, 2016

Abstract

Outage detection in a cloud based service is provided using synthetic measurements and anonymized usage data of the cloud based service. Synthetic measurements and usage data are processed through a shared aggregator to generate aggregated data. The synthetic measurements and the usage data are analyzed through a decision tree to correlate an outage based on the synthetic measurements and the usage data. A confidence value is assigned to the outage. An alert is generated that includes information associated with the outage and the confidence value.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method executed on a computing device to provide detection of an outage in a cloud based service using synthetic measurements and anonymized usage data, the method comprising:
processing synthetic measurements and usage data through a shared aggregator to generate a first stream and a second stream of aggregated data, wherein the synthetic measurements include simulations of a customer experience at the cloud based service and the usage data includes measurements of one or more customer actions of one or more use scenarios of the cloud based service, and wherein private data is removed from the usage data to anonymize the usage data;
analyzing the first stream and the second stream through a decision tree to correlate an outage based on the first stream and the second stream;
assigning a confidence value to the outage; and
generating, an alert that includes information associated with the outage and the confidence value.

2. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
executing the synthetic measurements to simulate the customer experience at the cloud based service, wherein the customer experience includes a use scenario of the cloud based service associated with a customer.

3. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
retrieving the usage data from one or more components of the cloud based storage that collect the usage data.

4. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
aggregating the synthetic measurements into the first stream of the aggregated data, wherein the synthetic measurements are aggregated based on one or more criteria that includes an identification and a type of an associated component of the cloud based service.

5. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
aggregating the usage data into the second stream of the aggregated data, wherein the usage data are aggregated based on one or more criteria that includes an identification and a type of an associated component of the cloud based service.

6. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
determining an availability value associated with the first stream to fall below a first threshold value, wherein the availability value is associated with a component of the cloud based service.

7. The method of claim 6 , further comprising:
determining an error count associated with the second stream to exceed a second threshold value, wherein the error count corresponds to a shared time period with the availability value;
correlating the outage associated with t le component based on the availability value and the error count; and
assigning a high value as the confidence value Or the outage.

8. The method of claim 6 , further comprising:
determining an error count associated with the second stream to fall below a second threshold value by a small variance, wherein the error count corresponds to a shared time period with the availability value;
correlating the outage associated with the component based on the availability value and the error count; and
assigning a medium value as the confidence value for the outage.

9. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
determining an error count associated with the second stream to exceed a first threshold value, wherein the error count is associated with a component of the cloud based service.

10. The method of claim 9 , further comprising:
determining, an availability value associated with the first stream to fall below a second threshold value, wherein the availability value corresponds to a shared time period with the error count:
correlating the outage associated with the component based on the error count and the availability value; and
assigning a high value as the confidence value for the outage.

11. The method of claim 9 , further comprising:
determining an availability value associated with the first stream to exceed a second threshold value by a small variance, wherein the availability value corresponds to a shared time period with the error count;
correlating the outage associated with the component based on the error count and the availability value; and
assigning a medium value as the confidence value for the outage.

12. A computing device to provide detection of an outage in a cloud based service using synthetic measurements and anonymized usage data, the computing device comprising:
a memory;
a processor coupled to the memory, the processor executing a. management application in conjunction with instructions stored in the memory, wherein the management application is configured to:
process synthetic measurements and usage data through a shared aggregator to generate aggregated data, wherein the synthetic measurements include simulations of a customer experience at the cloud based service and the usage data includes measurements of one or more customer actions of one or more use scenarios of the cloud based service and, wherein private data is removed front the usage data to anonymize the usage data;
analyze the synthetic measurements and the usage data through a decision tree to correlate an outage based on the synthetic measurements and the usage data;
assign a confidence value to the outage; and
generate an alert that includes information associated with he outage and the confidence value.

13. The computing device of claim 12 wherein the management application is further configured to:
receive the usage data from one or more client devices that interact with the cloud based service, wherein the one or more client devices provide the cloud based service to one or more customers.

14. The computing device of claim 12 , wherein the management application is further configured to:
generate an availability value associated with a component of the cloud based service from the synthetic measurements, wherein the availability value is a percentage value; and
determine the availability value to fall below a first threshold to determine a potential outage.

15. The computing device of claim 14 , wherein the management application is further configured to:
compute an error count associated with the component from the usage data within a shared time period with the availability value;
determine the error count to exceed a second threshold to correlate the outage from the potential outage;
assign a high value as the confidence value; and
allow a stakeholder to configure the first threshold and the second threshold, wherein the stakeholder includes one or more from a set of an administrator of the cloud based service and a team that manages the component.

16. The computing device of claim 12 , wherein the management application is further configured to:
compute an error count associated with a component of the cloud based service from the usage data; and
determine the error count to exceed a first threshold to determine a potential outage.

17. The computing device of claim 16 , wherein the management application is further configured to:
generate an availability value from the synthetic measurements within a shared time period with the error count, wherein the availability value is a percentage value;
determine the availability value to fall below a second threshold to correlate the outage from the potential outage;
assign a high value as the confidence value; and
allow a stakeholder to configure the first threshold and the second threshold, wherein the stakeholder includes one or more from a set of an administrator of the cloud based service and a team that manages the component.

18. A computer-readable memory device with instructions stored thereon to provid

Assignees

• Microsoft Corp
• Microsoft Technology Licensing Llc

Inventors

• Sadovsky Art
• Ivanova Olga
• Narayanan Venkat
• Ojha Smita

Classifications

• H04L43/0817 Primary

  by checking functioning · CPC title

• H04L41/5035

  Electricity · mapped topic

• H04L41/5038

  Electricity · mapped topic

• H04L41/5096

  wherein the managed service relates to distributed or central networked applications · CPC title

• H04L41/0636

  based on a decision tree analysis · CPC title