Dynamically adjusting a log level of a transaction

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9489234-B2
Application number	US-201414473356-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Aug 29, 2014
Priority date	Jun 29, 2012
Publication date	Nov 8, 2016
Grant date	Nov 8, 2016

Abstract

A method dynamically adjusts a log level of a transaction. The method includes: buffering the most detailed logs of a transaction having highest log level into a memory; checking if all dependency-defined transactions within a dependency list/tree for the transaction are completed; and, in response to the completion of all dependency-defined transactions within the dependency list/tree for the transaction, obtaining a log filter level for the transaction in association with the transaction results (success/failure) of dependency-defined transactions, wherein the log filter level is a new log level for the transaction.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method for dynamically adjusting a log level of a transaction in a data processing system, the method comprising:
in response to receiving notice of a transaction being completed, buffering a log of the transaction at a highest log level into a memory of the data processing system;
determining whether all dependency-defined transactions within a dependency list for the transaction have completed, wherein each dependency-defined transaction that has completed is associated with a log in the memory which has a log filter level that identifies a success or failure of a corresponding dependency-defined transaction;
in response to determining all of the dependency-defined transactions within the dependency list have completed:
retrieving, from the memory, the log of the transaction and the log of each of the dependency-defined transactions; and
calculating a log filter level for the transaction, in association with transaction results within the logs of the dependency-defined transactions; and

in response to determining a failure of one of (i) the transaction and (ii) any dependency-defined transaction, changing the log filter levels of the transaction and all of the dependency-defined transactions to a highest log filter level from among the log filter level of the transaction and the log filter levels of the dependency-defined transactions.

2. The method of claim 1 , further comprising: in response to an absence of a transaction failure from among the transaction and any dependency-defined transaction, establishing a new log filter level of the transaction to a highest log filter level from among the current transaction and the log filter levels of the dependency-defined transactions.

3. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
in response to an absence of a transaction failure from among the transaction and any dependency-defined transaction, determining a new log filter level of the transaction as the highest log filter level among the log filter level of the transaction and the log filter level of a dependency-defined transaction having direct dependency with the transaction.

4. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
creating a filtered log according to the new log filter level of the transaction; and
writing the filtered log to a permanent storage.

5. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
in response to there being only one dependency factor between the transaction and another transaction, creating a dependency list that enumerates the transaction dependency of the transaction, wherein the dependency list is created according to a time of arrival of the transaction with reference to a dependency factor shared by the transaction and another transaction from among the dependency-defined transactions.

6. The method of claim 5 , wherein the dependency factor is an attribute, resource or feature shared by the transaction and the other transaction and wherein the dependency factor is a thread, a TCP port, or a virtual memory address.

7. The method of claim 5 , further comprising:
dynamically adjusting the length of the dependency list based on availability in the memory.

8. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
in response to there being multiple dependency factors between the transaction and the dependency-defined transactions, creating a dependency tree that enumerates the transaction dependency of the transaction, wherein a dependency factor is one of an attribute, a resource, and feature shared by the transaction and another transaction from among the dependency-defined transactions, wherein the dependency factor is one of a thread, a TCP port, and a virtual memory address, and wherein the dependency list is the dependency tree.

9. The method of claim 1 , wherein highest log filter level is a most detailed log level from among the log filter level of the transaction and the log filter levels of the dependency-defined transactions.

Assignees

• IBM

Inventors

• Liu Jeffrey Ch
• Su Chih-Wen
• Nestlerode Ivan
• Chang Johnson Ys
• Tu Giant H M

Classifications

• G06F11/079

  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

• G06F11/1471

  involving logging of persistent data for recovery · CPC title

• G06F9/466 Primary

  Transaction processing · CPC title

• G06F11/0778

  Dumping, i.e. gathering error/state information after a fault for later diagnosis · CPC title

• G06F9/54

  Interprogram communication · CPC title