System and method for combining server side and network side transaction tracing and measurement data at the granularity level of individual transactions

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9571373-B2
Application number	US-201414227597-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Mar 27, 2014
Priority date	Mar 29, 2013
Publication date	Feb 14, 2017
Grant date	Feb 14, 2017

Abstract

A performance monitoring and management system is provided for monitoring both server side and network side performance parameters of individual distributed transactions. The system uses correlation data which is transferred over a computer network to identify corresponding sender/receiver parts of a distributed transaction. Both server side tracing data and correlation data is transferred to an external correlation and monitoring server that creates per transaction end-to-end tracing data. Network probes are installed in the network infrastructures which monitor network conditions, like e.g. data transferred. Those network probes are configured in a way to identify and extract the correlation data used by the monitoring system and to tag created network measurements with this correlation data. Those tagged network measurements are then used to augment the per transaction end-to-end tracing data with corresponding network measurements.

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:
detecting, by a tagging sensor instrumented in a send application, a transaction initiated by the send application residing on a first computing device, where the transaction is initiated by the send application sending a request over a network to a receive application located remotely from the first computing device and the request is comprised of one or more data packets;
determining, by the tagging sensor, identifying information for the request;
tagging, by the tagging sensor, the one or more data packets associated with the request with the identifying information for the request;
generating, by the tagging sensor, a request event indicating the request was sent by the send application, where the request event includes the identifying information;
sending, by the tagging sensor, the request event to an event correlator residing on a monitoring node located remotely from the first computing device;
determining, by a network probe, one or more metrics indicative of network performance for the network;
detecting, by the network probe, the one or more data packets associated with the request;
extracting, by the network probe, the identifying information for the request from the one or more data packets;
generating, by the network probe, a measurement event, where the measurement event includes the identifying information for the request and the metrics;
sending, by the network probe, the measurement event to the event correlator; and
correlating, by the event correlator, the request event with the measurement event using the identifying information.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein determining identifying information for the request by the tagging sensor further comprises tagging the request with an identifier for the send application, an identifier for an execution path which spawned the request and an identifier for method execution that initiates the request.

3. The method of claim 2 wherein determining identifying information for the request by the tagging sensor further comprises
determining whether the request can be altered by the tagging sensor;
retrieving a message identifier from the message, the retrieval in response to a determination that the request cannot be altered by the monitoring system; and
appending the message identifier to the request event.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein determining one or more metrics further comprises at least one of extract metrics from the one or more data packets and deriving metrics from data collected over time by the network probe.

5. The method of claim 2 wherein determining identifying information for the request by the network probe further comprises extracting the identifier for the send application, the identifier for an execution path and the identifier for the method execution from the one or more data packets.

6. The method of claim 3 wherein determining identifying information for the network probe further comprises extracting the message identifier from the one or more data packets, the extraction in response to a determination that the request cannot be altered by the monitoring system.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein generating a measurement event further comprises appending a network segment identifier to the measurement event, where the network segment identifier is associated with a particular segment of the network and known to the network probe.

8. The method of claim 1 wherein correlating the request event with the measurement event further comprises
extracting the identifying information from the request event;
extracting the identifying information from the measurement event;
comparing the identifying information from the request event to the identifying information from the measurement event; and
associating the request event with the measurement event when the identifying information matches.

9. The method of claim 8 further comprises
storing, by the event correlator, at least one of the request event and the measurement event in a buffer; and
correlating, by the event correlator, the request event with the measurement event upon receipt of both the request event and the measurement event.

10. The method of claim 1 further comprises
detecting, by a tag extraction sensor instrumented in the receive application, receipt of the request by the receive application;
generating, by the tag extraction sensor, a receive event indicating that the request was received, where the receive event includes the identifying information to the request; and
sending, by the tag extraction sensor, the receive event to the event correlator.

11. The method of claim 10 further comprises correlating, by the event correlator, the receive event with the request event and the measurement event.

12. The method of claim 10 further comprises
detecting, by the tag extraction sensor, a response to the request sent by the receive application, where the response is sent by the receive application over the network to the send application;
determining, by the tag extraction sensor, identifying information for the response;
generating, by the tag extraction sensor, a response event indicating that the response was sent, where the response event includes the identifying information for the response and
sending, by the tag extraction sensor, the response event to the event correlator.

13. A computer-implemented method for monitoring a distributed transaction by a monitoring system across a distributed computing environment, comprising:
detecting, by a tag extraction sensor instrumented in a receive application residing on a computing device, receipt of a request by the receive application, where the request was sent by a send application over a network to the receive application and the request is comprised of one or more data packets;
determining, by the tag extraction sensor, identifying information for the request;
tagging, by the tag extraction sensor, the one or more data packets associated with the request with the identifying information for the request;
generating, by the tag extraction sensor, a receive event indicating the request was received, where the receive event includes the identifying information for the request;
sending, by the tag extraction sensor, the receive event to an event correlator residing on a monitoring node located remotely from the computing device;
determining, by a network probe, one or more metrics indicative of network performance for the network;
detecting, by the network probe, the one or more data packets associated with the request;
extracting by the network probe, the identifying information for the request from the one or more data packets;
generating, by the network probe, a measurement event, where the measurement event includes the identifying information for the request and the metrics;
sending, by the network probe, the measurement event to the event correlator; and
correlating, by the event correlator, the received event with the measurement event using the identifying information.

14. The method of claim 13 wherein determining identifying information for the request by the tag extraction sensor further comprises retrieving from the request an identifier for the send application, an identifier for an execution path which spawned the request and an identifier for method execution that initiates the request.

15. The method of claim 14 wherein determining identifying information for the request by the tag

Assignees

• Compuware Corp
• Dynatrace Llc

Inventors

• Hoja Krzysztof
• Okraszewski Marcin
• Spiegl Helmut
• Greifeneder Bernd

Classifications

• G06F2201/86

  Event-based monitoring · CPC title

• G06F2201/87

  Monitoring of transactions · CPC title

• H04L43/12

  Network monitoring probes · CPC title

• H04L43/0817

  by checking functioning · CPC title

• G06F11/3409

  for performance assessment · CPC title