Failure analysis in cloud based service using synthetic measurements

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9692665-B2
Application number	US-201414447611-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jul 30, 2014
Priority date	Jul 30, 2014
Publication date	Jun 27, 2017
Grant date	Jun 27, 2017

Abstract

A failure analysis of a cloud based service is provided using synthetic measurements of the cloud based service. The synthetic measurements associated with a customer experience is executed on the cloud based service to determine a health of the cloud based service. The synthetic measurements simulate the customer experience which includes a use scenario of a customer of the cloud based service. Failures associated with the health of the cloud based service are aggregated, where the failures are detected from the synthetic measurements. A distribution is generated from the failures. The distribution is presented to a stakeholder.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method executed on a computing device to provide a failure analysis in a cloud based service using synthetic measurements, the method comprising:
executing the synthetic measurements associated with a customer experience on the cloud based service to determine a health of the cloud based service, wherein the synthetic measurements include simulations of the customer experience at the cloud based service;
parsing usage data from a log file received from a client device, wherein the usage data is anonymized and the usage data includes measurements of one or more customer actions of one or more use scenarios of the cloud based service;
aggregating failures associated with the health of the cloud based service, wherein the failures are detected from the synthetic measurements and the usage data;
generating a distribution of the failures;
removing a selection of the failures that matches a successful recovery action associated with the cloud based service from the distribution;
including information of a failed recovery action associated with other selection of the failures in the distribution, wherein the information includes an identification and an operational status of a component of the cloud based service generating the other selection of the failures; and
presenting the distribution to a stakeholder.

2. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
simulating the customer experience at the cloud based service, wherein the customer experience includes the one or more use scenarios of the cloud based service associated with a customer.

3. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
presenting the distribution to the stakeholder that includes an administrator of the cloud based service.

4. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
presenting the distribution to the stakeholder that includes one or more teams that manage the component or one or more other components of the cloud based service associated with the failures aggregated in the distribution.

5. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
determining that a subset of the failures generated by the component of the cloud based service is managed by a team;
filtering the distribution to focus on the subset; and
transmitting an alert that includes the distribution to the team as the stakeholder.

6. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
mapping characteristics of the distribution to one or more suggested actions associated with the failures.

7. The method of claim 6 , further comprising:
determining One or more teams that manage the component or one or more other components of the cloud based service associated with the failures; and
transmitting each one of the one or more suggested actions to a corresponding team from the one or more teams.

8. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
analyzing the failures for an aggregation based on one or more shared characteristics that includes one or more from a set of a location of the component associated with one or more of the failures and the identification of the component associated with one or more of the failures.

9. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
matching the failures to the component or one or more other components of the cloud based service; and
organizing the distribution based on the component or the one or more other components.

10. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
re-executing the synthetic measurements for a continued determination of the health of the cloud based service; and
appending new failures into the distribution.

11. A computing device to provide a failure analysis in a cloud based service using synthetic measurements, 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:
execute the synthetic measurements associated with a customer experience on the cloud based service to determine a health of the cloud based service, wherein the synthetic measurements include simulations of the customer experience at the cloud based service and the customer experience includes one or more use scenarios if the cloud based service associated with a customer;
parse usage data from a log file received from a client device, wherein the usage data is anonymized, wherein the usage data includes measurements of one or more customer actions of the one or more use scenarios of the cloud used service;
aggregate failures associated with the health of the cloud based service, wherein the failures may be detected from the synthetic measurements and the usage data;
generate a distribution of the failures;
remove a selection of the failures that matches a successful recovery action associated with the cloud based service from the distribution;
include information of a failed recovery action associated with other selection of the failures in the distribution, wherein the information includes an identification and an operational of a component of the cloud based service generating the other selection of the failures; and
present the distribution to a stakeholder.

12. The computing device of claim 11 , wherein the management application is further configured to:
generate a histogram of the failures as the distribution; and
include in the histogram a percentage value for a subset of the failures based on a total number of the failures.

13. The computing device of claim 12 , wherein the management application is further configured to:
compare the percentage value to a threshold; and
in response to a determination that the percentage value exceeds the threshold, determine that the subset is to primary cause of to malfunction at the component of the cloud based service.

14. The computing device of claim 11 , wherein the management application is further configured to:
include information captured with the failures in the distribution, wherein the information includes the identification and the operational status of the component.

15. The computing device of claim 11 , wherein the management application is further configured to:
sort the distribution to alert the stakeholder to focus on a subset of the failures at a top end of the sorted distribution.

16. A computer-readable memory device with instructions stored thereon to provide a failure analysis in a cloud based service using synthetic measurements, the instructions comprising:
executing the synthetic measurements associated with a customer experience on the cloud based service to determine a health of the cloud based service, wherein the synthetic measurements include simulations of the customer experience at the cloud based service, and wherein the customer experience includes one or more use scenarios of the cloud based service associated with a customer;
parsing usage data from a log file received from a client device, wherein the usage data is anonymized and the usage data includes measurements of one or more customer actions of the one or more use scenarios of the cloud based service;
aggregating failures associated with the health of the cloud based service, wherein the failures are detected from the synthetic measurements and the usage data;
generating a distribution of the failures;
removing a selection of failures that matches a successful recovery action associated with the cloud based service from the distribution;
including information of a failed recovery action associated with other selection of the failures in the distribution, wherein the infor

Assignees

• Microsoft Corp
• Microsoft Technology Licensing Llc

Inventors

• Sadovsky Art
• Sadykov Timur
• Narayanan Venkat
• Ojha Smita
• Avner Jon

Classifications

• H04L41/5032 Primary

  Generating service level reports · 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

• H04L43/091

  Measuring contribution of individual network components to actual service level · CPC title