Identifying cause of incidents in the DevOps environment automatically

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9740478-B2
Application number	US-201514870667-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Sep 30, 2015
Priority date	May 27, 2015
Publication date	Aug 22, 2017
Grant date	Aug 22, 2017

Abstract

In one aspect, a method for identifying software development teams causing operation incidents when changing and deploying code is provided. The method includes the steps of: collecting data regarding i) a number of deployed change requests for each of the software development teams and ii) a total number of incident reports; generating a time series for the number of deployed change requests for each of the software development teams and a time series for the total number of incident reports created; performing causality testing between the time series for the number of deployed change requests for each of the software development teams and the time series for the total number of incident reports created; and determining whether the total number of incident reports created can be expressed in terms of the number of deployed change requests for any of the software teams.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method for identifying software development teams causing operation incidents when changing and deploying code, the method comprising the steps of:
collecting data regarding i) a number of deployed change requests for each of the software development teams and ii) a total number of incident reports created for all of the software development teams;
generating a time series for the number of deployed change requests for each of the software development teams;
generating a time series for the total number of incident reports created;
performing causality testing between the time series for the number of deployed change requests for each of the software development teams and the time series for the total number of incident reports created; and
automatically identifying particular software development teams causing the operation incidents when changing and deploying code using only the number of deployed change requests for each of the software development teams and the total number of incident reports created, irrespective of a content of the incident reports, by determining whether the total number of incident reports created can be expressed in terms of the number of deployed change requests for any of the software development teams.

2. The method of claim 1 , further comprising the step of:
choosing an observation period.

3. The method of claim 2 , wherein the observation period is a day, a week, or a month.

4. The method of claim 2 , wherein the determining step comprises the step of:
determining whether the total number of incident reports created for the observation period can be expressed in terms of the number of deployed change requests for any of the software development teams.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the causality testing is performed using a Granger causality test.

6. The method of claim 1 , further comprising the step of:
assuming causality exists if the total number of incident reports created can be expressed in terms of the number of deployed change requests for any of the software development teams.

7. The method of claim 6 , further comprising the step of:
assuming no causality exists if the total number of incident reports created cannot be expressed in terms of the number of deployed change requests for any of the software development teams.

8. The method of claim 6 , further comprising the step of:
sending an alert to each of the software development teams for which causality is assumed to exist.

9. The method of claim 1 , further comprising the step of:
repeating the collecting, generating, performing, and determining steps at a given predetermined interval.

10. A method for identifying software development teams causing operation incidents when changing and deploying code, the method comprising the steps of:
collecting data regarding i) a number of deployed change requests for each of the software development teams and ii) a total number of incident reports created for all of the software development teams;
generating a time series for the number of deployed change requests for each of the software development teams;
generating a time series for the total number of incident reports created;
performing Granger causality testing between the time series for the number of deployed change requests for each of the software development teams and the time series for the total number of incident reports created; and
automatically identifying particular software development teams causing the operation incidents when changing and deploying code using only the number of deployed change requests for each of the software development teams and the total number of incident reports created, irrespective of a content of the incident reports, by determining whether the total number of incident reports created can be expressed in terms of the number of deployed change requests for any of the software development teams, wherein causality is assumed to exist if the total number of incident reports created can be expressed in terms of the number of deployed change requests for any of the software development teams, and wherein no causality is assumed to exist if the total number of incident reports created cannot be expressed in terms of the number of deployed change requests for any of the software development teams.

11. The method of claim 10 , further comprising the step of:
choosing an observation period.

12. The method of claim 11 , wherein the observation period is a day, a week, or a month.

13. The method of claim 11 , wherein the determining step comprises the step of:
determining whether the total number of incident reports created for the observation period can be expressed in terms of the number of deployed change requests for any of the software development teams.

14. The method of claim 10 , further comprising the step of:
sending an alert to each of the software teams for which causality is assumed to exist.

15. The method of claim 10 , further comprising the step of:
repeating the choosing, collecting, generating, performing, and determining steps at a given predetermined interval.

Assignees

• IBM

Inventors

• Doganata Yurdaer N
• Jones James L
• Leigh David L

Classifications

• G06F8/60 Primary

  Software deployment · CPC title

• G06F8/71

  Version control (security arrangements therefor G06F21/57); Configuration management · CPC title

• G06F11/368

  for test version control, e.g. updating test cases to a new software version · CPC title

• G06F8/70 Primary

  Software maintenance or management · CPC title

• G06F11/3692

  for test results analysis · CPC title