Monitoring and correlating a binary process in a distributed business transaction

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9870303-B2
Application number	US-201615390347-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Dec 23, 2016
Priority date	Oct 31, 2014
Publication date	Jan 16, 2018
Grant date	Jan 16, 2018

Abstract

A dynamic monitoring process begins with configuring a start and end method to be monitored. The dynamic monitoring process may intercept both the start and end methods as and when the loader is initiated or at runtime to dynamically attach and detach the instrumentation. A loader may then be modified to call a library method upon detection of the start method. The library method may serve as a notification to the start of the method and causes a reflector to retrieve information from the incoming request. The incoming information may include data from which a business transaction name may be determined. The business transaction name is then associated with the monitoring of the particular request. When an exit call is detected, a call may be made to the library for a method which invokes a decorator. The decorator may insert business transaction name and other data into the outgoing call.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method for monitoring a binary process, comprising:
communicating, by a controller in a network, with one or more agents installed and configured to:
instruct a loader how to handle a begin method and an end method of a first application implemented as a binary process;
monitor the first application implemented as the binary process, the binary process including a process in a binary language and executing on a first machine;
detect, at the first machine, communication with the binary process by a second application on a second machine, the second application not implemented as a binary process, wherein the detected communication includes an incoming call from the second application to the binary process or an outgoing call sent to the second application from the binary process;
collect data from the incoming call from the second application to the binary process;
monitor the incoming call including collect timing data, method parameters, and call stack data associated with the incoming call;
cause the loader to call a method from a library, in response to detecting the incoming call, to install code at an address of the detected incoming call and read incoming parameters contained within the detected incoming call, the one or more parameters including distributed business transaction information and collected data; and
monitor the second application on the second machine;

receiving, at the controller, data transmitted from one or more installed agents, the transmitted data comprising data associated with monitoring the binary process and data associated with monitoring the second application; and
correlating, by the controller, the first application implemented as a binary process and the second application not implemented as a binary process as part of the distributed business transaction based on the received data, the distributed business transaction implemented by the first application and the second application across the first machine and the second machine.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the binary process is implemented in C++language or C language.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the second application is a java application or a .NET application.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the communication is receiving a call from the second application, the method further comprising capturing method parameters of an incoming call.

5. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
receiving, at the controller, data originating incoming requests and outgoing requests.

6. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
correlating, by the controller, the received requests, wherein the correlated requests form the distributed business transaction.

7. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
communicating, by the controller, the received data to a user.

8. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
configuring a first application implemented as a binary process including identifying a begin method and an end method to be monitored within the binary process.

9. A method for monitoring a binary process, comprising:
instructing, by an agent in a network, a loader how to handle a begin method and an end method of a first application implemented as a binary process;
monitoring, by the agent, the first application implemented as the binary process, the binary process including a process in a binary language and executing on a first machine;
detecting, by the agent, communication with the binary process by a second application on a second machine, the second application not implemented as a binary process, wherein the detected communication includes an incoming call from the second application to the binary process or an outgoing call sent to the second application from the binary process;
collecting, by the agent, data from the incoming call from the second application to the binary process;
monitoring, by the agent, the incoming call including collecting timing data, method parameters, and call stack data associated with the incoming call;
causing, by the agent, the loader to call a method from a library, in response to detecting the incoming call, to install code at an address of the detected incoming call and reading incoming parameters contained within the detected incoming call, the one or more parameters including distributed business transaction information and collected data; and
providing, by the agent, data associated with monitoring the binary process and data associated with monitoring the second application to a controller in the network configured to correlate the first application implemented as a binary process and the second application not implemented as a binary process as part of the distributed business transaction based on the received data, the distributed business transaction implemented by the first application and the second application across the first machine and the second machine.

10. The method of claim 9 , wherein the binary process is implemented in C++language or C language.

11. The method of claim 9 , wherein the second application is a java application or a .NET application.

12. The method of claim 9 , wherein the communication is receiving a call from the second application, the method further comprising capturing method parameters of an incoming call.

13. The method of claim 9 , further comprising:
determining, by the agent, a name for the distributed business transaction based at least in part from the method parameters.

14. The method of claim 9 , wherein monitoring includes calling monitoring code from a library from within the binary process.

15. An apparatus comprising:
a processor;
a memory; and
one or more modules stored in memory and executable by a processor to perform operations, including:
communicating with one or more agents installed and configured to:
instruct a loader how to handle a begin method and an end method of a first application implemented as a binary process;
monitor the first application implemented as the binary process, the binary process including a process in a binary language and executing on a first machine;
detect, at the first machine, communication with the binary process by a second application on a second machine, the second application not implemented as a binary process, wherein the detected communication includes an incoming call from the second application to the binary process or an outgoing call sent to the second application from the binary process;
collecting data from the incoming call from the second application to the binary process;
monitoring the incoming call including collecting timing data, method parameters, and call stack data associate with the incoming call;
causing the loader to call a method from a library, in response to detecting the incoming call, to install code at an address of the detected incoming call and read incoming parameters contained within the detected incoming call, the one or more parameters including distributed business transaction information and collected data; and
monitor the second application on the second machine;

receiving data transmitted from one or more installed agents, the transmitted data comprising data associated with monitoring the binary process and data associated with monitoring the second application; and
correlating the first application implemented as a binary process and the second application not implemented as a binary process as part of the distributed business transaction based on the received data, the distributed business transaction implemented by the first application and the second application across the

Assignees

• Appdynamics Llc
• Cisco Tech Inc

Inventors

• Kumar Pankaj
• Gupta Amod
• Nagaraj Sanjay
• Margulis Michael

Classifications

• G06F11/3006

  where the computing system is distributed, e.g. networked systems, clusters, multiprocessor systems (multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/46; allocation of resources G06F9/50) · CPC title

• G06F11/3003

  Monitoring arrangements specially adapted to the computing system or computing system component being monitored · CPC title

• G06F11/3495 Primary

  for systems · CPC title

• G06F2201/865

  Monitoring of software · CPC title

• G06F11/3093

  Configuration details thereof, e.g. installation, enabling, spatial arrangement of the probes · CPC title