Problem Determination Using Dependency Graphs and Run-Time Behavior Models

Abstract

Abstract. Key challenges in managing an I/T environment for e-business lie in the area of root cause analysis, proactive problem prediction, and automated problem remediation. Our approach as reported in this paper, utilizes two important concepts: dependency graphs and dynamic runtime performance characteristics of resources that comprise an I/T environment to design algorithms for rapid root cause identification in case of problems. In the event of a reported problem, our approach uses the dependency information and the behavior models to narrow down the root cause to a small set of resources that can be individually tested, thus facilitating quick remediation and thus leading to reduced administrative costs.

A practice-driven systematic review of dependency analysis solutions

“…applications, services, data repositories etc.). These solutions support practitioners in the management of end-user-reported problems conducting activities such as automated distributed management , problem determination (Agarwal et al 2004;Brown et al 2001;Gao et al 2004;Gupta et al 2003;Li et al 2005b), root cause analysis and fault localization (Steinle et al 2006), and maintaining the correctness of concurrency in multi processes systems (Xiao and Urban 2008).…”

“…Dependency analysis solutions first populate these repositories using fault injection and perturbation of system components. Then, the solutions analyze the repositories using data-mining algorithm, statistical analysis, (Agarwal et al 2004;Brown et al 2001;Gupta et al 2003;Li et al 2005b). Other solutions use hardware-based monitoring mechanisms to capture shared memory dependencies for supporting debugging activities (Narayanasamy 2006).…”

MONITORING SERVICE COMPOSITIONS IN MoDe4SLA - Design of Validation

“…Here, composite services are not considered but merely services running in the company. E.g., (Agarwal et al, 2004) determine the root cause by using dependency graphs. Especially finding the cause of a problem when a service has an SLA with different metrics is here a challenging topic.…”

Managing dependency relations in inter-organizational models

“…These constraints enable consistency checking of the models with the running system. As discussed in Step 5 of Section 4.5, intra-model consistency 5.7. STEP 6: INTRA-MODEL CONSISTENCY CONSTRAINTS constraints are (1) based on identified intra-model dependency relations, and (2) on model characteristics.…”

“…Here, composite services are not considered, but merely services the company is responsible for on its own. For example, Agarwall et al [5] determine the cause of a problem by using dependency graphs. Especially finding the cause of a problem when a service has an SLA with different metrics is here a challenging topic.…”