FR3076359A1 - TOTAL APPLICATION PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT SERVER - Google Patents

Abstract

A server for total application performance management comprising at least one software and hardware arrangement for: • real user monitoring from a data center: • real user monitoring based on an agent where agents are deployed on application hosts in public or private clouds used by the application and in the data center for users, transactions along the application chain, web technology applications , native cloud applications and PaaS and a JSON / SOAP converter module communicates with a service module comprising several components, at least one component for managing a machine cluster, said component including an analysis module, a management module user, an alert module, a module for defining and storing thresholds, a consumption measurement module connected to managed services and a module Dyn atrace for measurement and billing.

Description

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates to the field of application performance management.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Historically, application hosts resided in a data center and were accessed by users behind an easy-to-monitor corporate firewall, traffic went end-to-end and it was easy to see when something something went wrong repairing it, the focus was resolutely on the performance and availability of the infrastructure, not on the application or the end user.

Today, the focus is more on multiple redundant systems to maintain availability, the focus is now on the end-user experience, rather than the infrastructure.

But with super complex application panoramas and hyper-scalable cloud infrastructures, traditional monitoring tools do not have the scope or visibility into components that is required to successfully monitor the delivery chain of end-to-end application.

Without the correct services in place, when a user or customer has a problem, it is difficult if not impossible to quickly find the needle in the haystack especially if you are not in charge of this part of the bale hay.

As circumstances change, workloads will have to move between clouds. The flexibility and ease of migration placement across multiple clouds and private and public devices is vital.

Patent application AU 2015100348 describes a cloud performance index (CLIX) which is a metric for determining the performance of cloud computing systems using four infrastructure elements, which determine an end-to-end system performance:

• network performance measured as latency / delay;

• network throughput measured as packet loss;

• processing load measured as CPU usage;

• storage load measured as output use.

Historically, the end-user experience of a computer system has been a qualitative measure, i.e. the end user estimates, based on their experience using a particular computer system, whether the current performance (response time) is "slow" or "fast" or "average", etc. This is an inaccurate method that does not lend itself to making systematic improvements to system performance and end-user productivity.

More and more IT systems are implemented "in the cloud" and are characterized as software as a service (SaaS) and infrastructure as a service (laaS) and platform as a service (PaaS). The cloud is likely to have a negative effect on end user performance due to inherent characteristics of network and infrastructure technologies.

CLIX can be incorporated into monitoring and system management tools to provide a reliable, consistent, quantitative means of measuring, trending and improving the performance of computer systems in cloud computing environments.

This document is limited to cloud applications (cloud) and cannot be used in any type of configuration.

On the contrary, the present invention is functional with all applications:

- from on-premises business applications to native cloud microservices.

- from start to finish: from the action of the end user to the backend by following each transaction.

- on complete stack: user, application, host and network level performance.

- devOps: using performance measures through development, testing and production.

This server for total application performance management helps the user organization drive efficiency and productivity by maximizing the performance of business-critical applications.

This service allows both the server and its client to track performance across the entire application delivery chain from private and public clouds of traditional hosting and across hybrid panoramas.

The focus is on understanding application performance from the perspective of an end user.

The server provides visibility into the use of business-critical applications, the exploitation of extensive diagnostic capabilities combined with a comprehensive business performance report to focus on and manage performance where problems arise. impact user activities.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The object of the present invention is to obviate a certain drawback of the prior art by providing a means for managing the application performance.

This goal is achieved by a server for total application performance management comprising at least one software and hardware arrangement for:

• real user monitoring from the data center:

- by probes strategically placed to monitor traffic in a data center;

- with all users all the time;

- concerning all transactions interacting with hosted applications

- with network-based client / server applications • real agent-based user monitoring where agents are deployed on application hosts in public or private clouds used by the application and in the data center for :

- all users all the time;

- all transactions along the application chain;

- web technology applications;

- native cloud and PaaS applications; and a JSON / SOAP converter module communicates with a service module comprising several components, at least one component for managing a cluster of machines, said component including an analysis module, a user management module, a alert, a threshold definition and memorization module, a consumption measurement module connected to managed services and a Dynatrace module for measurement and invoicing.

According to another characteristic, when the server software is executed, it implements at least one or more of the following services: a technological service processing framework (ATF) comprising at least one cloud service processing module (ServiceNow) , configured to analyze and orchestrate a cloud service that the cloud service user request has requested to consume, to select the cloud computing services and / or resources provided by the cloud service provider and / or a function mode, and to execute a cloud service operation.

According to another characteristic, the cloud service processing module (ServiceNow) comprises:

• a portal module;

• a catalog and process orchestration module to orchestrate several requests on several server instances with a data protection management functionality, configured to store information about services and / or IT resources in the cloud;

• a security module, configured to provide security assurance for the cloud service requester to access a cloud service;

• a monitoring management module, configured to monitor an execution status of the cloud service;

• a service level management module providing an interface to determine any of the following parameters:

- time window for support availability,

- time window for incident handling according to priority,

- time window for change management,

- enterprise resource planning (ERP) dialog response time,

- size of the virtual server,

- size of the physical server,

- size of initial and minimum storage,

- data recovery parameter such as the recovery point objective (RPO), or the recovery time objective (RTO), service level • a catalog and process orchestration module to orchestrate several requests on multiple server instances with data protection management functionality, configured to store cloud IT service and / or resource information,

According to another characteristic, the cloud service processing module (10) (ServiceNow) is configured to:

Receive a work flow, the work flow defining a discrete activity flow and execution paths connecting the activities so that certain activities can be executed concurrently, the work flow having a representation, stored electronically, corresponding to '' a service level agreement (SLA), the SLA comprising a set of rules governing the execution of the workflow;

• analyze the workflow to identify sub-workflows that can be executed independently, a sub-workflow comprising a set of one or more of the activities each linked on a workflow execution path;

• obtaining information on a plurality of online service providers, each online service provider comprising one or more computers which together provide an online service;

• select different service providers from among the providers capable of performing the sub-workflows, respectively, where the service providers are selected on the basis of criteria relating to the speed of access time as applied to the information on the online service providers; and • transmit the sub-workflows via a network to the corresponding online service providers to execute the sub-workflows.

According to another characteristic, monitoring is carried out selectively by deploying agents on application hosts or without an agent or with a combination, an agent being a software component installed on a workstation or a server to monitor application traffic. and report to a central infrastructure.

According to another characteristic, the performance management process implemented by the server includes a first step consisting in identifying a performance which needs to be measured, defining a target value saved in a memory of the server and carrying out the measurement to determine the actual performance of the system and calculate the difference between the target and measured value; the result being then reported to a server analysis module to analyze the data and allow recommendations to be generated to resolve the problem by a decision support module.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Other characteristics and advantages of the present invention will appear more clearly on reading the following description, given with reference to the accompanying drawings, among which:

- Figure 1 illustrates the architecture of the server available for total application performance management, according to one embodiment;

- Figure 2 is a schematic representation of the performance management process implemented by the server, according to one embodiment;

- Figure 3 is a schematic representation of the different layers of software used in stack by the total application performance server, according to one embodiment.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The present invention relates to a total application performance management server.

Many combinations can be envisaged without departing from the scope of the invention; a person skilled in the art will choose one or the other according to economic, ergonomic, dimensional or other constraints which he will have to observe.

In what follows, we will use the following terms, the definition of which is as follows.

The dialogue session or RDP is a session in which a measurement is executed.

A robot can have multiple sessions but at least one. This allows you to have concurrent scripts running on a single robot.

A robot is a client system (physical or virtual) with synthetic robot software installed that performs the measurements. A robot can host multiple sessions.

A script is synonymous with workflow / use case: monitoring the performance and availability of an application. A script contains one or more transactions and timers. The result of a script is a set of measurement data which will be submitted to the central server.

TAPM = Total Application Performance Management

A transaction is the smallest logical and useful scripting action possible. Generally, a transaction represents a timer but it may differ due to technical constraints or customer requirements. The number of transactions represents the complexity and length of a script and is the basis for setting service prices.

A timer / transaction: the timer measures the response time of a section defined by the client. A script contains at least one timer.

Agent-based application monitoring from the cloud

More particularly, according to an embodiment illustrated in FIG. 1, the total application performance management server is a plurality of software executed on at least one hardware machine provided with a processor and memory arrangement, belonging to the service provider for interacting with the network and the cloud service provider and interfacing with the user network.

The server software executed implements at least one or more of the following services: a technological service processing framework (1) (ATF) comprising at least one cloud service processing module (10) (ServiceNow), configured to analyze and orchestrate a cloud service that the cloud service user request has requested to consume, to select the cloud computing services and / or resources provided by the cloud service provider and / or a function mode, and execute a cloud service operation .

The cloud service processing module (10) (or ServiceNow software) can include:

• a portal module;

• a catalog and process orchestration module to orchestrate several requests on several server instances with a data protection management functionality, configured to store information about services and / or cloud computing resources;

• a security module, configured to provide security assurance for the cloud service requester to access a cloud service;

• a monitoring management module, configured to monitor an execution status of the cloud service;

• a service level management module providing an interface to determine any of the following parameters:

- time window for support availability,

- time window for incident handling according to priority,

- time window for change management,

- enterprise resource planning (ERP) dialog response time,

- size of the virtual server,

- size of the physical server,

- size of initial and minimum storage,

- data recovery parameter such as recovery point objective (RPO), or recovery time objective (RTO), service level · - a catalog and process orchestration module to orchestrate several requests on multiple server instances with data protection management functionality, configured to store service information and / or cloud computing resources;

These parameters allow the user to determine an appropriate level of service.

In certain embodiments, the cloud service processing module (10) (or ServiceNow software) can be configured to:

Receive a work flow, the work flow defining a discrete activity flow and execution paths connecting the activities so that certain activities can be executed concurrently, the work flow having a representation, stored electronically, corresponding to '' a service level agreement (SLA), the SLA comprising a set of rules governing the execution of the workflow;

• analyze the workflow to identify sub-workflows that can be executed independently, a sub-workflow comprising a set of one or more of the activities each linked on a workflow execution path;

• obtaining information on a plurality of online service providers, each online service provider comprising one or more computers which together provide an online service;

• select different service providers from among the providers capable of performing the sub-workflows, respectively, where the service providers are selected on the basis of criteria relating to the speed of access time as applied to the information on the online service providers; and • transmit the sub-workflows via a network to the corresponding online service providers to execute the sub-workflows.

The ability to split the workflow into independently executable sub-workflows increases system performance.

This cloud service processing module (10) (ServiceNow) communicates with a JSON / SOAP converter module (2).

In IT, JavaScript Object Notation or JSON is an open standard file format that uses human-readable text to transmit data objects consisting of attribute-value pairs and data types of array (or any other serializable value). It is a very common data format used for asynchronous browser-server communication, including replacing XML in some AJAX-style systems.

SOAP (originally Simple Object Access Protocol = Simple Object Access Protocol) is a specification protocol for exchanging structured information in the implementation of web services in computer networks. SOAP allows processes running on disparate operating systems (like Windows and Linux) to communicate using an extensible markup language (XML for

Extensible Markup Language). SOAP allows clients to invoke web services and receive language and platform independent responses.

This JSON / SOAP converter module (2) communicates with a service module comprising several components, at least one component (3) for managing a machine cluster. This component including an analysis module (30), a user management module (33), an alert module (31), a threshold definition and storage module (34), a measurement module for consumption (32) connected to managed services (4) and a Dynatrace module (5) for measurement and invoicing and an online reporting module.

In some embodiments, With the ServiceNow module (10), TAPM Pilots Migration to the Cloud to:

- improve the efficiency and speed of deployment of new applications for the cloud;

- monitor performance through hybrid cloud deployments;

- identify where the user's applications behave best in the public cloud;

- improve and fine-tune the performance of SaaS applications of which you are the user;

- generate fault domain isolation including the identification of problems with third parties.

In some embodiments, application monitoring from the cloud uses agents deployed and managed from either public or private cloud clusters to monitor end-to-end performance of all user actions of the user final to the application server if they are hosted in private data centers in the public cloud or all hybrid deployment panoramas. Application monitoring from the cloud delivers full stack monitoring capabilities providing a comprehensive overview of the customer experience, application performance management, and infrastructure monitoring including servers, containers, and cloud-of end to end without blind spots.

As shown in Fig. 2, the performance management process implemented by the server includes a first step consisting in identifying a performance that needs to be measured, defining a target value saved in a memory of the server and performing the measurement to determine the actual performance of the system and calculate the difference between the target and measured value.

After the result is reported to a server analysis module to analyze the data and let generate recommendations to solve the problem by a decision support module.

This information transmitted to the managed service module changes the management to obtain an improvement in measurement.

As shown in Fig. 3 representing a diagram of the different layers of software used in stack by the total application performance server, a first layer consists of the tools necessary to manage a domain such as SCOM, Nagios, HP DDMA, SPECTRUM, OEM tools. These tools are used according to the configuration of the system to be managed and provide at least the following functionalities.

SCOM (System Center Operations Manager) is a cross-platform data center monitoring system for operating systems and hypervisors. It uses a single interface that presents information on the state, health and performance of computer systems. It also provides alerts generated according to an availability, performance, configuration or security situation that is identified.

Nagios, now known as Nagios Core, is a free and open source computer software application that monitors systems, networks and infrastructures. Nagios provides monitoring and alerting services for servers, switches, applications and services. It alerts users when something is wrong and alerts them a second time when the problem has been resolved.

The edition of HP DDMA (Discovery and Dependency Mapping Advanced) software provides this visibility in information technology (IT) by automatically and continuously mapping IT applications and infrastructure elements and generating views from above. bottom and bottom up relationships between IT elements and business services.

In some embodiments, the second software layer is made up of end-to-end tooling software for monitoring performance, availability, and fault domain isolation. Fault domain isolation includes identifying problems with third parties.

In some embodiments, this monitoring can be done selectively by deploying agents to application hosts or agentless or with a combination (synthetic). An Agent is a software component installed on a workstation or Server to monitor application traffic and report to a central infrastructure.

In some embodiments, the third layer is used to define service management and service operation. A top layer defines the business workflow and process.

In some embodiments, all of these layers are integrated on a server and interface with a server technology framework. By using all the different software modules integrated in the TAPM server, a plurality of user requests can be satisfied.

The present application describes various technical characteristics and advantages with reference to the figures and / or to various embodiments. Those skilled in the art will understand that the technical characteristics of a given embodiment can in fact be combined with characteristics of another embodiment unless the reverse is explicitly mentioned or it is obvious that these characteristics are incompatible or that the combination does not provide a solution to at least one of the technical problems mentioned in the present application. In addition, the technical characteristics described in a given embodiment can be isolated from the other characteristics of this mode unless the reverse is explicitly mentioned.

It should be obvious to those skilled in the art that the present invention allows embodiments in many other specific forms without departing from the scope of the invention as claimed. Consequently, the present embodiments should be considered by way of illustration, but may be modified in the field defined by the protection requested, and the invention should not be limited to the details given above.

Claims (7)

1. Server for total application performance management including at least one software and hardware arrangement for: • real user monitoring from a data center: - by probes placed strategically to monitor traffic in the data center; - with all users all the time; - concerning all transactions interacting with hosted applications; - with network-based client / server applications • real agent-based user monitoring where agents are deployed on application hosts in public or private clouds used by the application and in the data center for : - all users all the time; - all transactions along the application chain - web technology applications - native cloud and PaaS applications; and a JSON / SOAP converter module (2) communicates with a service module comprising several components, at least one component for managing a cluster of machines (3), said component including an analysis module (30), a user management (33), an alert module (31), a threshold definition and storage module (34), a consumption measurement module (32) connected to managed services (4) and a module Dynatrace (5) for measurement and invoicing. 2. Server according to claim 1, characterized in that during the execution of the server software it implements at least one or more of the following services: a technological service processing framework (ATF) comprising at least one module for cloud service processing (10) (ServiceNow), configured to analyze and orchestrate a cloud service that the cloud service user request has requested to consume, to select the cloud computing services and / or resources provided by the cloud service provider and / or a function mode, and execute a cloud service operation. 3. Server according to claim 1 or 2, characterized in that the cloud service processing module (10) (ServiceNow) comprises: • a portal module; • a catalog and process orchestration module to orchestrate several requests on several server instances with a data protection management functionality, configured to store information about services and / or cloud computing resources; • a security module, configured to provide security assurance for the cloud service requester to access a cloud service; • a monitoring management module, configured to monitor an execution status of the cloud service; • a service level management module providing an interface to determine any of the following parameters: - time window for support availability, - time window for incident handling according to priority, - time window for change management, - enterprise resource planning (ERP) dialog response time, - size of the virtual server, - size of the physical server, - size of initial and minimum storage, - data recovery parameter such as recovery point objective (RPO), or recovery time objective (RTO), service level • a catalog and process orchestration module to orchestrate several requests on multiple server instances with data protection management functionality, configured to store service information and / or cloud computing resources; 4. Server according to one of claims 1 to 3, characterized in that the cloud service processing module (10) (ServiceNow) is configured for: Receive a work flow, the work flow defining a discrete activity flow and execution paths connecting the activities so that certain activities can be executed concurrently, the work flow having a representation, stored electronically, corresponding to '' a service level agreement (SLA), the SLA comprising a set of rules governing the execution of the workflow; • analyze the workflow to identify sub-workflows that can be executed independently, a sub-workflow comprising a set of one or more of the activities each linked on a workflow execution path; • obtaining information on a plurality of online service providers, each online service provider comprising one or more computers which together provide an online service; • select different service providers from among the providers capable of performing the sub-workflows, respectively, where the service providers are selected on the basis of criteria relating to the speed of access time as applied to the information on the online service providers; and • transmit the sub-workflows via a network to the corresponding online service providers to execute the sub-workflows. 5. Server according to one of claims 1 to 4, characterized in that the monitoring is carried out selectively by deploying agents on application hosts or without agent or with a combination, an agent being a software component installed on a station or a server to monitor application traffic and report to a central infrastructure. 6. Server according to one of claims 1 to 5, characterized in that the performance management process implemented by the server includes a first step consisting in identifying a performance which needs to be measured, defining a target value saved in a memory of the server and perform the measurement to determine the actual performance of the system and calculate the difference between the target and measured value; the result being then reported to a server analysis module to analyze the data and allow recommendations to be generated to resolve the problem by a decision support module. 1/3 Figure 1 2/3 Measures the gap between target and actual performance Supports related process recommendations for problem solving Figure 2 3/3 Atos Technology Framework S <0 1 m <c s = g < o ΟΙ Φ L · 5 s <0 œ CL CU £ £ S c Φ x φ u> o LL m 1 i ® ü vs £ "<0 o 3 * 5 CB v> Φ Φ not Φ o cr a > 1 E Z t> S CL o · □ re 2 £ in u- he Q. Figure 3 FRENCH REPUBLIC National registration number FA 851120 FR 1763410 irai - I NATIONAL INSTITUTE PROPERTY INDUSTRIAL PRELIMINARY SEARCH REPORT based on the latest claims filed before the start of the search DOCUMENTS CONSIDERED AS RELEVANT Relevant claim (s) Classification attributed to the invention by ΙΊΝΡΙ Category Citation of the document with indication, if necessary, of the relevant parts US 2015/039745 Al (DEGIOANNI LORIS [US]) February 5, 2015 (2015-02-05) * abbreviated * * Figures 1-3.5 * * paragraphs [0009] - [0012], [0034] - [0035], [0042], [0046] - [0049] * * paragraphs [0052] - [0058], [0066], [0073], [0075] - [0082] * * paragraphs [0097], [0124] * US 2015/358391 Al (MOON CLIFF [US] December 10, 2015 (2015-12-10) * abstract; Figures 1-6 * * paragraphs [0002], [0003], [0006] [0008], [0011] * * paragraphs [0025] - [0032], [0060] [0066], [0067], [0094] - [0099], W0 2013/006708 Al (VCE C0 LLC [US]; KIRCHHOFER RICHARD [US]) January 10, 2013 (2013-01-10) * abridged; Figures 1-3 * * paragraphs [0005], [0008], [0009], [0022], [0031], [0038], [0045], 1-6 ET AL) 1-6 [0106] [0051] 1-6 G06F11 / 34 G06F11 / 32 G06F11 / 07 H04L12 / 26 TECHNICAL AREAS SOUGHT (IPC) G06F H04L EPO FORM 1503 12.99 (P04C14) CATEGORY OF DOCUMENTS CITED X: particularly relevant on its own Y: particularly relevant in combination with another document in the same category A: technological background O: unwritten disclosure P: intermediate document Research completion date October 16, 2018 Examiner Weber, Vincent T: theory or principle underlying the invention E: patent document with a date prior to the filing date and which was only published on that filing date or on a later date. D: cited in the request L: cited for other reasons &: member of the same family, corresponding document ANNEX TO THE PRELIMINARY RESEARCH REPORT RELATING TO THE FRENCH PATENT APPLICATION NO. FR 1763410 FA 851120 This appendix indicates the members of the patent family relating to the patent documents cited in the preliminary search report referred to above. The said members are contained in the computer file of the European Patent Office on the date dul6 ^- 10-2018 The information provided is given for information only and does not engage the responsibility of the European Patent Office or the French Administration