Agentless Network Transaction Tracking via Packet Sniffing
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing business transaction management systems face performance degradation due to the installation of data agents on network components, which also require restarts during upgrades, and struggle with tracing complex transactions without intrusive methods.
Innovation Solution
A method for determining business transaction paths without data agents, using data sniffers to analyze TCP/IP network communication, identifying data patterns, and grouping messages to trace transactions non-intrusively, allowing for agentless transaction tracing and monitoring.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If data agents are installed on each network component to monitor transactions, then transaction monitoring capability is improved, but application performance is degraded
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts the data collection function from individual network components by deploying a centralized data collector that passively captures network traffic. This eliminates the need for data agents on each component, thereby maintaining transaction monitoring capability while avoiding the performance degradation caused by intrusive agents on network resources.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces a data collector as an intermediary component that sits between network traffic sources and the monitoring system. This mediator passively collects data from network packets without interfering with the actual transactions, enabling monitoring while preserving application performance.
2Measurement precision
If data agents are installed on network components to trace transactions, then transaction tracing accuracy is improved, but system complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges multiple data collection functions into a single centralized data collector that processes all network traffic. This consolidation reduces system complexity by eliminating the need for multiple distributed data agents while maintaining accurate transaction tracing through comprehensive network packet analysis.
Solution Approach 2:
The data collector serves multiple functions: it collects data from various network protocols, identifies transactions, tracks their paths, and provides performance metrics. This multi-functional approach reduces overall system complexity by replacing multiple specialized components with a single universal data collection system.
3Reliability
If data agents are deployed to monitor network transactions, then monitoring coverage is improved, but overhead on network resources increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent converts the potentially harmful effect of network traffic analysis into a beneficial monitoring mechanism. By passively capturing network packets and analyzing their content, the system achieves comprehensive monitoring coverage without the overhead associated with active data agents processing transactions directly on network resources.
Data Source
AI summary
A system and method of tracking high-level network transactions. At least one switching node on a network may collect low-level data packets, the low-level data packets forming collectively a corresponding stream of high-level messages as parts of high-level transactions involving network resources of the network. Identifiers of the network resources in the network serving the high-level transactions may be identified from the low-level data packets. The data content of the high-level messages may be determined. The high-level messages may be grouped into groups of high-level messages having similar data content. Commonalities in the occurrences of high-level messages having different data content may then be identified.