Cross-Service Diagnostic Workflows for Cloud Incident Root Cause
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Solution Overview
Problem
Cloud computing systems face inefficiencies in incident diagnosis due to interdependent services, leading to prolonged issue resolution times and poor customer experience, as engineers often produce incorrect or insufficient diagnostic information and incidents are transferred between teams.
Innovation Solution
A method involving dynamically generated diagnostic modules based on service relationships, using an orchestration module to invoke service-specific modules for cross-service diagnosis, determining a root cause, and transmitting engagement notifications to responsible entities.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If engineers investigate incidents locally with expertise limited to their originating service, then each service can be diagnosed independently, but diagnostic information becomes incorrect or insufficient and incidents are transferred between multiple engineers
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the diagnostic workflow into service-specific modules, where each service (compute, storage, network, virtualization) has its own diagnostic module. This allows local expertise to be captured in standardized formats that can be orchestrated across services, maintaining diagnostic accuracy while preserving service independence.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces an orchestration module as an intermediary that coordinates between service-specific diagnostic modules. This mediator collects diagnostic information from multiple services, determines root causes across service boundaries, and routes incidents to the appropriate responsible entities, preventing incorrect local diagnoses.
2Measurement precision
If incidents are transferred between multiple engineers before arriving at the responsible team, then comprehensive diagnosis may be achieved, but time to mitigate incidents increases and SLA breaches are prolonged
Solution Approach 1:
The patent performs preliminary diagnostic actions by pre-defining service dependency relationships and orchestrating diagnostics in the correct sequence. The orchestration module proactively gathers diagnostic information from all dependent services before routing the incident, eliminating the need for multiple transfers and reducing mitigation time.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent implements feedback loops where diagnostic results from one service module inform the next diagnostic step. The orchestration module uses feedback from service-specific modules to dynamically determine the root cause and route to the appropriate responsible entity, preventing unnecessary incident transfers.
3Adaptability or versatility
If ad-hoc diagnostic information is produced by engineers, then flexibility in investigation is maintained, but diagnostic information becomes incorrect or insufficient
Solution Approach 1:
The patent changes the parameters of diagnostic information production by enforcing standardized data formats and schemas for each service type. While maintaining flexibility in investigation approaches through service-specific modules, the system ensures diagnostic quality through structured parameter collection and validation in the orchestration layer.
Data Source
AI summary
Example aspects include techniques for employing cross-service diagnostics for cloud service providers. These techniques may include dynamically generating a workflow of one or more diagnostic modules based on relationship information between an origin service experiencing an incident and one or more related services that the origin service depends on, and executing the workflow of one or more diagnostic modules to determine a root cause of the incident, each of the one or more diagnostic modules implemented by an individual service of the one or more related services in accordance with a schema. In addition, the techniques may include determining a diagnostic action based on the root cause, and transmitting, based on the diagnostic action, an engagement notification to a responsible entity.