Multi-Tiered Software Stack Targeted Diagnostics
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Solution Overview
Problem
In multi-tiered software stacks, diagnosing failures requires analyzing each tier individually, leading to unnecessary attempts to reproduce the failure and inefficient diagnostic information gathering.
Innovation Solution
A method that initiates targeted diagnostics on one tier, maps symptoms to reason codes, and issues commands to subsequent tiers for simultaneous diagnostic collection, enabling efficient diagnostic data gathering across all tiers.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If individual tier analysis is performed for diagnosing failures in multi-tiered software stacks, then comprehensive diagnostic coverage is achieved, but the number of attempts to reproduce failures increases and diagnostic efficiency decreases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the multi-tiered software stack into distinct tiers (e.g., application tier, platform tier, infrastructure tier) and enables independent diagnostic collection for each tier. This segmentation allows diagnostics to be targeted at specific tiers based on symptom-to-reason mappings, avoiding the need to analyze all tiers uniformly and thereby improving diagnostic efficiency while maintaining comprehensive coverage.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent establishes symptom-to-reason mappings in advance that link symptoms observed at one tier to potential causes at other tiers. This preliminary action enables the system to proactively initiate targeted diagnostics at relevant tiers when a symptom is detected, rather than waiting for manual reproduction attempts, thus reducing the number of attempts needed and improving diagnostic productivity.
2Loss of information
If multiple attempts to reproduce failures are made to gather diagnostic information from each tier, then complete diagnostic data is collected, but time consumption increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements a feedback mechanism where diagnostic results from one tier inform the next diagnostic actions. When a symptom is detected, the system uses symptom-to-reason mappings to identify potential cause tiers, initiates targeted diagnostics there, and uses the results to guide further investigation. This feedback loop ensures complete diagnostic information is collected while minimizing time consumption by avoiding unnecessary reproduction attempts at tiers unlikely to contain the root cause.
Solution Approach 2:
By pre-establishing symptom-to-reason mappings that identify relationships between tiers, the system can immediately initiate targeted diagnostics at the most relevant tiers when a failure symptom is detected. This preliminary preparation eliminates the need for multiple blind reproduction attempts across all tiers, reducing time loss while ensuring complete diagnostic information is gathered from the appropriate tiers.
3Productivity
If simultaneous diagnostic collection is implemented across all tiers, then diagnostic efficiency improves, but system complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies local quality by enabling simultaneous diagnostic collection only at specific tiers where symptoms indicate potential causes, rather than uniformly across all tiers. The symptom-to-reason mappings allow the system to identify which tiers require diagnostic attention and apply diagnostics locally to those tiers, improving efficiency while avoiding the complexity of coordinating simultaneous diagnostics across the entire stack.
Solution Approach 2:
The system segments diagnostic collection into tier-specific processes, with each tier having its own diagnostic capabilities and symptom-to-reason mappings. This segmentation allows simultaneous diagnostics at multiple tiers to be managed as independent, coordinated processes rather than a monolithic complex system, reducing overall system complexity while maintaining diagnostic efficiency.
Data Source
AI summary
As disclosed herein a method, executed by a computer, for enabling multi-tiered software stack diagnostic collection includes initiating, on a first tier of a multi-tiered software stack, a targeted diagnostics collection corresponding to a symptom of a failure, determining a symptom to a reason code mapping corresponding to the symptom in a product of a subsequent tier, and issuing a command to the product of the subsequent tier to initiate targeted diagnostics collection corresponding to the reason code. Problems or failures in a multi-tiered software stack environment may require analyses of programs or products corresponding to each tier of a multi-tiered software stack. The method described herein enables simultaneous collection of diagnostics for programs or products corresponding to each tier of a multi-tiered software stack. A computer system, and a computer program product corresponding to the method are also disclosed herein.