Online Service Performance Monitoring Through Cross-Service Analysis

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Solution Overview

Problem

Existing methods for monitoring and optimizing the performance of online services on centralized hosting platforms are resource-intensive and inefficient, particularly in identifying the causes of performance changes resulting from service modifications, such as plugin installations or theme changes, due to the complexity and cost of continuous monitoring and rollback processes.

Innovation Solution

A method that leverages cross-service data to identify similar online services and compares performance impacts of modification events, flagging unanticipated changes and recommending or automatically executing corrective actions, using historical data and similarity criteria to determine the cause of performance deviations.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Reliability

If continuous monitoring and rollback processes are implemented to identify causes of performance changes, then performance optimization reliability is improved, but resource consumption and system complexity increase

Engineering Contradiction:
Improveperformance optimization reliabilityVSAvoidsystem complexity
Core Design Contradiction:
ReliabilityVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

The system performs preliminary actions by proactively identifying similar services and pre-analyzing their modification histories before performance issues occur. When a service modification is detected, the system immediately queries pre-identified similar services for comparable modification events, enabling rapid root cause analysis without extensive continuous monitoring or rollback processes.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #10Preliminary action

Solution Approach 2:

The patent introduces similar services as intermediaries to transfer diagnostic information. Instead of directly monitoring and analyzing every performance change in isolation, the system uses similar services as mediators to provide comparative data, enabling indirect inference of performance change causes through cross-service pattern matching.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #24Intermediary (Mediator)

2Measurement precision

If cross-service data comparison is implemented to identify performance change causes, then diagnostic accuracy is improved, but data processing time increases

Engineering Contradiction:
Improvediagnostic accuracyVSAvoiddata processing time
Core Design Contradiction:
Measurement precisionVSLoss of time

Solution Approach 1:

The system applies local quality by focusing data collection and comparison efforts only on specific, relevant attributes of similar services. Instead of comprehensively analyzing all service data, the system selectively queries modification histories, performance metrics, and configuration details that are locally relevant to the detected performance change, reducing unnecessary data processing while maintaining diagnostic accuracy.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #3Local quality

Solution Approach 2:

The patent implements partial action by performing selective comparisons with similar services rather than exhaustive analysis of all available data. The system identifies and compares only the necessary modification events and performance parameters that are directly relevant to the detected issue, achieving sufficient diagnostic accuracy without the time cost of complete data processing.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #16Partial or excessive action

3Productivity

If similar services are identified and compared to detect performance issues, then performance optimization efficiency is improved, but computational resources are consumed

Engineering Contradiction:
Improveperformance optimization efficiencyVSAvoidcomputational resources
Core Design Contradiction:
ProductivityVSUse of energy by moving object

Solution Approach 1:

The system performs preliminary identification of similar services based on service types, configurations, and operational characteristics before performance issues occur. This pre-segmentation enables rapid querying of relevant comparison data when performance changes are detected, avoiding the need to compute similarity metrics across all services during incident response and reducing computational resource consumption.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #10Preliminary action

Data Source

PatentEP4050488B1System and method for optimizing performance of online services
Publication Date: 2025.10.22 SHOPIFY INC
  • EP4050488B1 patent drawingFigure 1
  • EP4050488B1 patent drawingFigure 2
  • EP4050488B1 patent drawingFigure 3

AI summary

A computer-implemented method is disclosed. The method includes: obtaining, by a server, a value for at least one performance metric associated with a first online service; detecting a service modification event for the first online service; identifying, by the server, a second online service; obtaining historical service modification events data for the second online service; comparing changes in the value for the at least one performance metric resulting from the service modification event for the first online service to changes in performance metric values resulting from historical service modification events for the second online service; determining that the service modification event is associated with an unanticipated performance change for the first online service based on the comparing; and providing an indication identifying the service modification event as being associated with the unanticipated performance change for the first online service.