Concurrent Session Playback With Span Data Visualization

Resolve Bottlenecks,
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions

Solution Overview

Problem

Existing real user monitoring (RUM) systems face challenges in efficiently identifying and remediating performance issues in cloud-native applications, as debugging with spans alone is time-consuming and does not provide immediate insights into user experience impact.

Innovation Solution

Concurrent visualization of session data with session playback, combining span analysis with session replay to recreate user interactions, allowing developers to observe errors and improve user experience.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Loss of information

If span analysis is used for debugging, then technical details are provided, but debugging time increases and user experience impact is not immediately visible

Engineering Contradiction:

Improveuser experience impact insightVSAvoiddebugging time

Core Design Contradiction:

Loss of informationVSLoss of time

Solution Approach 1:

The patent combines span analysis with session playback to create a unified debugging interface. The session playback visually reconstructs user interactions while span data is overlaid to show technical details, allowing developers to simultaneously see both user experience impact and technical information without switching between separate tools or views.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #5Merging (Combining)

Solution Approach 2:

The system creates a replay/copy of the user session that can be independently analyzed. By recording and replaying the session, developers can pause, rewind, and examine specific moments where errors occurred, separating the analysis process from the actual user interaction and enabling more efficient debugging.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #26Copying

2Ease of operation

If session playback is added to RUM systems, then user experience insight is improved, but system complexity increases

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvedebugging efficiencyVSAvoidsystem complexity

Core Design Contradiction:

Ease of operationVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

The RUM system is enhanced to perform multiple functions: it continues to collect and analyze spans for technical monitoring while simultaneously recording session playback for visual analysis. The same infrastructure handles both traditional RUM tasks and the new playback functionality, reducing the need for separate systems.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #6Universality (Multi-functionality)

Solution Approach 2:

The span data is nested within the session playback structure, with technical details embedded alongside the visual session replay. This allows the complex playback system to organize and present multiple data layers (visual UI state, span metrics, error information) in a hierarchical manner that reduces perceived complexity.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #7Nested doll (Nesting)

Data Source

PatentUS20250321767A1Concurrent visualization of session data and session playback

Publication Date: 2025.10.16 CISCO TECHNOLOGY INC

AI summary

Described herein are techniques for concurrently visualizing real user's session data with a playback of a user's experience during a session. The disclosed techniques can correlate session data collected in response to interactions with an application during a user's session with session recreation data generated by the application and recorded during the user's session. The correlations between the session data and the recreation data can be used to render and control a recreation of the user's experience during the session concurrently with a visualization of the session data.