Error detection/correction and fault detection/recovery – Data processing system error or fault handling – Reliability and availability
Reexamination Certificate
1999-09-30
2003-03-04
Iqbal, Nadeem (Department: 2184)
Error detection/correction and fault detection/recovery
Data processing system error or fault handling
Reliability and availability
C710S018000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06530041
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
(1) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a troubleshooting technique for quickly diagnosing a cause of occurrence of an exception occurring in a network computing environment constituted of a plurality of computers.
(2) Related Art of the Invention
There has been heretofore constituted a large scale network computing environment, making use of a plurality of computers. Such a network computing environment exemplarily includes a client/server system. Further, in the network computing environment which is expected to be popularized soon, those distributed applications developed by different types of machines, OS's, and languages are linked to one another to conduct a single processing.
Meantime, it is impossible to perfectly prevent an exception from occurring in an application program, in the presently available technique. As such, it is presently typical to record error logs for each application program, and these error logs are analyzed by an expert to diagnose the reason of occurrence of an exception, if any.
However, since the error logs are conventionally specific to respective application programs, there are problems in the network computing environment, as follows:
(1) To specify an application program in which an exception has occurred, it is necessary to examine error logs dispersed in a plurality of computers, thereby requiring great endeavor for exploration.
(2) Error logs are noway recorded with a state such as a communication state at the time the exception has occurred. This forces an expert to presume the state at the time of occurrence of exception, based on those error logs specific to respective application programs, thereby also requiring great endeavor for such investigation.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention has been carried out in view of the conventional problems as described above, and it is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a troubleshooting technique capable of diagnosing a cause of occurrence of exception, by bundlingly collecting the exceptions that have occurred in a network computing environment.
It is a further object of the present invention to enable those to readily constitute a troubleshooting apparatus, who have obtained a recording medium recorded with a troubleshooting program according to the present invention, by distributing such a medium.
To attain the above object, the present invention provides, as a first solution, a troubleshooting apparatus in a network computing environment, the apparatus comprising: a plurality of application program executing devices by which predetermined application programs are executed, respectively; and an exception information collecting device for collecting occurrence information of an exception occurred in the application programs, wherein the exception information collecting device comprises: an exception information accumulating device for accumulating the occurrence information; an exception occurrence detecting device provided in the application program executing device, so as to detect occurrence of an exception in the application programs; and an exception information transmitting device for transmitting an occurrence information to the exception information accumulating device when occurrence of an exception is detected by the exception occurrence detecting device.
According to such a constitution, when an exception has occurred in an application program constituting the network computing environment, the exception occurrence is detected by the exception occurrence detecting device. Upon detection of the exception occurrence by the exception occurrence detecting device, the exception information is transmitted from the application program executing device to the exception information accumulating device. The thus transmitted exception information is accumulated into the exception information accumulating device. Namely, even in a system where a plurality of cooperative application programs are linked to one another to conduct a single processing, the occurrence informations are not accumulated in the respective application program executing device, but bundlingly collected into the externally attached exception information accumulating device. As such, it is unnecessary to review the occurrence informations of the distributed respective application programs one by one, so that the time and effort for diagnosing the cause of occurrence of exception can be remarkably reduced.
The occurrence information may include: an exception occurrence place information for specifying an application program executing device by which the exception occurring application program has been executed; an exception occurrence time point information for specifying the time point at which the exception has occurred; and an information exchange destination information for specifying the other application program executing device which has conducted information exchange with the application program executing device by which the exception occurring application program has been executed.
According to such a constitution, the occurrence information accumulated in the exception information accumulating device includes the exception occurrence place information, exception occurrence time point information and information exchange destination information. Thus, by analyzing the bundlingly collected occurrence informations, it becomes possible to understand as to, at which application program the exception has occurred, in what communication state the exception has occurred, or when the exception has occurred. Therefore, it becomes unnecessary to analyze each one of the error logs recorded in the respective application program executing device, so that the analysis of exception occurring cause can be readily conducted.
The troubleshooting apparatus may further comprise: a first time point obtaining device for obtaining the respective time points at the plurality of application program executing devices; and a second time point obtaining device for obtaining the unified time point in the network computing environment; wherein the exception occurrence time point information includes the time point obtained by the first time point obtaining device, and the unified time point obtained by the second time point obtaining device.
According to such a constitution, the exception occurrence time point information includes two types of time points, i.e., the exception occurrence time point at the application program executing device and the exception occurrence time point in the network computing environment. As such, even if the time points at the respective application program executing devices are different from one another, the occurrence informations are aligned based on the unified time point in the system, by sorting the occurrence informations by treating the exception occurrence time point in the network computing environment, as a key. Thus, it becomes possible to relate the exception occurrences to one another in time series, thereby enabling easier analysis of the exception occurring cause.
Further, the second time point obtaining device may comprise: a third time point obtaining device for obtaining the time point at the exception information accumulating device; a time-point return request transmitting device provided in the application program executing device, for transmitting a time-point return request to the exception information accumulating device when exception occurrence is detected by the exception occurrence detecting device; a time-point returning device provided in the exception information accumulating device, for transmitting the time point obtained by the third time point obtaining device to the application program executing device which has transmitted the time-point return request, when the time point returning device has received the time-point return request; a returning time length measuring device for measuring the time length from transmission of the time-point return request up to the time at which the time point is r
Furusawa Toyoaki
Inoue Kenichiro
Fujitsu Limited
Greer Burns & Crain Ltd.
Iqbal Nadeem
LandOfFree
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