Patent application number | Description | Published |
20080281961 | NETWORK DELAY ANALYSIS INCLUDING PARALLEL DELAY EFFECTS - A multi-functional graphical user interface facilitates the analysis and assessment of application delays, including delays that occur on multiple paths. A trace file of an application's network events is processed to categorize the causes of delays incurred in the propagation and processing of these events. The system identifies the amount of delay (‘component delay’) that can be eliminated by eliminating each of the components of delay individually, as well as the amount of delay (‘parallel delay’) that can be eliminated by eliminating combinations of the delay components. A user interface displays the amount of reduction that can be achieved by eliminating each component delay individually and the amount of reduction that can be achieved by eliminating combinations of the individual component delays. To facilitate the analysis and assessment of these potential reductions, the interface allows the user to ‘drill down’ to view the individual delay components contained in each combination forming the parallel delays. In this manner, the user is provided a view of each of the delay components that would need to be addressed, either individually or in combination, to improve the overall application delay. | 11-13-2008 |
20090303899 | DISCOVERY OF MULTIPLE-PARENT DEPENDENCIES IN NETWORK PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS - Multiple parent-dependencies are identified for messages that are received on a network that includes nodes that are configured to avoid the conventional strictly-sequential communications techniques and protocols, in order to accelerate network performance. If a network is known, or assumed, to include intermediate/proxy nodes that are configured to provide acceleration, access control, and other services, the system that analyzes traffic on the network is configured to assume that these nodes may/will provide such features, and thereby introduce multiple dependencies among the messages communicated across the network. For each message transmitted from a forwarding node, messages received at the forwarding node are assessed to distinguish messages from the destination node and messages from an other node, and a dependency is defined for each. | 12-10-2009 |
20100128623 | END-TO-END ANALYSIS OF TRANSACTIONS IN NETWORKS WITH TRAFFIC-ALTERING DEVICES - In a network that includes intermediary nodes, such as WAN accelerators, that transform messages between nodes, an end-to-end path of the messages is determined. The determined end-to-end path is used in subsequent analyses of message traces, to identify timing and other factors related to the performance of the network relative to the propagation of these messages, including the propagation of the transformed messages. A variety of techniques are presented for determining the path of the messages, depending upon the characteristics of the collected trace data. Upon determining the message path, the traces are synchronized in time and correlations between the connections along the path are determined, including causal relationships. In a preferred embodiment, a user identifies an application process between or among particular nodes of a network, and the system provides a variety of formats for viewing statistics related to the performance of the application on the network. | 05-27-2010 |
20100211754 | MEMORY UTILIZATION ANALYSIS - An application records memory allocations and releases as they occur over time, and an analysis system presents characteristic memory utilization patterns to a user for review and analysis. A variety of sampling techniques are used to minimize the impact of this memory utilization monitoring on the performance of the application, and the analysis system is configured to estimate the overall memory utilization based on these samples. Because these samples of the memory allocations are taken continuously as the application is running, the analysis system can provide visualizations of the memory utilization patterns that allow a user to easily recognize anomalous behavior. The analysis system includes an interactive interface that allows the user to trace the cause of the presented memory utilization patterns, and provides statistics regarding memory allocation and release to guide the user in this analysis. | 08-19-2010 |
20110055390 | NETWORK CAPACITY PLANNING - Data representing application deployment attributes, network topology, and network performance attributes based on a reduced set of element attributes is utilized to simulate application deployment. The data may be received from a user directly, a program that models a network topology or application behavior, and a wizard that implies the data based on an interview process. The simulation may be based on application deployment attributes including application traffic pattern, application message sizes, network topology, and network performance attributes. The element attributes may be determined from a lookup table of element operating characteristics that may contain element maximum and minimum boundary operating values utilized to interpolate other operating conditions. Application response time may be derived using an iterative analysis based on multiple instances of one or more applications wherein a predetermined number of iterations is used or until a substantially steady state of network performance is achieved. | 03-03-2011 |
20110145715 | WEB TRANSACTION ANALYSIS - Individual network activities are correlated to interactions with a target web page to facilitate an analysis of the performance of the web page. This correlation is preferably performed using a combination of heuristics and rules developed to filter network activities into those activities that are likely to have been caused by the particular transaction, and those that are unlikely to be associated with that transaction. The activities that are identified as being associated with the transaction are subsequently organized to identify a time-flow of these activities within the transaction, from which performance statistics can be determined and presented to a user. Because the individual activities within the transaction are identified and time-ordered, an analysis of the effects of each activity on the overall performance of the web page can be performed to identify potential problem areas, or to diagnose reported problems. | 06-16-2011 |
20110197191 | CORRECTING PACKET TIMESTAMPS IN VIRTUALIZED ENVIRONMENTS - A network capture element is embodied on a virtual machine, and a utility function is embodied on the actual device, preferably within the virtual machine manager. Both the utility function and the traffic capture element are configured to monitor communication events. To minimize the overhead imposed, the utility function is configured to merely store the time that the event occurred on the actual machine, corresponding to an identifier of the event. The network capture element, on the other hand, performs the time consuming tasks of filtering the communications, selectively storing some or all of the data content of the communications, characterizing the data content, and so on. Instead of storing the virtual time that the communication event occurred at the virtual machine, the network capture element uses the identifier of the communication event to retrieve the actual time that the communication event occurred on the actual machine. | 08-11-2011 |
20110296012 | MULTI-TIER MESSAGE CORRELATION - A system and method determines correlations within multi-tier communications based on repeated iterations/episodes of executions of a target application. Content-based correlations are determined by encoding the content using a finite alphabet, then searching for similar sequences among the multiple traces. By encoding the content to a finite alphabet, common pattern matching techniques may be used, including, for example, DNA alignment algorithms. To facilitate alignment of the traces, structural and/or semantic breakpoints are defined, and the encoding in each trace is synchronized to these breakpoints. To facilitate efficient processing, a hierarchy of causality among tier-pairs is identified, and messages at lower levels are ranked and temporally filtered, based on activity intervals at higher levels of the hierarchy. | 12-01-2011 |
20120179816 | MANAGING CAPTURED NETWORK TRAFFIC DATA - A system and method for managing captured network traffic data is provided. The invention comprises a plurality of capture agents, each being configured to capture the network traffic associated with one or more applications. Each application is associated with one or more capture agents according to an application profile that is stored and maintained in a capture server. When analysis of an application's network traffic is required, the capture server contacts the corresponding capture agents according to the application profile. The capture server then effects the identification and archiving of the network traffic that corresponds to a user-defined capture condition. A database at the capture server maintains a record that associates the corresponding network traffic with the user-defined capture condition such that the corresponding network traffic can later be retrieved and analyzed using an analysis engine. | 07-12-2012 |
20120246307 | ANALYSIS OF ACTIVITY OF DEVICES IN A NETWORK THAT EMPLOY TRANSLATED NETWORK ADDRESSES - The embodiments provide for analyzing activity of devices in a network. Activity from a device may result from multiple devices translated to a common address, such as a public internet protocol (IP) address. In some embodiments, the activity from a network or device is analyzed to identify if multiple devices communicate via translated addresses from the common address. The devices may be identified based on various criteria, such as a unique identifier, protocol header information, or a media access control (or “MAC”) address. Other criteria may also be employed. Each device that is mapped to common address is then remapped so that each device has its own address. The activity data is then modified so that each device is correlated with its unique address. Alternatively, a new activity data file may be generated so that the activity of each device is indicated. | 09-27-2012 |
20130046887 | NETWORK CAPACITY PLANNING FOR MULTIPLE INSTANCES OF AN APPLICATION - Data representing application deployment attributes, network topology, and network performance attributes based on a reduced set of element attributes is utilized to simulate application deployment. The data may be received from a user directly, a program that models a network topology or application behavior, and a wizard that implies the data based on an interview process. The simulation may be based on application deployment attributes including application traffic pattern, application message sizes, network topology, and network performance attributes. The element attributes may be determined from a lookup table of element operating characteristics that may contain element maximum and minimum boundary operating values utilized to interpolate other operating conditions. Application response time may be derived using an iterative analysis based on multiple instances of one or more applications wherein a predetermined number of iterations are used or until a substantially steady state of network performance is achieved. | 02-21-2013 |
20130067073 | NETWORK DELAY ANALYSIS INCLUDING PARALLEL DELAY EFFECTS - The embodiments facilitate the analysis of application delays, including delays that occur on multiple paths. A trace file of an application's network events is processed to categorize the causes of delays incurred in the propagation and processing of these events. The system identifies the amount of delay that can be eliminated by eliminating each of the components of delay individually, as well as the amount of delay that can be eliminated by eliminating combinations of the delay components. A user interface displays the amount of reduction that can be achieved by eliminating various delays alone or in combination. The interface also allows the user to view the individual delay components contained in combinations of delay components. In this manner, the user is provided a view of each of the delay components that would need to be addressed, either individually or in combination, to improve the overall application delay. | 03-14-2013 |
20130090910 | APPLICATION LEVEL INTERFACE TO NETWORK ANALYSIS TOOLS - A user interface to a network simulator facilitates the use of application layer parameters and application layer logic. The user interface is configured to allow the user to define the input in a graphic form, or a text/programming form, or a combination of both. The user interface provides common graphic forms for both inputting the data to the simulator as well as for displaying the resultant data from the simulator. In response, the simulator and user interface may provide updated information to reflect the impact of changes made to application layer parameters and logic. | 04-11-2013 |
20140022944 | End-to-End Analysis of Transactions in Networks with Traffic-Altering Devices - In a network that includes intermediary nodes, such as WAN accelerators, that transform messages between nodes, an end-to-end path of the messages is determined. The determined end-to-end path is used in subsequent analyses of message traces, to identify timing and other factors related to the performance of the network relative to the propagation of these messages, including the propagation of the transformed messages. A variety of techniques are presented for determining the path of the messages, depending upon the characteristics of the collected trace data. Upon determining the message path, the traces are synchronized in time and correlations between the connections along the path are determined, including causal relationships. In a preferred embodiment, a user identifies an application process between or among particular nodes of a network, and the system provides a variety of formats for viewing statistics related to the performance of the application on the network. | 01-23-2014 |
20140033054 | USER-CONFIGURABLE NETWORK PERFORMANCE MONITORS - A network analysis system provides for a user-definable display of information related to messages communicated on the network. The network analysis system includes one or more display formats that provide a display of message exchanges between nodes of a network, and a display augmenter that provides additional information on the display based on a user-defined visualization. The user defined visualization includes augmenting the display based on user-defined coloring characteristics and/or augmenting the display with user-defined labels. To further facilitate user control of the augmentation of the display, the system accepts user-defined programs for discriminating among messages, for controlling the labeling of messages, and for controlling the coloring of messages and labels. Commonly used user-defined characteristics and labels are stored in a library, for use via a selection from among the library entries. | 01-30-2014 |
20140068615 | CORRECTING PACKET TIMESTAMPS IN VIRTUALIZED ENVIRONMENTS - A network capture element is embodied on a virtual machine, and a utility function is embodied on the actual device, preferably within the virtual machine manager. Both the utility function and the traffic capture element are configured to monitor communication events. To minimize the overhead imposed, the utility function is configured to merely store the time that the event occurred on the actual machine, corresponding to an identifier of the event. The network capture element, on the other hand, performs the time consuming tasks of filtering the communications, selectively storing some or all of the data content of the communications, characterizing the data content, and so on. Instead of storing the virtual time that the communication event occurred at the virtual machine, the network capture element uses the identifier of the communication event to retrieve the actual time that the communication event occurred on the actual machine. | 03-06-2014 |
20140112154 | MANAGING CAPTURED NETWORK TRAFFIC DATA - A system and method for managing captured network traffic data is provided. The invention comprises a plurality of capture agents, each being configured to capture the network traffic associated with one or more applications. Each application is associated with one or more capture agents according to an application profile that is stored and maintained in a capture server. When analysis of an application's network traffic is required, the capture server contacts the corresponding capture agents according to the application profile. The capture server then effects the identification and archiving of the network traffic that corresponds to a user-defined capture condition. A database at the capture server maintains a record that associates the corresponding network traffic with the user-defined capture condition such that the corresponding network traffic can later be retrieved and analyzed using an analysis engine. | 04-24-2014 |
20140122712 | WEB TRANSACTION ANALYSIS - Individual network activities are correlated to interactions with a target web page to facilitate an analysis of the performance of the web page. This correlation is preferably performed using a combination of heuristics and rules developed to filter network activities into those activities that are likely to have been caused by the particular transaction, and those that are unlikely to be associated with that transaction. The activities that are identified as being associated with the transaction are subsequently organized to identify a time-flow of these activities within the transaction, from which performance statistics can be determined and presented to a user. Because the individual activities within the transaction are identified and time-ordered, an analysis of the effects of each activity on the overall performance of the web page can be performed to identify potential problem areas, or to diagnose reported problems. | 05-01-2014 |
20140129793 | MEMORY UTILIZATION ANALYSIS - The performance of a monitored system is profiled based on sampling a portion of its operations. In one embodiment, the monitored system allocates memory for objects created as instances of classes and automatically performs regular garbage collection to reclaim memory. A variety of sampling techniques are used to minimize the impact on the performance of the monitored system. Characteristic memory utilization patterns can then be estimated for classes based on the samples. The patterns may be presented to a user for review and analysis. Characteristics of the monitored system's performance may be presented in an interactive interface that allows the user to trace the cause of the presented memory utilization patterns, and provides statistics regarding memory allocation and release to guide the user in this analysis. | 05-08-2014 |
20140172941 | CAPTURE, ANALYSIS, AND VISUALIZATION OF CONCURRENT SYSTEM AND NETWORK BEHAVIOR OF AN APPLICATION - A first capture system that captures network communication events related to an application, and a second capture system that captures internal processing events related to the application. A visualization system analyzes the data captured by each of the capture systems, synchronizes and correlates the data, and presents an integrated display of these communication and processing events. In a preferred embodiment, the communicated messages include an identifier of the application, and the processing components also associate an identifier of the application to each recorded processing event. To facilitate the integrated display of the events, the visualization system synchronizes the recorded communication and processing events to a common time base. | 06-19-2014 |
20140280929 | MULTI-TIER MESSAGE CORRELATION - A system and method determines correlations within multi-tier communications based on repeated iterations/episodes of executions of a target application. Content-based correlations are determined by encoding the content using a finite alphabet, then searching for similar sequences among the multiple traces. By encoding the content to a finite alphabet, common pattern matching techniques may be used, including, for example, DNA alignment algorithms. To facilitate alignment of the traces, structural and/or semantic breakpoints are defined, and the encoding in each trace is synchronized to these breakpoints. To facilitate efficient processing, a hierarchy of causality among tier-pairs is identified, and messages at lower levels are ranked and temporally filtered, based on activity intervals at higher levels of the hierarchy. | 09-18-2014 |