Archive for September, 2023

Trace Analysis Patterns (Part 235)

Sunday, September 24th, 2023

Some Dia|gram language illustrations of trace and log analysis patterns can be easily converted to more usual graphs. For example, Trace Field can be converted to Combed Trace or Adjoint Threads of Activity:


The resulted series can be plotted as a graph:

If time is values are not uniform Time Scale analysis pattern may be involved with the constructed Motivic Trace. We call this analysis pattern Trace Graph.

- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org + TraceAnalysis.org -

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Trace Analysis Patterns (Part 234)

Sunday, September 17th, 2023

When comparing traces we may be interested in their Trace Benchmarks, for example (not limited to, just a proposal):

  • Performance impact (impact this trace collection has on system performance)
  • Problem relevance score (was it really relevant or missed the problem repro?)
  • Easy to understand (is there any room for improvement for trace messages?)
  • Sensitivity (does it have any sensitive information?)
  • Canonicity score (does it contain all required ATIDs?)
  • Novelty score (any surprises?)
  • Sufficiency (does it require supplemental log from other tools?)
  • Pattern metrics (number of distinct error messages, etc., based on trace and log analysis patterns)
  • Problem resolution impact (was it the trace that provided missing insights?)

This post-analysis pattern may also be useful for problem postmortems and case studies. This pattern is different from Trace Summary which is a pre-analysis information.

- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org + TraceAnalysis.org -

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Trace Analysis Patterns (Part 233)

Saturday, September 16th, 2023

When comparing traces, saving them for further processing, or making their Trace Mask, we may transform them into Canonical Trace form with the same Trace Schema:

This analysis pattern is different from Master Trace and Meta Trace, where the former is about an “ideal” archetype trace of a use case to compare to, and the latter is about trace evolution when underlying code changes.

- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org + TraceAnalysis.org -

Posted in Log Analysis, Software Trace Analysis, Trace Analysis Patterns | Comments Off