Root cause candidate determination in multiple process systems

A computing device comprising:

• a memory;
• a processor device coupled to the memory to:
• determine that a first process encountered a problem at a first point in time;
• access a directed graph that represents each process of a plurality of processes, including the first process, as a corresponding vertex of a plurality of vertices in the directed graph, each respective vertex connected to at least one other vertex by an edge identifying at least one of a forward dependency and a reverse dependency between the respective vertex and the at least one other vertex based on corresponding dependencies between the processes that correspond to the respective vertex and the at least one other vertex;
• determine a path through the directed graph from a start vertex to an end vertex to identify a subset of processes that correspond to vertices in the path by:
• identifying a first vertex corresponding to the first process;
• identifying the start vertex as a vertex with which the first vertex has a direct forward dependency;
• identifying a path of successive forward dependencies from the start vertex through any intermediate vertices to the end vertex at which the forward dependencies end;
• determining that the end vertex has a reverse dependency with at least one additional vertex;
• adding the at least one additional vertex to the path;
• and
• identifying each process that corresponds to a vertex in the path as a member of the subset of processes;
• subsequent to identifying the subset of processes, access corresponding runtime metric values to determine whether a runtime metric value is a non-desired value for at least one of the processes in the subset of processes;
• and
• identify a process in the subset of processes as a root cause candidate of the problem encountered by the first process based on at least one of the corresponding runtime metric values.

A computer program product for identifying a process as a root cause candidate of a problem, the computer program product stored on a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium and including instructions configured to cause a processor device to:

• determine that a first process encountered a problem at a first point in time;
• access a directed graph that represents each process of a plurality of processes, including the first process, as a corresponding vertex of a plurality of vertices in the directed graph, each respective vertex connected to at least one other vertex by an edge identifying at least one of a forward dependency and a reverse dependency between the respective vertex and the at least one other vertex based on corresponding dependencies between the processes that correspond to the respective vertex and the at least one other vertex;
• determine a path through the directed graph from a start vertex to an end vertex to identify a subset of processes that correspond to vertices in the path by:
• identifying a path of successive forward dependencies from the start vertex corresponding to the first process through any intermediate vertices to the end vertex at which the forward dependencies end;
• determining that the end vertex has a reverse dependency with at least one additional vertex;
• adding the at least one additional vertex to the path;
• and
• identifying each process that corresponds to a vertex in the path as a member of the subset of processes;
• subsequent to identifying the subset of processes, access corresponding runtime metric values to determine whether a runtime metric value is a non-desired value for at least one of the processes in the subset of processes;
• and
• identify a process in the subset of processes as a root cause candidate of the problem encountered by the first process based on at least one of the corresponding runtime metric values.

A method for identifying a process as a root cause candidate of a problem, comprising:

• determining, by a computing device comprising a processing device, that a first process encountered a problem at a first point in time;
• accessing, by the computing device, a directed graph that represents each process of a plurality of processes, including the first process, as a corresponding vertex of a plurality of vertices in the directed graph, each respective vertex connected to at least one other vertex by an edge identifying at least one of a forward dependency and a reverse dependency between the respective vertex and the at least one other vertex based on corresponding dependencies between the processes that correspond to the respective vertex and the at least one other vertex;
• determining a path through the directed graph from a start vertex to an end vertex to identify a subset of processes that correspond to vertices in the path by:
• identifying a first vertex corresponding to the first process;
• identifying the start vertex as a vertex with which the first vertex has a direct forward dependency;
• identifying a path of successive forward dependencies from the start vertex through any intermediate vertices to the end vertex at which the forward dependencies end;
• determining that the end vertex has a reverse dependency with at least one additional vertex;
• adding the at least one additional vertex to the path;
• and
• identifying each process that corresponds to a vertex in the path as a member of the subset of processes;
• subsequent to identifying the subset of processes, accessing corresponding runtime metric values to determine whether a runtime metric value is a non-desired value for at least one of the processes in the subset of processes;
• and
• identifying a process in the subset of processes as a root cause candidate of the problem encountered by the first process based on at least one of the corresponding runtime metric values.

A computing device comprising:

• a memory;
• a processor device coupled to the memory to:
• determine that a first process encountered a problem at a first point in time;
• access a directed graph that represents each process of a plurality of processes, including the first process, as a corresponding vertex of a plurality of vertices in the directed graph, each respective vertex connected to at least one other vertex by an edge identifying at least one of a forward dependency and a reverse dependency between the respective vertex and the at least one other vertex based on corresponding dependencies between the processes that correspond to the respective vertex and the at least one other vertex;
• determine a path through the directed graph from a start vertex to an end vertex to identify a subset of processes that correspond to vertices in the path by:
• identifying a path of successive forward dependencies from the start vertex corresponding to the first process through any intermediate vertices to the end vertex at which the forward dependencies end;
• determining that the end vertex has a reverse dependency with at least one additional vertex;
• adding the at least one additional vertex to the path;
• and
• identifying each process that corresponds to a vertex in the path as a member of the subset of processes;
• subsequent to identifying the subset of processes, access corresponding runtime metric values to determine whether a runtime metric value is a non-desired value for at least one of the processes in the subset of processes;
• and
• identify a process in the subset of processes as a root cause candidate of the problem encountered by the first process based on at least one of the corresponding runtime metric values.

A computer program product for identifying a process as a root cause candidate of a problem, the computer program product stored on a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium and including instructions configured to cause a processor device to:

• determine that a first process encountered a problem at a first point in time;
• access a directed graph that represents each process of a plurality of processes, including the first process, as a corresponding vertex of a plurality of vertices in the directed graph, each respective vertex connected to at least one other vertex by an edge identifying at least one of a forward dependency and a reverse dependency between the respective vertex and the at least one other vertex based on corresponding dependencies between the processes that correspond to the respective vertex and the at least one other vertex;
• determine a path through the directed graph from a start vertex to an end vertex to identify a subset of processes that correspond to vertices in the path by:
• identifying a first vertex corresponding to the first process;
• identifying the start vertex as a vertex with which the first vertex has a direct forward dependency;
• identifying a path of successive forward dependencies from the start vertex through any intermediate vertices to the end vertex at which the forward dependencies end;
• determining that the end vertex has a reverse dependency with at least one additional vertex;
• adding the at least one additional vertex to the path;
• and
• identifying each process that corresponds to a vertex in the path as a member of the subset of processes;
• subsequent to identifying the subset of processes, access corresponding runtime metric values to determine whether a runtime metric value is a non-desired value for at least one of the processes in the subset of processes;
• and
• identify a process in the subset of processes as a root cause candidate of the problem encountered by the first process based on at least one of the corresponding runtime metric values.