Identifying the root cause of an issue observed during application execution

A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium comprising instructions for identifying a root cause of an execution issue related to a software application that, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to:

• identify a degradation of a performance metric during an execution of a software application in an application stack, the application stack having a plurality of hierarchically organized layers that each includes one or more components;
• traverse an inter-component graph corresponding to the software application to identify a hierarchy of components that were instantiated during the execution, the inter-component graph representing connections between different components of the software application, the hierarchy of components including a first component and a second component of the application stack;
• determine, for the first component and the second component, a correlation factor representing a quantification of a similarity in the degradation of the performance metric to a metrics time series for the component, the metrics time series specifying one or more values of the metric for the component during the execution of the software application;
• select the component having the highest correlation factor as a cause of the degradation of the performance metric;
• and
• report the selected component as the cause of the degradation of the performance metric.

A computer system, comprising:

• a memory storing instructions for identifying a root cause of an execution issue related to a software application;
• and
• a processor configured to execute the instructions, the instructions, when executed, causing the processor to:
• identify a degradation of a performance metric during an execution of a software application in an application stack, the application stack having a plurality of hierarchically organized layers that each includes one or more components;
• traverse an inter-component graph corresponding to the software application to identify a hierarchy of components that were instantiated during the execution, the inter-component graph representing connections between different components of the software application, the hierarchy of components including a first component and a second component of the application stack;
• determine, for the first component and the second component, a correlation factor representing a quantification of a similarity in the degradation of the performance metric to a metrics time series for the component, the metrics time series specifying one or more values of the metric for the component during the execution of the software application;
• select the component having the highest correlation factor as a cause of the degradation of the performance metric;
• and
• report the selected component as the cause of the degradation of the performance metric.