RCInvestigator: Towards Better Investigation of Anomaly Root Causes in Cloud Computing Systems

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Liu, Shuhan, Zhou, Yunfan, Ying, Lu, Tian, Yuan, Zhang, Jue, Zhou, Shandan, Cui, Weiwei, Lin, Qingwei, Moscibroda, Thomas, Zhang, Haidong, Weng, Di, Wu, Yingcai
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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author Liu, Shuhan
Zhou, Yunfan
Ying, Lu
Tian, Yuan
Zhang, Jue
Zhou, Shandan
Cui, Weiwei
Lin, Qingwei
Moscibroda, Thomas
Zhang, Haidong
Weng, Di
Wu, Yingcai
author_facet Liu, Shuhan
Zhou, Yunfan
Ying, Lu
Tian, Yuan
Zhang, Jue
Zhou, Shandan
Cui, Weiwei
Lin, Qingwei
Moscibroda, Thomas
Zhang, Haidong
Weng, Di
Wu, Yingcai
contents Finding the root causes of anomalies in cloud computing systems quickly is crucial to ensure availability and efficiency since accurate root causes can guide engineers to take appropriate actions to address the anomalies and maintain customer satisfaction. However, it is difficult to investigate and identify the root causes based on large-scale and high-dimension monitoring data collected from complex cloud computing environments. Due to the inherently dynamic characteristics of cloud computing systems, the existing approaches in practice largely rely on manual analyses for flexibility and reliability, but massive unpredictable factors and high data complexity make the process time-consuming. Despite recent advances in automated detection and investigation approaches, the speed and quality of root cause analyses remain limited by the lack of expert involvement in these approaches. The limitations found in the current solutions motivate us to propose a visual analytics approach that facilitates the interactive investigation of the anomaly root causes in cloud computing systems. We identified three challenges, namely, a) modeling databases for the root cause investigation, b) inferring root causes from large-scale time series, and c) building comprehensible investigation results. In collaboration with domain experts, we addressed these challenges with RCInvestigator, a novel visual analytics system that establishes a tight collaboration between human and machine and assists experts in investigating the root causes of cloud computing system anomalies. We evaluated the effectiveness of RCInvestigator through two use cases based on real-world data and received positive feedback from experts.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2405_15571
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle RCInvestigator: Towards Better Investigation of Anomaly Root Causes in Cloud Computing Systems
Liu, Shuhan
Zhou, Yunfan
Ying, Lu
Tian, Yuan
Zhang, Jue
Zhou, Shandan
Cui, Weiwei
Lin, Qingwei
Moscibroda, Thomas
Zhang, Haidong
Weng, Di
Wu, Yingcai
Human-Computer Interaction
Finding the root causes of anomalies in cloud computing systems quickly is crucial to ensure availability and efficiency since accurate root causes can guide engineers to take appropriate actions to address the anomalies and maintain customer satisfaction. However, it is difficult to investigate and identify the root causes based on large-scale and high-dimension monitoring data collected from complex cloud computing environments. Due to the inherently dynamic characteristics of cloud computing systems, the existing approaches in practice largely rely on manual analyses for flexibility and reliability, but massive unpredictable factors and high data complexity make the process time-consuming. Despite recent advances in automated detection and investigation approaches, the speed and quality of root cause analyses remain limited by the lack of expert involvement in these approaches. The limitations found in the current solutions motivate us to propose a visual analytics approach that facilitates the interactive investigation of the anomaly root causes in cloud computing systems. We identified three challenges, namely, a) modeling databases for the root cause investigation, b) inferring root causes from large-scale time series, and c) building comprehensible investigation results. In collaboration with domain experts, we addressed these challenges with RCInvestigator, a novel visual analytics system that establishes a tight collaboration between human and machine and assists experts in investigating the root causes of cloud computing system anomalies. We evaluated the effectiveness of RCInvestigator through two use cases based on real-world data and received positive feedback from experts.
title RCInvestigator: Towards Better Investigation of Anomaly Root Causes in Cloud Computing Systems
topic Human-Computer Interaction
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2405.15571