International Business Machines Corporation

Christopher N Bailey

Ian O Partridge

David Richard Jones

Michael J Tunnicliffe

Paul K Bullis

Sandra Hayward

Matthew Paul Wilson

Edwin P J Moffatt

Alexander D S Mirski-Fitton

Andrew Michael Lees

Ross B Pavitt

Oliver M Deakin

Alexander J Kelly

Ian Partridge

Rory O'Hanlon

Enrique Lacal Bereslawski

Neil Hardman

A method, computer program product, and computer system for testing of robotic process automation robots that interact with user interfaces. The method includes obtaining analysis of commands in a robotic process automation script to determine interaction of the commands with one or more user interface applications. The method includes extracting a list of commands that interact with user interface controls and grouping the commands by user interface application. The method then generates a set of tests for each user interface application, with the set of tests including the commands for user interface control interactions and assertions of a state of each user interface control interacted with. The method provides a set of tests for a robot for each user interface application.

Test generation for robotic process automation robots that interact with user interfaces

A method, computer program product, and computer system for identifying involvement of application services in a distributed application. The method includes accessing traced request data of application requests for a distributed application and determining dependencies and call frequency between application services from the traced request data of the application requests. The method includes obtaining an involvement factor of an application service as a measure of involvement of the application service in the application requests based on the dependencies and call frequencies. The method applies the involvement factor to availability and functioning management of the distributed application.

Identifying involvement of application services in a distributed application

Prefetch of microservices for incoming requests. The method determines for an incoming request a Service Level Objective (SLO) requirement for latency of a request type of the incoming request. The method generates a set of possible microservice sequences for the request including a probability of occurrence of each of the possible microservice sequences and determines a set of prefetch permutations for the set of possible microservice sequences. A latency score is calculated for each prefetch permutation and any prefetch permutations that do not meet the SLO requirement for latency of the request type are eliminated. An optimal prefetch permutation of the remaining prefetch permutations is selected by considering a total cost of the prefetch permutation based on a cost of running each microservice in the set of sequences.

Prefetch of microservices for incoming requests

Concepts for middleware in a web framework are presented. One example comprises defining a target object type configured to hold results of a middleware function. A first object for an application is received and a process of the middleware function is performed, using the first object, to generate a process result. Based on the process result, a second object of the target object type is generated, after which the second object is provided to the application.

Middleware in web framework

Concepts for creating a metatype tree for metatype introspection are presented. One example comprises decoding a parent metatype from a synthetic dataset by decoding one or more child metatypes of the parent metatype. The method then comprises creating a metatype tree comprising a parent node and one or more child nodes of the parent node. The parent node comprises the decoded parent metatype and the one or more child nodes of the parent node comprise the one or more decoded child metatypes.

Creating a metatype tree for metatype introspection

Embodiments of the present invention provide concepts for tracing a request in a distributed system architecture comprising one or more distributed services. A request is received at a network traffic component on one of a plurality of sockets, which are monitored by a span correlation component. Span data is obtained from the received request and a process identification component is adapted to identify a process associated with the request based on the span data. The span correlation component is adapted to identify a socket connection made by the identified process and correlate the socket connection with the span data, thereby generating span correlation data.

Request tracing

A method, apparatus, system, and computer program product for dynamically selecting transmission data formats for communicating data. A request for a server application sent from a client application is received by receiving, by a computer system. The request includes first data in a first transmission data format and identifies a set of transmission data formats acceptable to the client application. A determination is made by the computer system as whether the first transmission data format is supported. A response from the server application with second data in a selected transmission data format in the set of transmission data formats by the computer system in response to the first transmission data format being supported.

Dynamically switchable transmission data formats in a computer system

Methods and systems may provide for technology to determine dynamic path information and encoded type information associated with an application programming interface (API) and automatically generate a language-independent API definition based on the dynamic path information. In one example, the language-independent API definition is generated without reliance on source code annotations.

Automatically building a web API definition from a microservice or web application

Maintaining core dump privacy during application fault handling. A core memory dump is received for an application from a runtime engine. Areas of the core memory dump are analyzed to identify structural data in the form of internal structures of the runtime engine. The identified structural data is retained in a modified core memory dump, and remaining non-structural data in the areas of the core memory dump is processed to ensure it is not readable by unauthorized entities in the modified core memory dump. The modified core memory dump is outputted for fault analysis.

Maintaining core dump privacy during application fault handling

Method and system are provided for handling request data with type safety in a remote service. The method includes providing a data structure, the data structure comprising a set of entries, each entry matching an incoming request type with a function for handling the request, the function defining a set of parameters. The method includes receiving an incoming request for a service from a remote client, wherein the request includes request data. The method includes using the data structure and identifying an entry for the incoming request by matching the request data to an incoming request type of an entry. The method includes converting the incoming request into a set of parameters using a software construct of the matching function identified in the entry, wherein the software construct comprises the matching function and associated in-scope local variables; and running the function using the converted parameters.

Handling request data with type safety in a remote service

Overhead of sending data from one application to another by doing input and output processing can be costly. The present invention provides a method of transmitting data with a low overhead between applications in a multi-tenant runtime environment. The multi-tenant runtime detects a connection between tenants, and then performs low-overhead data transmission mechanisms by cloning data from one tenant space to another tenant space, while keeping the data isolated for two tenants.

Direct transmission of data between applications in a multi-tenant environment

A thread in a computing system is processed for execution of instructions to perform an action. The action is one of the following: accessing a shared resource or executing a critical section of code. A schedule of the thread is managed. The management prevents suspension of the thread during execution of the action.

Growing community of inventors

Southampton, United Kingdom

Christopher N Bailey