Oracle International Corporation

Ivan Tinlung Lam

Alok Kumar Srivastava

Sunil Kumar

Daniel Semler

Yuriy S Granat

A portable tracing utility provides trace configuration, trace instrumentation and trace management functionality for single or multithreaded programs. Through various application programming interfaces ('APIs') of the tracing utility, a client may control tracing behavior to setup in-memory data structures for storing trace records that record the program's history of execution or to alter the granularity of execution history being traced. The trace behavior can be modified during the life of a program by using the APIs, either dynamically when the program assumes certain states, or through remote procedure calls issued by, for example, an external interface. Programs are instrumented with these APIs to record the history of execution, which during execution of the program is stored in circular in-memory buffers.

Lightweight highly available infrastructure to trace program execution

The present invention provides a method and mechanism for debugging a series of related events within a computer system. According to an embodiment, when tracing a series of related events that span across a plurality of threads, a token may be passed from one thread to another, thereby allowing a link between the threads to be marked within the one or more traces. The token may be passed via a messaging API, such as a network layer API or a shared resource. With this aspect of the invention, sufficient information will be provided within the one or more traces to allow all the related trace data to be linked together.

Method and mechanism for debugging a series of related events within a computer system

The present invention provides a method and mechanism for analyzing trace data using a database management system (DBMS). According to an embodiment, trace data may be loaded onto one or more databases within a DBMS. With this aspect of the invention, several advantages are gained, including the ability to use the query tool of the DBMS to analyze the trace data and the ability to build a trace repository to analyze the history of the trace data.

Method and mechanism for analyzing trace data using a database management system

A method and mechanism for managing traces with a computer system having a plurality of resources is disclosed. One or more conditions can be established for the computer system. The resources may then be monitored to determine whether the computer system has reached the one or more conditions. If so, then the parameters of the traces may be changed according to the one or more conditions that have been reached.

Method and mechanism for managing traces within a computer system

Mechanisms are provided for preserving data wherein one or more nodes in a distributed computing system experiences an error. In one embodiment, when an error occurs, an error event is identified. Based on this error event, a set of identified execution units is suspended and a set of identified data is collected. All suspended execution units are then released, i.e., allowed to continue execution at the point where the units were suspended. The data collected during suspension is then used to diagnose the cause of the error.

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Santa Clara, CA, United States of America

Ivan Tinlung Lam