Patent Application
20180210820
This disclosure relates generally to an automatic application script injection system.
Some software providers may wish to monitor how their software performs on computer systems (e.g., user computer systems) that run the software. One way to monitor this performance is by including an application performance management (APM) script within the software. APM scripts may monitor execution of the software and send metrics regarding the monitored execution to the software provider.
In various embodiments, an automatic application script injection system is disclosed that automatically identifies a location within application code of a web page and injects an application script at the location. In response to receiving an indication of metrics corresponding to the application script, the automatic application script injection system may preserve an indication of the location. As a result, in some cases, the application script may be injected at the location in future web responses to web browsers without first attempting other locations. In response to receiving an indication that metrics corresponding to the application script have not been received, the automatic application script injection system may automatically identify another location within the application code or may determine not to inject the application script into the application code.
Although the embodiments disclosed herein are susceptible to various modifications and alternative forms, specific embodiments are shown by way of example in the drawings and are described herein in detail. It should be understood, however, that drawings and detailed description thereto are not intended to limit the scope of the claims to the particular forms disclosed. On the contrary, this application is intended to cover all modifications, equivalents and alternatives falling within the spirit and scope of the disclosure of the present application as defined by the appended claims.
This disclosure includes references to “one embodiment,” “a particular embodiment,” “some embodiments,” “various embodiments,” or “an embodiment.” The appearances of the phrases “in one embodiment,” “in a particular embodiment,” “in some embodiments,” “in various embodiments,” or “in an embodiment” do not necessarily refer to the same embodiment. Particular features, structures, or characteristics may be combined in any suitable manner consistent with this disclosure.
Within this disclosure, different entities (which may variously be referred to as “units,” “circuits,” other components, etc.) may be described or claimed as “configured” to perform one or more tasks or operations. This formulation—[entity] configured to [perform one or more tasks]—is used herein to refer to structure (i.e., something physical, such as an electronic circuit). More specifically, this formulation is used to indicate that this structure is arranged to perform the one or more tasks during operation. A structure can be said to be “configured to” perform some task even if the structure is not currently being operated. A “memory device configured to store data” is intended to cover, for example, an integrated circuit that has circuitry that performs this function during operation, even if the integrated circuit in question is not currently being used (e.g., a power supply is not connected to it). Thus, an entity described or recited as “configured to” perform some task refers to something physical, such as a device, circuit, memory storing program instructions executable to implement the task, etc. This phrase is not used herein to refer to something intangible.
The term “configured to” is not intended to mean “configurable to.” An unprogrammed FPGA, for example, would not be considered to be “configured to” perform some specific function, although it may be “configurable to” perform that function after programming.
Reciting in the appended claims that a structure is “configured to” perform one or more tasks is expressly intended not to invoke 35 U.S.C. § 112(f) for that claim element. Accordingly, none of the claims in this application as filed are intended to be interpreted as having means-plus-function elements. Should Applicant wish to invoke Section 112(f) during prosecution, it will recite claim elements using the “means for” [performing a function] construct.
As used herein, the term “based on” is used to describe one or more factors that affect a determination. This term does not foreclose the possibility that additional factors may affect the determination. That is, a determination may be solely based on specified factors or based on the specified factors as well as other, unspecified factors. Consider the phrase “determine A based on B.” This phrase specifies that B is a factor that is used to determine A or that affects the determination of A. This phrase does not foreclose that the determination of A may also be based on some other factor, such as C. This phrase is also intended to cover an embodiment in which A is determined based solely on B. As used herein, the phrase “based on” is synonymous with the phrase “based at least in part on.”
As used herein, the phrase “in response to” describes one or more factors that trigger an effect. This phrase does not foreclose the possibility that additional factors may affect or otherwise trigger the effect. That is, an effect may be solely in response to those factors, or may be in response to the specified factors as well as other, unspecified factors. Consider the phrase “perform A in response to B.” This phrase specifies that B is a factor that triggers the performance of A. This phrase does not foreclose that performing A may also be in response to some other factor, such as C. This phrase is also intended to cover an embodiment in which A is performed solely in response to B.
As used herein, the terms “first,” “second,” etc. are used as labels for nouns that they precede, and do not imply any type of ordering (e.g., spatial, temporal, logical, etc.), unless stated otherwise. For example, in a computer system that runs six applications, the terms “first application” and “second application” can be used to refer to any two of the six applications, and not, for example, just a first two applications to be started.
When used in the claims, the term “or” is used as an inclusive or and not as an exclusive or. For example, the phrase “at least one of x, y, or z” means any one of x, y, and z, as well as any combination thereof (e.g., x and y, but not z).
In the following description, numerous specific details are set forth to provide a thorough understanding of the disclosed embodiments. One having ordinary skill in the art, however, should recognize that aspects of disclosed embodiments might be practiced without these specific details. In some instances, well-known circuits, structures, signals, computer program instruction, and techniques have not been shown in detail to avoid obscuring the disclosed embodiments.
An automatic application script injection system is disclosed herein that automatically identifies a location within application code and injects an application script at that location. The application code including the application script may be sent to a web browser as part of a web response (e.g., in response to a web request from the web browser). For example, an application script such as application performance management (APM) script that causes the web browser to generate metrics indicative of performance of the application code may be sent to the web browser as part of a web response. In some embodiments, the automatic application script injection system may track the location where the application script is injected. Further, the automatic application script injection system may determine whether to automatically identify a different location within the application code and instead inject the application script at the different location. The application code including the application script at the different location may be sent as part of a second web response (e.g., to the web browser or to a different web browser).
As a result of the automatic application script injection system, injection locations within application code may be automatically identified. Further, the automatic application script injection system may automatically determine whether injecting an application script at a particular location causes a failure of at least a portion of the application code. The automatic application script injection system may identify a location at which to inject the application script more quickly, as compared to a system where injection locations are manually identified.
References are made herein to “injecting” a group of program instructions or programming code into a different group of program instructions or different program code. This process of injection results in displacement of at least one program instruction within the group that is the target of the injection. For example, consider the following sequence of program instructions:
Program instruction 1
Program instruction 2
Program instruction 3.
It may be desired to inject “Program instruction 4” and “Program instruction 5” between instructions 2 and 3, such that the result of the injection is as follows:
Program instruction 1
Program instruction 2
Program instruction 4
Program instruction 5
Program instruction 3.
Injection thus refers to a process in which a first set of programming code is inserted within a second set of programming code, displacing at least a portion of instructions of the second set of programming code.
This disclosure initially describes, with reference to
Turning now to
Web browsers 102a-n may send various communications 120a-n to one or more servers of server system 104. In the illustrated embodiment, communications 120b include web request 122 that requests web page application code (e.g., web page application code 106a) for a particular web page corresponding to server system 104. For example, web request 122 may be a Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML) request that requests web page application code for a particular Uniform Resource Locator (URL). One or more servers of server system 104, which may be the same server that received web request 122 or a different server, may send the requested web page application code to web browser 102b as part of web response 124 (e.g., a HTML response). Additionally, in some cases, web response 124 may include application script 112 injected into the requested web page application code. In some cases, as part of executing application script 112, web browser 102b may send metrics 126 to server system 104 (e.g., to metrics server 114) indicating behavior of the web page application code, a computer system running web browser 102b, or both. For example, in some embodiments, metrics 126 may include application performance management (APM) data that indicates timing information regarding the execution of the web page application code by web browser 102b. As another example, web browser 102b may send metrics 126 to a web address specified by application script 112 (e.g., corresponding to metrics server 114). In some cases, application script 112 may cause execution of the web page application code, application script 112 or both to fail at web browser 102b. In such cases, web browser 102b may send metrics 126 to server system 104 indicating the failure or may not send metrics 126 to server system 104. In some embodiments, in response to a failure to execute the web page application code, web browser 102b may send another web request to server system 104 for web page application code for the particular URL.
In some cases, metrics 126 may include at least one of a connection establishment time, a domain processing time, a domain lookup time, a page load time, a page render time, a page stall time, a page unload time, an amount of time until a first byte is received, an amount of time until a last byte is received, or a number of hits per a particular interval. However, these metrics are only provided as an example. In various embodiments, any suitable metric, including navigation timing metrics, performance resource timing metrics, soft page timing metrics, or additional (e.g., custom) metrics may be used.
Server system 104 may communicate with web browsers 102a-n via respective communications 120a-n, including sending web page application code 106a-n to web browsers 102a-n in response to corresponding web requests (e.g., web request 122). Additionally, in the illustrated embodiment, server system 104 may inject application script 112 into one or more of web page application code 106a-n. In particular, as further discussed below with respect to
In the illustrated embodiment, in some cases, server system 104 may receive metrics as part of communications 120a-n. Communications 120a-n including web responses including application script 112 at a particular location may be sent to multiple web browsers (e.g., web browser 102a and web browser 102b) or to only a single web browser. Additionally, in some cases, a web browser may send multiple instances of the metrics to server system 104. Alternatively, server system 104 may not receive metrics subsequent to sending web page application code including application script 112 to one or more web browsers. In some embodiments, based on received metrics, whether metrics were received, or both, metrics server 114 may, using error rate tracker 116, determine an error rate for injecting application script 112 at a particular location within corresponding web page application code. The error rate may be determined based on metrics (received or not received) corresponding to a single web browser or based on metrics corresponding to multiple web browsers. In response to an error threshold (e.g., 5% or 90%) equaling or exceeding the error rate, additional web responses may be sent including application script 112 at the identified location. In response to the error rate for a particular web page application code being below an error threshold, (e.g., 5% or 90%) metrics server 114 may request that injection manager 108 automatically identify a different location within the corresponding web page application code at which to instead inject application script 112. In response to identifying the different location, injection manager 108 may update the associated location byte indicator. In some embodiments, server system 104 may send another web response to the browser(s) including application script 112 at the different location. In other embodiments, to reduce a response time for the requesting browser(s), server system 104, may determine not to inject application script 112 into a web response for the browser(s) and may instead inject application script 112 into future web responses for future web requests. In some embodiments, in response to modifying the location byte indicator a particular number of times (e.g., 5), injection manager 108 may determine not to inject application script 112 into the web page application code. Accordingly, server system 104 may automatically identify locations within web page application code and may automatically inject application script 112 into the web page application code, moving application script 112 based on whether a corresponding error rate exceeds a corresponding error threshold.
Script provider 118 may be a creator or distributor of application script 112. For example, script provider 118 may be an APM software suite distribution company. Server system 104 may receive application script 112 from script provider 118. In some embodiments, script provider 118 may include metrics server 114 and may receive the metrics from web browsers 102a-n.
Turning now to
Application script 112 may be injected into locations relative to various tags. Accordingly, as shown in
Referring now to
At 302, method 300 includes injecting an application script at an automatically identified first location within application code of a particular web page such that the application script displaces a portion of the application code. For example, method 300 may include injection manager 108 injecting application script 112 at the location within web page application code 106 depicted in
At 304, method 300 includes sending, to a web browser, a first web response that includes the application code including the application script. For example, server system 104 may send, to web browser 102b, web response 124 including web page application code 106 and application script 112.
At 306, method 300 includes determining, based on whether metrics corresponding to the application script are received from the web browser in response to the first web response, whether to automatically identify a second location within the application score at which to instead inject the application script for a second web response. For example, based on whether metrics server 114 receives metrics 126 from web browser 102b, server system 104 may determine whether to automatically identify another location within web page application code 106 (e.g., the location depicted in
Turning next to
Fabric 410 may include various interconnects, buses, MUXes, controllers, etc., and may be configured to facilitate communication between various elements of computing system 400. In some embodiments, portions of fabric 410 are configured to implement various different communication protocols. In other embodiments, fabric 410 implements a single communication protocol and elements coupled to fabric 410 may convert from the single communication protocol to other communication protocols internally.
In the illustrated embodiment, compute complex 420 includes bus interface unit (BIU) 425, cache 430, and cores 435 and 440. In some embodiments, cores 435 and 440 may correspond to various devices described herein, such as injection manager 108, metrics server 114, or error rate tracker 116. In various embodiments, compute complex 420 includes various numbers of cores and/or caches. For example, compute complex 420 may include 1, 2, or 4 processor cores, or any other suitable number. In some embodiments, cores 435 and/or 440 include internal instruction and/or data caches. In some embodiments, a coherency unit (not shown) in fabric 410, cache 430, or elsewhere in computing system 400 is configured to maintain coherency between various caches of computing system 400. BIU 425 may be configured to manage communication between compute complex 420 and other elements of computing system 400. Processor cores such as cores 435 and 440 may be configured to execute instructions of a particular instruction set architecture (ISA), which may include operating system instructions and user application instructions.
Cache/memory controller 445 may be configured to manage transfer of data between fabric 410 and one or more caches and/or memories (e.g., non-transitory computer readable mediums). For example, cache/memory controller 445 may be coupled to an L3 cache, which may, in turn, be coupled to a system memory. In other embodiments, cache/memory controller 445 is directly coupled to a memory. In some embodiments, the cache/memory controller 445 includes one or more internal caches. In some embodiments, the cache/memory controller 445 may include or be coupled to one or more caches and/or memories that include instructions that, when executed by one or more processors (e.g., compute complex 420), cause the processor, processors, or cores to initiate or perform some or all of the processes described above with reference to
As used herein, the term “coupled to” may indicate one or more connections between elements, and a coupling may include intervening elements. For example, in
Display unit 465 may be configured to read data from a frame buffer and provide a stream of pixel values for display. Display unit 465 may be configured as a display pipeline in some embodiments. Additionally, display unit 465 may be configured to blend multiple frames to produce an output frame. Further, display unit 465 may include one or more interfaces (e.g., MIPI® or embedded display port (eDP)) for coupling to a user display (e.g., a touchscreen or an external display).
I/O bridge 450 may include various elements configured to implement: universal serial bus (USB) communications, security, audio, and/or low-power always-on functionality, for example. I/O bridge 450 may also include interfaces such as pulse-width modulation (PWM), general-purpose input/output (GPIO), serial peripheral interface (SPI), and/or inter-integrated circuit (I2C), for example. Various types of peripherals and devices may be coupled to computing system 400 via I/O bridge 450.
Although specific embodiments have been described above, these embodiments are not intended to limit the scope of the present disclosure, even where only a single embodiment is described with respect to a particular feature. Examples of features provided in the disclosure are intended to be illustrative rather than restrictive unless stated otherwise. The above description is intended to cover such alternatives, modifications, and equivalents as would be apparent to a person skilled in the art having the benefit of this disclosure.
The scope of the present disclosure includes any feature or combination of features disclosed herein (either explicitly or implicitly), or any generalization thereof, whether or not it mitigates any or all of the problems addressed herein. Accordingly, new claims may be formulated during prosecution of this application (or an application claiming priority thereto) to any such combination of features. In particular, with reference to the appended claims, features from dependent claims may be combined with those of the independent claims and features from respective independent claims may be combined in any appropriate manner and not merely in the specific combinations enumerated in the appended claims.
