Standardization of Event Traces Considered Harmful
or
Is an Implementation of Object-Independent Event Trace Monitoring and Analysis Systems Possible?

Bernd Mohr
Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg,
IMMD 7, Martensstr. 3, D-8520 Erlangen, Germany
email: mohr@immd7.informatik.uni-erlangen.de

Abstract:

This article discusses approaches to implementing object-independent event trace monitoring and analysis systems. The term object-independent means that the system can be used for the analysis of arbitrary (non-sequential) computer systems, operating systems, programming languages and applications. Three main topics are addressed: object-independent monitoring, standardization of event trace formats and access interfaces and the application-independent but problem-oriented implementation of analysis and visualization tools. Based on these approaches, the distributed hardware monitor system ZM4 and the SIMPLE event trace analysis environment were implemented, and have been used in many 'real-world' applications throughout the last three years. An overview of the projects in which the ZM4/SIMPLE tools were used is given in the last section.

• Introduction
• A Hierarchical Layered Model for Event Trace Monitoring and Analysis Systems
• Layer 1: Monitoring Systems
  • Hybrid Monitoring
  • The Monitor System ZM4
• Layer 2: Event Trace Access
  • Possibilities of Standardization
  • The object-independent Trace Access Interface TDL/POET
    • A General Logical Structure for Event Traces
    • TDL/POET - a Basic Tool for Accessing Event Traces
  • Related Work
• Layer 4+5: Analysis Tools
  • The General Approach of SIMPLE
  • An Example: Trace Performance Statistics
• Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
• References
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