New Methodology for Automated Model Generation

 

It is a challenging task to automatically generate environmental models using information gathered at run-time, without disturbing the normal operation of networks and systems. A straightforward method to determine the dependencies is to choose data directly expressing this kind of information. Examples are entries of utilization in server log files. In the example of figure the web server's log file would contain entries showing that both clients had connections. In other words, there is a dependency to each of them.

However, a major drawback of this approach is, that log files typically have a proprietary format or sometimes change from version to version of the application. Even worse, not all applications provide log files or similar mechanisms containing this information, or its access may be restricted for several other reasons, like security policies or limited amount of local disk space. Similar problems of analysis of configuration files at client side as well as the current lack of a standardized and commonly accepted service description format (as discussed in section show the necessity of a new approach.