Advancing Logging Practices in Software Engineering

推进软件工程中的日志记录实践

• 批准号: RGPIN-2017-06970
• 负责人: HamouLhadj, Abdelwahab
• 金额: $ 1.68万
• 依托单位: Concordia University
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Discovery Grants Program - Individual
• 财政年份: 2019
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2019-01-01 至 2020-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=679144
• 关键词: Advancing; Logging; Practices; Software; Engineering

Despite the advances in software development, the increasing complexity of software systems makes it difficult to produce fault free software. The residual faults often manifest themselves during system execution causing severe software failures, security breaches, and performance degradation. To diagnose the root causes of failures, software developers and system administrators frequently resort to the analysis of logs, generated during system executions. Major companies like Ericsson, Google, and Microsoft collect logs to analyze, fix, and prevent failures. Logs are also used by security providers like AlienVault and ArcSight to detect security threats and malicious behaviors.******Although logging has long been recognized as an important aspect of software development, it remains predominantly an ad hoc practice. There are no standards, guidelines, or recognized best practices for logging. In addition, software developers continue to insert logs into a system without automated guidance. The lack of systematic and automated approaches for logging has a tremendous impact on the quality of logs, often hindering viable analysis. Log analysis is further complicated by the sheer volume and variability of log data. As a direct consequence, many failure diagnosis tasks are very challenging and expensive to implement, putting at risk the reliability and security of critical systems on which society depends in areas like health, telecom, public safety, and defence.******The ultimate goal of this research program is to advance the practice of logging in software engineering. Much of the existing research effort in the field is devoted to the analysis of logs after they are generated. Considerably less attention is devoted to the study of the practice of logging. Over the next five years, we will focus on four priority research directions. First, we will identify systematic approaches and best practices for logging by studying the current practices in the field. Second, we will develop a context-aware recommendation system to automatically provide logging suggestions to developers. In the third project, we will facilitate the analysis of logs by reducing their complexity. Finally, we will produce techniques to support better logging decisions based on system design and architecture.******The outcomes of this research program are expected to have a real impact on the software industry. Improving logging practices of software developers will result in superior failure diagnosis techniques while reducing the associated costs. Another important impact of this research is its potential for commercialization driven by the strong need from industry to have better logging tools in areas like IoT, cloud computing, and security. Furthermore, the proposed program will train several HQPs who will contribute to the growth of Canada's ICT sectoran important enabler to Canada's competitiveness in the world economy.******

尽管软件开发取得了进步，但软件系统的复杂性日益增加，使得生产无故障软件变得困难。残留故障通常在系统执行过程中显露出来，导致严重的软件故障、安全漏洞和性能下降。为了诊断故障的根本原因，软件开发人员和系统管理员经常求助于分析在系统执行期间生成的日志。像爱立信、谷歌和微软这样的大公司收集日志来分析、修复和防止故障。日志也被AlienVault和ArcSight等安全提供商用来检测安全威胁和恶意行为。*虽然日志记录长期以来一直被认为是软件开发的一个重要方面，但它仍然主要是一种临时做法。对于日志记录，没有标准、指南或公认的最佳实践。此外，软件开发人员继续在没有自动指导的情况下将日志插入系统。缺乏系统和自动化的日志记录方法对日志质量有很大影响，常常妨碍可行的分析。由于测井数据的巨大数量和可变性，测井分析进一步复杂化。直接的结果是，许多故障诊断任务的实施非常具有挑战性和昂贵，危及社会在健康、电信、公共安全和国防等领域所依赖的关键系统的可靠性和安全性。*本研究计划的最终目标是推动软件工程的登录实践。该领域现有的大部分研究工作都致力于在日志生成后对其进行分析。对伐木实践的研究则少得多。未来五年，我们将重点抓好四个重点研究方向。首先，我们将通过研究该领域目前的做法，确定系统的方法和最佳的伐木做法。其次，我们将开发一个情景感知推荐系统，自动向开发者提供日志建议。在第三个项目中，我们将通过降低日志的复杂性来简化日志分析。最后，我们将开发基于系统设计和架构的技术来支持更好的日志记录决策。*该研究计划的结果预计将对软件行业产生真正的影响。改进软件开发人员的日志记录实践将带来卓越的故障诊断技术，同时降低相关成本。这项研究的另一个重要影响是其商业化潜力，这是由于行业对物联网、云计算和安全等领域拥有更好的日志记录工具的强烈需求推动的。此外，拟议的方案将培训几名HQP，他们将为加拿大信息和通信技术部门的增长做出贡献，这是加拿大在世界经济中竞争力的重要推动者。