{ "schema_version": "0.6.0", "paper_id": "context-aware-root-cause-localization-in-distributed-traces-using-social-network-analysis-work-i", "page_url": "https://naser.github.io/research-publications/papers/context-aware-root-cause-localization-in-distributed-traces-using-social-network-analysis-work-i/", "title": "Context-aware Root Cause Localization in Distributed Traces Using Social Network Analysis (Work In Progress paper)", "title_variants": [], "authors": [ "Mahsa Panahandeh", "Naser Ezzati-Jivan", "Abdelwahab Hamou-Lhadj", "James Miller" ], "author_details": [ { "name": "Mahsa Panahandeh", "orcid": "https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6369-8982", "profile_url": "https://dblp.org/pid/201/1655.html" }, { "name": "Naser Ezzati-Jivan", "orcid": "https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1435-6297", "profile_url": "https://naser.github.io/" }, { "name": "Abdelwahab Hamou-Lhadj", "orcid": "https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3319-5006", "profile_url": "https://dblp.org/pid/70/2136.html" }, { "name": "James Miller", "orcid": "https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5095-3000", "profile_url": "https://dblp.org/pid/44/7043-1.html" } ], "publication": { "year": 2024, "venue": "ACM/SPEC ICPE Companion", "type": "work-in-progress conference paper", "publication_date": "2024-05-07", "online_date": "2024-05-07", "print_date": "2024-05-07", "volume": null, "issue": null, "pages": "1-6", "article_number": null, "publisher": "ACM", "issn": [], "isbn": [], "crossref_type": "proceedings-article" }, "publication_type": "work-in-progress conference paper", "status": "published_with_public_full_text", "canonical_source_url": "https://doi.org/10.1145/3629527.3651426", "source_record_id": "context-aware-root-cause-localization-in-distributed-traces-using-social-network-analysis-work-i-85ca2999c1", "identifiers": { "doi": "10.1145/3629527.3651426" }, "abstract": null, "abstract_source": "ICPE Companion WIP PDF reviewed; abstract paraphrased for this catalog.", "abstract_available": false, "scholar_eligibility": { "eligible": false, "basis": "not-eligible", "note": "The page is a discovery record; it does not claim Google Scholar article-host eligibility." }, "description": "The work-in-progress paper combines service-call graph context, social-network analysis, and spectrum-based fault localization to rank distributed-trace root causes.", "evidence_level": "full-text-reviewed", "evidence": { "source_basis": "full-text-reviewed", "coverage": "material paper sections", "summary_origin": "AI-assisted catalog editorial summary", "review_status": "catalog-reviewed; paper-author approval pending", "verified_on": "2026-08-09", "sources": [ { "note": "ICPE Companion WIP PDF: weighted service-call graphs, Louvain, PageRank, Jaccard diversity, Ochiai, and heuristic search" }, { "note": "ICPE Companion WIP PDF: AIOps Challenge 2020 Dataset C, 46 labelled windows, fault categories, top-1/top-3 results, and tied-candidate reduction" }, { "note": "ICPE Companion WIP PDF: preliminary-evaluation limitation and future-work scope" }, { "note": "Local PDF hash verified in pdf-evidence/extraction-manifest.json" } ] }, "summary": { "core_contribution": "The work-in-progress paper combines service-call graph context, social-network analysis, and spectrum-based fault localization to rank distributed-trace root causes.", "problem": "Distributed-service failures propagate through dependencies, so ranking services only by frequency in abnormal traces can miss a remote or infrequently observed root cause. The paper targets context-sensitive localization across services, service communities, and request traces.", "method": "Within a five-minute anomaly window, the method builds weighted service-call graphs from normal and abnormal distributed traces. It applies Louvain community detection, iterative PageRank within communities, request-type clustering, Jaccard-based trace-diversity comparison, heuristic cluster selection, and a weighted Ochiai spectrum score.", "findings": "On Dataset C from the 2020 AIOps Challenge, the evaluation uses 46 labeled windows: 15 CPU-stress, 15 network-delay, and 16 network-loss cases. The full context-aware method identifies the true cause at top-1 in about 91.3%/91.36% of cases and within top-3 in 100% of cases. In a component ablation, the true cause moves from sixth with original spectrum analysis, to fourth with service PageRank, second with community PageRank, and first with the full method.", "limitations": "This is a Work In Progress paper with a small, injected-failure evaluation and no demonstrated natural-incident, cross-deployment, scalability, or confidence-interval analysis. Tracer implementation/version, anomaly-detector configuration, OS, kernel, runtime, hardware, and replication protocol are unknown.", "future_work": "Add profiling metrics and execution-state information, study multiple root causes, adapt network-analysis methods to distributed traces, evaluate varied system sizes/designs, and compare more extensively with established methods." }, "tags": [ "root-cause-analysis", "microservices", "social-network-analysis", "anomaly-detection", "performance-analysis" ], "keywords": [ "context-aware RCA", "service-call graph", "distributed traces", "service communities", "Louvain", "PageRank", "Jaccard distance", "Ochiai", "CPU stress", "network delay", "network loss", "AIOps Challenge 2020" ], "versions": [ { "id": "published-version", "label": "Published version", "relation": "version-of-record", "title": "Context-aware Root Cause Localization in Distributed Traces Using Social Network Analysis (Work In Progress paper)", "url": "https://doi.org/10.1145/3629527.3651426", "pdf_url": null, "status": "published", "canonical_for_citation": true }, { "id": "public-full-text", "label": "Public full text", "relation": "source-record", "title": "Context-aware Root Cause Localization in Distributed Traces Using Social Network Analysis (Work In Progress paper)", "url": "https://research.spec.org/icpe_proceedings/2024/companion/p1.pdf", "pdf_url": "https://research.spec.org/icpe_proceedings/2024/companion/p1.pdf", "status": "public_full_text", "canonical_for_citation": false } ], "access": { "status": "published_with_public_full_text", "note": "The DOI is the canonical citation target; the public full-text or author-manuscript link is external and the PDF is not redistributed here.", "license": null }, "resources": { "code": null, "data": "https://github.com/NetManAIOps/AIOps-Challenge-2020-Data", "slides": null, "demo": null }, "citation_guidance": { "when_to_cite": "Cite this paper when your work uses or compares context-aware spectrum-based RCA that weights services by both community-level and individual PageRank.", "points": [ "context-aware spectrum-based RCA that weights services by both community-level and individual PageRank.", "using request-type trace diversity independently of trace length in distributed-service root-cause ranking.", "the Dataset C preliminary comparison of original spectrum, service PageRank, community PageRank, and the full context-aware method." ], "canonical_version_id": "published-version" }, "provenance": { "metadata_verified_on": "2026-08-09", "metadata_source": [ "ICPE Companion WIP PDF: weighted service-call graphs, Louvain, PageRank, Jaccard diversity, Ochiai, and heuristic search", "ICPE Companion WIP PDF: AIOps Challenge 2020 Dataset C, 46 labelled windows, fault categories, top-1/top-3 results, and tied-candidate reduction", "ICPE Companion WIP PDF: preliminary-evaluation limitation and future-work scope", "Local PDF hash verified in pdf-evidence/extraction-manifest.json" ], "summary_written_by": "AI-assisted", "summary_verified_by": "full-text-grounded catalog review; author approval pending", "linked_preprint_record": null, "author_order_note": null }, "batch": { "phase": 2, "batch_label": "expanded forty-paper release", "status": "included_in_expanded_catalog", "selected_at": "2026-08-09" } }