Module-Based Approach for Detecting Performance Bugs in Java Applications at Scale

Yingying Wen, Guanjie Cheng

Abstract: Hundreds of thousands of Java applications have been deployed in data centers at our production Cloud to support burst peak traffic. However, detecting performance bugs in Java can be difficult as they may not prevent the applications from running correctly, and may not even manifest at low loads. Profiling data collected from production provides insight into the actual running states of applications. In this paper, we aim to identify hot spots for further performance debugging by analyzing profiling data from tens of thousands of machines in the data center using a module-based approach. We present our practical experience with module classification, which allows for filtering of out-of-range modules and long-duration modules of high utilization. Our study proposes a heuristic solution to detect performance bugs in Java at scale.