Using execution trace data to improve distributed systems

Understanding the dynamic behavior of a system is a key determinant to successful system maintenance. This paper contributes two studies at Ericsson Radio Systems of the perfective maintenance of large and distributed systems. Our approach is a holistic method based on tracing and the technical solution to acquisition of trace data is to use CORBA interceptors. Our method has proven useful in solving a wide variety of problems in design as well as implementation and test-all this at a small price. Examples of improvements are performance, new test cases and merging of objects.