Technique for referencing failure information representative of multiple related failures in a distributed computing environment

摘要

In a distributed computing environment having a plurality of processing nodes, a technique is presented for referencing failure information representative of multiple related failures. A first failure report is created upon detection of an initial failure condition in a first program running in the distributed computing environment. The first program failure report is assigned a first identifier which uniquely identifies the report. Upon detecting a second program failure condition at a second node which is related to the first program failure condition, a second program failure report is created by recording information on the second program failure condition. A second identifier is assigned to the second program failure report which uniquely identifies the second program failure report, including a reference to the first identifier for the first program failure report. Thus, the first program failure report can be retrieved using the first identifier after retrieval of the second program failure report using the second identifier. Reports on a chain of related program failure conditions can therefore be created and subsequently referenced.