Introducing PulseAT: A Tool for Analyzing System Utilization in Distributed Systems

Abstract

For the development and maintenance of distributed systems, it is useful to analyze the system condition and utilization for each hardware component. With pulseAT, a tool has been developed which collects that system utilization systematically with lightweight pulseAT Agents. The hierarchical structure of pulseAT allows having all system utilization data at one place on a pulseAT Manager to show an overall current health condition of the system. A cloud-based pulseAT Analyzer stores the data into a time-based database to support long-term analyses and to process analyzing algorithms, e.g., to forecast future health conditions. This paper describes the structure of pulseAT, main concepts, e.g., how the response time for each component is calculated. Some technical details of the implementation are shown. Finally, it describes how pulseAT has been tested on a mobile robot, the DAEbot.