Enabling Practical Cloud Performance Debugging with Unsupervised Learning

Abstract-Cloud applications are increasingly shifting from large monolithic services to complex graphs of loosely-coupled microservices. Despite their benefits, microservices are prone to cascading performance issues, and can lead to prolonged periods of degraded performance. We present Sage, a machine learning-driven root cause analysis system for interactive cloud microservices that is both accurate and practical. We show that Sage correctly identifies the root causes of performance issues across a diverse set of microservices and takes action to address them, leading to more predictable, performant, and efficient cloud systems.