CIS Insurance Services Has Developed Trace Tools Utility

 

Trace Tools Functionality

CIS Trace Tools is a specialty made utility that addresses common scenarios when analyzing traces during performance and stabilization issues:

  • Trace file contents are automatically parsed and updated into a format that can be saved to a new trace file that and opened by the Duck Creek Technologies TraceMonitor utility.  This essentially fixes dcttrace files that are corrupt or were collected using Request API directly to a file.
  • Trace file contents can be saved into separate new trace files with a separate file for each session.  This is very useful when an original trace file contains data from multiple sessions.  The resulting individual session trace files can be opened separately in the Duck Creek Technologies TraceMonitor utility making them much easier to analyze.
  • Trace file contents are analyzed for performance of every request and ManuScript field, and these are exported in detail and summary formats.  The summary format allows for high level analysis while detail format identifies individual request and field entries in the trace file with a unique ID.  This ID can be used to export only the logic of that request or field into a separate trace file.
  • Trace file contents can be split into sections and logic that has executed within that section can be saved as a separate trace file.  Additionally, the number of levels inside the section can be limited so that the section size can be kept small.  The data that was filtered out can be saved into additional separate trace files that are of a manageable size and can be opened in the Duck Creek Technologies TraceMonitor.

Standardized Analysis Approach

The above features allow for a generic approach to analyzing performance and stability issues with Duck Creek Technologies Policy and Billing components by following these steps:

  • Collect a trace file using Diagnostics.connetRq and Diagnostics.disconnectRq Request API
  • Load the trace file into the CIS Trace Tools utility
  • Using the CIS Trace Tools utility save the trace file into a new trace file while skipping invalid entries. *However, the resulting file is often too large for Duck Creek Technologies‘ TraceMonitor to open.
  • Using the CIS Trace Tools utility, save performance files.  Analyze the summary information to identify requests or fields that require additional analysis.  Find examples of these requests or fields in the detail information file, and note their Entry IDs.
  • Using the CIS Trace Tools utility, update the Entry ID field and save the section of the trace file that starts with the request or field of interest.
  • If the resulting file is too large to open in the Duck Creek Technologies TraceMonitor utility, specify 2000 child levels to save and re-save the section of the trace file.  If requests or fields 2000 levels deep have additional child requests or fields of their own, the saved trace file will contain a message with an Entry ID of these requests or fields.  This allows recursive export of  sections of limited size with Entry IDs for any logic that was more than 2000 levels deep. *2000 levels is used as an example; if a saved section trace file is too large to open on your machine, you can reduce this number, and if you find that you are constantly saving additional sections you can use a larger number of levels.

Screenshots

Below are screenshots of the CIS Trace Tools at work:

About Us

CIS Insurance Services enables performance testing and stabilization of Duck Creek Technologies implementations by creating efficient tools, leveraging leading industry know-how, and establishing partnerships..

For more information about this utility or to request help with performance or stabilization issues with your Duck Creek Technologies implementation, contact us.