Student Research Abstract: Microservices-based Systems Visualization

TL;DR

This paper introduces an augmented reality visualization approach for microservices systems, integrating static architecture and dynamic traces into a unified view to improve understanding and debugging.

Contribution

It proposes a novel AR-based visualization concept that combines static topology and dynamic traces, addressing visualization and debugging challenges in microservices systems.

Findings

AR visualization effectively merges static and dynamic system views

The proof of concept demonstrates feasibility and potential benefits

Research study confirms improved debugging and system understanding

Abstract

The evolution of decentralized microservice-based systems is challenging. These challenges are classified into static and dynamic categories. Regarding the static perspective, documenting and visualizing the fluid application topology is something few have been able to accomplish. Building an architecture map of services design is a complicated task in its interpretation rather than construction. Therefore, the system-centric and up-to-date view became essential for such distributed systems. The dynamic perspective considers the process of investigation and service path detection. Therefore performing root cause analysis is a burdening task; such that tracing data is needed to be put in the right context to facilitate the investigation. Moreover, visualizing these traces over the traditional visualization techniques couldn't be feasible with the large number of microservices involved in the system. This paper proposes a visualization concept for microservices-based systems using the Augmented Reality (AR) technique, which merges these static and dynamic behaviors into a single centric view. In addition, we challenge the difficulty related to tracing and debugging an issue in such distributed systems. This concept is designed to work as a dynamic documentation and traceability platform for these systems. A proof of concept and a research study are implemented to show the viability and success of this proposal.