Combined static and dynamic analysis for inferring program dependencies using a pattern language

Abstract

One of the challenges when examining enterprise applications is the ability to understand the dependencies of these applications on external and internal resources such as database access or transaction activation. Inferring dependencies can be achieved using a static approach, a dynamic one or a combination of the two. Static analysis tools detect dependencies based on code investigation while dynamic tools detect dependencies based on runtime execution. The combination of these two approaches is essential for a complete and precise analysis. In this paper we present and illustrate a technique for inferring application dependencies on resources. The technique is based on a combined dynamic and static analysis. A pattern language is defined to enable the specification of dependencies as sequences of method invocations in the application code. Specifically, the sequences are patterns that constitute access to resources, e.g. databases, message queues, and control systems. We propose an algorithm for inferring application dependencies based on hybrid dynamic and static analysis that propagates information provided by dynamic analysis into the static analysis and back to the dynamic analysis. Empirical results from our implemented prototype are presented.