Patent ID: 7912938

Claim:
A computer-implemented method for tracing operations of and interactions between components that cooperatively implement a composite web service, comprising: generating an identifier code at initiation of the composite web service; propagating the identifier code in messages transmitted between components of the web service, wherein the components are associated with corresponding correlation databases; logging, by a computer, the identifier code and first message-description data in the correlation database associated with a first of the components when the first component receives a first message associated with the web service from a second one of the components; logging, by the computer, the identifier code and second message-description data in the correlation database associated with the first component when the first component sends a second message associated with the web service; propagating the identifier code from the first component to one or more back-end processes that perform work associated with the first component; logging in a log file the identifier code and associated activity description data by the one or more back-end processes; and updating the corresponding correlation database associated with the first component with information from the log file.