Patent ID: 8140580

Claim:
A method in a distributed system comprising: generating in a server of the distributed system an operational data record corresponding to a transaction in the distributed system, the transaction to be exchanged between communication endpoints via communication messages related to the transaction, the operational data record to be persisted as a record of the transaction; at a source endpoint that initiates the transaction, adding a root identifier (ID) to the operational data record that indicates the source endpoint that initiated the transaction, the root ID being a unique ID within the distributed system, uniquely identifying in the distributed system the transaction from the source endpoint; at each destination endpoint that receives a communication message related to the transaction, adding a connection ID to the operational data record that indicates the communication message to the destination endpoint, the connection ID being a unique ID within the distributed system, uniquely identifying in the distributed system the communication message to the destination endpoint; and storing the operational data record with the root ID and each connection ID as persisted data in the server that services the transaction, the persisted data to identify the transaction through the operational data record, and indicate a hierarchical position of the transaction and each communication message of the transaction within a business scenario transaction tree through the root ID and the connection IDs.