This position paper introduces the problems involved with performance analysis and failure diagnosis of modern distributed software applications. It focuses on applications that build on top of the J2EE and .Net platforms. This paper investigates further how execution-path analysis applied to black-box  pplications relates to other performance and failure analysis techniques, including infrastructure monitoring, profiling, event correlation, and real-user monitoring. Finally, this paper identifies research areas that evaluate the possibilities of execution path analysis in conjunction with further monitoring techniques.

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