Method for managing the versioning (update and rollback) of an Agent instrumenting Java application

摘要

A method is disclosed herein for managing at runtime the versions of an Agent instrumenting the byte code of an application. The code of the Agent can be updated (112) by self-instrumenting its byte code, and subsequently rolled back (118) to one of the previous Agent versions without being disruptive to the application it is instrumenting. Each code version of the Agent is written in a particular acting like a Shim to which are redirected the calls when a roll back occurs. Custom class loaders insure that there is no conflict between the reloaded classes.