Workflow Extraction for Service Operation Using Multiple Unstructured Trouble Tickets

Abstract

In current large-scale IT systems, troubleshooting has become more complicated due to the diversification in the causes of failures, which has increased operational costs. Thus, clarifying the troubleshooting process also becomes important, though it is also time-consuming. We propose a method of automatically extracting a workflow, a graph indicating a troubleshooting process, using multiple trouble tickets. Our method extracts an operator's actions from free-format texts and aligns relative sentences between multiple trouble tickets. Our method uses a stochastic model to detect a resolution, a frequent action pattern that helps us understand how to solve a problem. We validated our method using real trouble-ticket data captured from a real network operation and showed that it can extract a workflow to identify the cause of a failure.