mlsanityData to 14 Oct 2026

A Comprehensive Survey on Root Cause Analysis in (Micro) Services: Methodologies, Challenges, and Trends

arXiv 2408.00803 ↗First posted 23 Jul 2024cs.SE cs.AI cs.CEcited by 10

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Abstract (arXiv)

The complex dependencies and propagative faults inherent in microservices, characterized by a dense network of interconnected services, pose significant challenges in identifying the underlying causes of issues. Prompt identification and resolution of disruptive problems are crucial to ensure rapid recovery and maintain system stability. Numerous methodologies have emerged to address this challenge, primarily focusing on diagnosing failures through symptomatic data. This survey aims to provide a comprehensive, structured review of root cause analysis (RCA) techniques within microservices, exploring methodologies that include metrics, traces, logs, and multi-model data. It delves deeper into the methodologies, challenges, and future trends within microservices architectures. Positioned at the forefront of AI and automation advancements, it offers guidance for future research directions.

Key facts. Cited by 10 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026). Builds on 21 of its 125 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 23 Jul 2024.

Builds on

21 of 125 references.

References · 21

  1. 2022ReAct: Synergizing Reasoning and Acting in Language Modelscited by 8,695
  2. 2023Automatic Root Cause Analysis via Large Language Models for Cloud Incidentscited by 84
  3. 2022Causal Inference-Based Root Cause Analysis for Online Service Systems with Intervention Recognitioncited by 56
  4. 2021Anomaly Detection and Failure Root Cause Analysis in (Micro)Service-Based Cloud Applications: A Surveycited by 48
  5. 2021MicroHECL: High-Efficient Root Cause Localization in Large-Scale Microservice Systemscited by 36
  6. 2021CloudRCA: A Root Cause Analysis Framework for Cloud Computing Platformscited by 24
  7. 2023Robust Failure Diagnosis of Microservice System through Multimodal Datacited by 24
  8. 2022Actionable and Interpretable Fault Localization for Recurring Failures in Online Service Systemscited by 19
  9. 2023Hierarchical Graph Neural Networks for Causal Discovery and Root Cause Localizationcited by 18
  10. 2019DeCaf: Diagnosing and Triaging Performance Issues in Large-Scale Cloud Servicescited by 16
  11. 2017Survey on Models and Techniques for Root-Cause Analysiscited by 15
  12. 2021Groot: An Event-graph-based Approach for Root Cause Analysis in Industrial Settingscited by 15
9 more
  1. 2022AutoTSG: Learning and Synthesis for Incident Troubleshootingcited by 12
  2. 2022Applications of statistical causal inference in software engineeringcited by 12
  3. 2023CausIL: Causal Graph for Instance Level Microservice Datacited by 9
  4. 2018Localizing Faults in Cloud Systemscited by 8
  5. 2022Mining Root Cause Knowledge from Cloud Service Incident Investigations for AIOpscited by 7
  6. 2021SoftNER: Mining Knowledge Graphs From Cloud Incidentscited by 5
  7. 2019Fast Dimensional Analysis for Root Cause Investigation in a Large-Scale Service Environmentcited by 4
  8. 2020Spectrum-Based Log Diagnosiscited by 3
  9. 2023BALANCE: Bayesian Linear Attribution for Root Cause Localizationcited by 3

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Cited by year (2026 to 14 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2025: 2; 2026: 8.

10 papers.

  1. 2025SDVDiag: A Modular Platform for the Diagnosis of Connected Vehicle Functionscited by 3
  2. 2026AOI: Turning Failed Trajectories into Training Signals for Autonomous Cloud Diagnosiscited by 1
  3. 2026SDVDiag: Using Context-Aware Causality Mining for the Diagnosis of Connected Vehicle Functionscited by 1
  4. 2026TopoEvo: A Topology-Aware Self-Evolving Multi-Agent Framework for Root Cause Analysis in Microservicescited by 1
  5. 2026PropLLM: Propagation-Aware Scene Reconstruction for Network Fault Diagnosiscited by 1
  6. 2025Probabilities of Causation and Root Cause Analysis with Quasi-Markovian Modelscited by 0
  7. 2026Agentic Diagnostic Reasoning over Telecom and Datacenter Infrastructurecited by 0
  8. 2026LATS-RCA: Language Agent Tree Search for Root Cause Analysis in Microservicescited by 0
  9. 2026SDVDiag: Multimodal Causal Discovery for Online Diagnosis in Software-defined Vehiclescited by 0
  10. 2026A Topology-Aware, Memory-Centric Architecture that Separates Root-Cause Derivation from Root-Cause Explanationcited by 0