bytecode based software platforms like sun microsystems &# 39 ; s java or microsoft &# 39 ; s . net framework provide interfaces to intercept bytecode loading events and to alter the bytecode of the loaded class before it is loaded into memory . additionally those frameworks enable restricted altering of bytecode that is already loaded into the runtime environment . open and documented bytecode formats enable analysis of class byte code and selective altering of methods . meta - data contained in the loaded bytecode enables retrieval of the class name , package or namespace membership , name and signature of implemented methods , direct base class , direct implemented interfaces , etc . the isolated meta - data of a class only reveals direct relationships to other classes , which is not sufficient to provide rule - based adaptive method filtering . the present invention discloses a method to incrementally aggregate isolated class meta - data into a repository that mirrors also indirect relationships between classes and interfaces . this inheritance repository is in turn used to evaluate method filtering rules to detect methods for instrumentation . fig1 shows an exemplary method and system for configuring an instrumentation engine 101 , using instrumentation meta - information in the form of instrumentation rules 102 , instrumentation operations 104 and , run - time generated application meta - information stored in an inheritance repository 103 . instrumentation rules may either be concrete 812 or generic 814 . parameters of concrete rules include but are not limited to a class name and a method name . both method and class names may either be concrete names that match to a specific method of a specific class , or name patterns that match a set of methods and / or a set of classes . generic rules additionally include a direction indicator 820 that specifies how inheritance relationships should be used for rule evaluation . both concrete and generic rules are described in detail in fig8 . the inheritance repository 103 includes run - time created information 112 about class inheritance and interface implementation . the repository is also adapted to changes of inheritance relations during run - time . the process of creation and adaptation of the inheritance repository during run - time is depicted in fig5 . the inheritance repository 103 is used to parameterize generic rules which are evaluated during application run - time . the instrumentation operations 104 define the functionality that is injected into instrumented methods . the instrumentation operations 104 preferably comprise bytecode targeted to the application platform . a separate mapping is maintained that associates instrumentation rules with instrumentation operations to enable rule specific instrumentation . the instrumentation engine 101 creates and adapts the inheritance repository 103 during runtime , which is used to parameterize instrumentation rules 102 . parameterized instrumentation rules 102 identify the methods where instrumentations should be placed . the instrumentation operations 104 what instrumentation code is placed . fig2 displays a system 200 including an exemplary embodiment of the present invention consisting in a native loader 204 , an agent 205 , and an instrumentation server 201 with an instrumentation engine and an inheritance repository . the system also includes an application 207 which is monitored by the embodiment and the runtime environment 206 of the application 207 . agent 205 and native loader 204 are deployed to the application 207 . application 207 and instrumentation server 201 may be separated to different hosts and use a network connection for communication and to exchange bytecode , or they may run on the same host , using inter - process communication to exchange messages and bytecode . another embodiment may run the instrumentation server 201 within the process of the application 207 . an agent 205 is injected into the process of the application during the application start and establishes a communication link to the instrumentation server 201 . the instrumentation server 201 can handle multiple connected agents simultaneously . instrumenting a software application 207 at load time comprises the following steps : intercepting the native class loader 204 using an agent 205 ; capturing the original bytecode 202 and transferring said original bytecode 202 to an instrumentation engine 101 ; updating the inheritance repository 103 shown in fig1 with meta - data extracted from original bytecode 202 ; evaluating instrumentation rules 102 by using the inheritance repository 103 to filter methods , and instrumenting bytecode of filtered methods ; returning the instrumented bytecode 203 to the agent 205 , which in turn forwards the instrumented bytecode 203 to the application run - time module 206 instead of the original bytecode 202 . alternatively , a software application can be instrumented at run - time which allows altering the set of deployed instrumentations during run - time , without the need for an application restart . instrumenting a software application 207 at run - time comprises the following steps : original bytecode 202 is fetched either by the agent 205 from the application run - time module 206 , or retrieved from a bytecode cache of the instrumentation server 201 ; in case of bytecode fetched from the application run - time , the inheritance repository 103 is updated with meta - data extracted from original bytecode 202 ; evaluating instrumentation rules 102 and instrument original bytecode 202 ; returning instrumented bytecode 203 to the agent 205 , which replaces the original bytecode 202 of the application run - time module 206 by the instrumented bytecode 203 . referring to fig3 , in step 306 a new inheritance repository 103 is created , initialized and assigned to an agent 205 that registers at instrumentation server 101 for the first time . in step 304 , a determination is made to find if an existing inheritance repository is available . for subsequent registrations , the inheritance repository 103 assigned to the agent is loaded step 308 . after the inheritance repository 103 for the agent 205 is loaded , the agent establishes a connection to the instrumentation engine 101 in step 310 . fig4 depicts the preferred embodiment of an inheritance repository node ( irn ) 401 , which is used to represent classes or interfaces within the inheritance repository . it includes meta - information representing a class or interface received from the agent 205 , and references to other irns 401 which map inheritance or interface implementation relationships . an irn 401 includes the class name 402 of the represented class or interface , a flag indicating if the irn describes an interface or a class 403 , and a list of declared methods 404 containing method related meta - information like method name and signature . the field super class 405 references to the irn 401 representing the direct super class or super interface of the described class or interface and the field implemented interfaces 406 is a list of references to irns representing interfaces directly implemented by the class described by the irn . classes that directly extend the described class are identified by the field inheriting classes 407 , which is a list of references to irns representing the classes directly extending the described class . irns and references between irns build a graph that enables queries for direct and indirect inheritance and interface implementation relations between classes . fig5 illustrates the process of building and updating the inheritance repository 103 according to meta - information extracted from original bytecode 202 received from the agent 205 . in a first step 502 , meta - information like class or interface name , direct super class name and names of directly implemented interfaces are extracted from the received original bytecode 202 . the extracted class or interface name is used to query the inheritance repository 103 for an existing irn 401 that represents the received class . in step 504 , it is determined if the inheritance repository already contains an irn representing the received original bytecode . if a matching irn is found , the meta - information of the irn 401 is updated with the meta - information extracted from received original bytecode 202 in step 506 . otherwise , a new irn 401 is initialized with meta - information from original bytecode 202 and added to the inheritance repository 103 in step 508 . the inheritance repository is queried in step 510 for irns representing the direct super class and the directly implemented interfaces extracted from original bytecode 202 , and new irns are created in step 512 for classes and interfaces that are not represented within the inheritance repository 103 . those irns are partially initialized in step 512 by setting the class name 402 and the interface flag 403 with the meta - information extracted from original bytecode 202 . the remaining part of the irns created in step 512 is initialized when bytecode of the represented classes is loaded and processed by the instrumentation engine 101 . further , the irn 401 representing the super class of the received class or interface is updated in step 514 by adding a reference to the irn representing the received original bytecode 202 to the list of inheriting classes 407 . in a subsequent part of step 514 , the fields super class 405 , and implemented interfaces 406 of the irn 401 representing the received original bytecode 202 are initialized with references to the irns representing the direct super class and the directly implemented interfaces of the class represented by the received original bytecode 202 . the process depicted in fig5 incrementally builds a graph that maps global inheritance and interface implementation relationships of all classes and interfaces received from the agent 205 . fig6 exemplary illustrates the process of updating an inheritance repository 103 . fig6 a ) shows the state of the inheritance repository before inserting meta - data extracted from received original bytecode of class a . fig6 b ) shows the state of the inheritance repository after the irn representing class a was added to the repository . prior to inserting meta - information of class a , the inheritance repository contains separated irn 401 graphs , describing parts of the inheritance structure . one sub graph 620 maps inheritance relationship from class f 607 to class e 605 and class d 606 , and the interface implementation relationship from class d 606 to interface i 608 . another graph 622 maps the inheritance relationship between the interfaces k 610 and j 609 . a third graph 624 contains irns for the classes b 603 and c 604 and a preliminary irn of class a 601 . the preliminary irn of class a 601 contains meta - information concerning class a that was extracted from original bytecode 202 of classes b 603 and c 604 , indicating a common super class a 601 . on receiving original bytecode 202 representing class a , the preliminary irn of class a 601 is updated with extracted meta - information to the final irn of class a 602 . meta - information extracted from original bytecode 202 representing class a 602 reveals an inheritance relationship between class d 606 and class a 602 and an interface implementation relationship between class a 602 and interface j 609 . the inheritance repository 103 is updated to map these additional identified relationships , which fills the gap within the inheritance repository 103 and connects the separated graphs . the graph depicted in fig6 b ) shows direct and indirect inheritance relationships and interface implementation relation ships of class a 602 . for instance , class a 602 directly inherits from class d 606 because both classes are directly connected in the inheritance graph , and it indirectly inherits from class f 607 because class a 602 and class f 607 are indirectly connected via class d 606 . additionally direct and indirect interface relationships of class a 602 are shown . as an example class a 602 directly implements interface j 609 , because the class is directly connected to the interface . said class a 602 indirectly implements interface k 610 because interface k 610 and class a 602 are indirectly connected via interface j 609 . fig7 describes storage of inheritance repositories 103 by a preferred embodiment using a separate instrumentation server 201 handling multiple agent connections . as depicted in fig7 a ), the inheritance repository 103 associated with a specific agent 205 is stored in step 702 if the agent is disconnected in step 704 . as depicted in fig7 b ), inheritance repositories 103 of all connected agents are stored in step 706 on shutdown in step 708 of the instrumentation server 201 . the stored inheritance repositories are used on subsequent agent connections ( cf . fig3 ). the preferred embodiment evaluates instrumentation rules 102 against the name of the class or interface and the method names extracted from received original bytecode 202 , to filter methods for instrumentation . instrumentation rules are grouped into concrete and generic rules . referring now to fig8 , concrete instrumentation rules 812 provide filter criteria 810 for class name and a method name which are matched against class name and method names extracted from original bytecode 202 . both class and method filter criteria 810 may be search patterns that match to multiple extracted class or method names . additional filter criteria 810 , like method arguments and method modifiers may also be used for filtering . generic rules 814 additionally take inheritance relationships into account . the class name filter criterion is used to query the inheritance repository 103 for classes or interfaces with specific inheritance relationships . generic instrumentation rules 814 enable instrumentation of method declarations without executable code , like methods declared in interfaces or abstract methods . the classes implementing those methods are determined and instrumented at run - time . the preferred embodiment provides two different types of generic rules 814 , called downward rules 816 and upward rules 818 . generic rules 814 contain a direction indicator 820 which specifies the usage of inheritance information of a specific generic rule . downward rules 816 are scanning for classes that directly or indirectly inherit from classes , or directly or indirectly implement interfaces matching the class filter criterion . upward rules are scanning for classes and interfaces that are direct or indirect super classes of the classes matching the class filter criterion . downward rules 816 enable instrumentation in an application independent way . for instance , downward rules can be used to instrument any jdbc driver , regardless of the internal implementation of the driver . upward rules 818 are used to instrument methods inherited but not overwritten by classes matching the class selection criteria . the information of the inheritance repository 103 enables various other types of generic instrumentation rules , like rules filtering only methods that implement interfaces , or rules filtering methods called by a specific method . fig8 exemplary shows the evaluation of concrete , upward , and downward rules . column 801 shows the filtering of method m 1 of class z using a concrete instrumentation rule with a class filter criterion “ z ” and method filter criterion “ m1 ” or “*”, a wildcard matching any method name and thus selecting any method of class z . generic downward filtering rules are demonstrated in column 802 . class z implements interface a , which declares m 1 . in turn , class z implements method m 1 to fulfill the contract of interface a . a downward rule 816 specified for interface a , selecting declared method m 1 or all declared methods implicitly filters m 1 of z by evaluating the interface implementation relationship between z and a . additionally , class z extends class b and overwrites the method m 2 declared by class b . a downward rule specified for class b , selecting method m 2 , or a downward rule selecting all methods of class b implicitly filters method m 2 of class z by evaluating the inheritance relationship between class z and b . column 803 illustrates the evaluation of a generic upward rule . class x extends class z , and is not overwriting method m 1 . an upward rule 818 defined for the method m 1 or all methods of class x selects method m 1 of class z by searching the nearest super class of x implementing the method m 1 . referring to fig9 , instrumenting received original bytecode 202 during load - time or run - time is performed by evaluating instrumentation rules to filter methods for instrumentation . fig9 a ) depicts the evaluation of concrete instrumentation rules . meta - information previously extracted from original byte code 205 , like class name and method names is used by the instrumentation engine 101 to evaluate instrumentation rules 103 . to determine if a method is selected by one or more concrete instrumentation rules the instrumentation engine 101 first selects in step 902 all concrete instrumentation rules matching the extracted method name . in a second step 904 , the extracted class name is matched with the class selection criterion of the instrumentation rules selected in the previous step . instrumentation operations 104 associated with concrete instrumentation rules that passed both matching steps are inserted in step 906 into the received original bytecode 202 . the process of evaluating downward rules for a method name extracted from received original bytecode 202 is shown in fig9 b ). first , all downward rules matching the extracted method name are selected in step 912 . then , the inheritance repository 103 is queried in step 914 to determine if the class selection criterion of the selected rules match to the name of a direct or indirect super class or a directly or indirectly implemented interface of the class represented by the received original bytecode 202 . if matching classes are found in step 916 , downward rules with matching class names are selected , and instrumentation operations 104 associated with those rules are inserted into the received original bytecode 202 in step 918 . fig9 c ) shows the process of evaluating upward rules on a method name extracted from received original bytecode 202 . after selecting all upward rules matching the extracted method name in step 922 , the inheritance repository 103 is queried for the classes inheriting from the class represented by the received bytecode that match the class selection criterion of the selected rules in step 924 . if matching classes are found in step 926 , upward rules with class names that match one of the inheriting class names are selected and instrumentation operations 104 associated with those rules are inserted into received original bytecode 202 in step 928 . the processes described in fig9 a ) to 9 c ) are executed for each method name extracted from received original bytecode 202 to generate the instrumented bytecode 203 .