Increasing disaster resiliency by having a PoD backed up to other peer PoDs in a site or beyond

• US 10,229,008 B2
• Filed: 08/15/2016
• Issued: 03/12/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 04/02/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Gupta, Manish, Harper, Richard E.
• Primary Examiner(s): Schell, Joseph O
• Application Number:
  US15/236,542
• Publication Number:
  US 20160350189A1
• Time in Patent Office: 939 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1451 by selection of backup contents
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1456 Hardware arrangements for backup
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1458 Management of the backup or restore process
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1461 Backup scheduling policy
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1464 for networked environments
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1469 Backup restoration techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/805 Real-time
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/815 Virtual

Abstract

Increasing disaster resiliency in one aspect may comprise running an optimization algorithm that simultaneously solves for at least a first objective to increase a spread of a backup of virtual machines from a given site onto other sites in proportion to an amount of available space for backup at each site, a second objective to increase a number of backups at one or more of the other sites with low probability of system crash while reducing backups at one or more of the other sites with higher probability of system crash, and a third objective to minimize a violation of recovery time objectives of the virtual machines during recovery. One or more backup sites and one or more recovery sites in an event the given site crashes may be determined based on a solution of the optimization algorithm.

Claims

1. A method of increasing disaster resiliency in a computer system, comprising:

executing, by a processor, an optimization algorithm that solves simultaneously for at least a first objective to increase a spread of a backup of virtual machines from a given site onto other sites in proportion to an amount of available space for backup at each site and a second objective to increase a number of backups at one or more of the other sites with low probability of system crash while reducing backups at one or more of the other sites with higher probability of system crash, the optimization algorithm minimizing a sum of the first objective that is weighted and the second objective that is weighted, the optimization algorithm being solved subject to at least data privacy constraints associated with at least the virtual machines to be backed up; and

determining at least a backup site and a recovery site for the given site based on a solution of the optimization algorithm,

further comprising transferring the virtual machines on one or more of the other sites based on a solution of the optimization algorithm to backup the virtual machines according to a frequency of backup determined based on a recovery point objective.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein a third objective to minimize a violation of recovery time objective of the virtual machines during recovery is solved simultaneously with the first objective and the second objective, the optimization algorithm minimizing a sum of the first objective that is weighted and the second objective that is weighted and the third objective that is weighted, wherein the violation of recovery time objective of the virtual machines is associated at least a recovery time objective associated with an individual application running on at least one of the virtual machines.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the third objective is formulated as:

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the given site and the other sites comprise points of delivery comprising hosting environments where virtual machines belonging to one or more applications run.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein constraints to the optimization algorithm further include a processing capacity constraint associated with at least the other sites and storage capacity constraint associated with at least the other sites.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the first objective is formulated as:

minimize

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the first objective is formulated as:

minimize

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the second objective is formulated as:

9. A computer readable storage device storing a program of instructions executable by a machine to perform a method of increasing disaster resiliency in a computer system, the method comprising:

executing, by a processor, an optimization algorithm that solves simultaneously for at least a first objective to increase a spread of a backup of virtual machines from a given site onto other sites in proportion to an amount of available space for backup at each site and a second objective to increase a number of backups at one or more of the other sites with low probability of system crash while reducing backups at one or more of the other sites with higher probability of system crash, the optimization algorithm minimizing a sum of the first objective that is weighted and the second objective that is weighted, the optimization algorithm being solved subject to at least data privacy constraints associated with at least the virtual machines to be backed up; and

determining at least a backup site and a recovery site for the given site based on a solution of the optimization algorithm,

further comprising transferring the virtual machines on one or more of the other sites based on a solution of the optimization algorithm to backup the virtual machines according to a frequency of backup determined based on a recovery point objective.

10. The computer readable storage device of claim 9, wherein a third objective to minimize a violation of recovery time objective of the virtual machines during recovery is solved simultaneously with the first objective and the second objective, the optimization algorithm minimizing a sum of the first objective that is weighted and the second objective that is weighted and the third objective that is weighted, wherein the violation of recovery time objective of the virtual machines is associated at least a recovery time objective associated with an individual application running on at least one of the virtual machines.

11. The computer readable storage device of claim 9, wherein the given site and the other sites comprise points of delivery comprising hosting environments where virtual machines belonging to one or more applications run.

12. The computer readable storage device of claim 9, wherein constraints to the optimization algorithm further include a processing capacity constraint associated with at least the other sites and storage capacity constraint associated with at least the other sites.

13. A system for increasing disaster resiliency in a computer system, comprising:

a computer optimization model that solves simultaneously for at least a first objective to increase a spread of a backup of virtual machines from a given site onto other sites in proportion to an amount of available space for backup at each site and a second objective to increase a number of backups at one or more of the other sites with low probability of system crash while reducing backups at one or more of the other sites with higher probability of system crash, the optimization algorithm minimizing a sum of the first objective that is weighted and the second objective that is weighted, the optimization algorithm being solved subject to at least data privacy constraints associated with at least the virtual machines to be backed up; and

a hardware processor executing the computer optimization model and determining at least a backup site and a recovery site for the given site based on a solution of the optimization algorithm,

wherein the virtual machines are transferred to one or more of the other sites based on a solution of the optimization algorithm to backup the virtual machines according to a frequency of backup determined based on recovery point objectives associated with the virtual machines.

14. The system of claim 13, wherein a third objective to minimize a violation of recovery time objective of the virtual machines during recovery is solved simultaneously with the first objective and the second objective, the optimization algorithm minimizing a sum of the first objective that is weighted and the second objective that is weighted and the third objective that is weighted, wherein the violation of recovery time objective of the virtual machines is associated at least a recovery time objective associated with an individual application running on at least one of the virtual machines.

15. The system of claim 13, wherein the given site and the other sites comprise points of delivery comprising hosting environments where virtual machines belonging to one or more applications run.

16. The system of claim 13, wherein constraints to the optimization algorithm further include a processing capacity constraint associated with at least the other sites and storage capacity constraint associated with at least the other sites.