System and method for implementing journaling in a multi-node environment

• US 20030065672A1
• Filed: 09/20/2002
• Published: 04/03/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 09/21/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Valtrus Innovations Limited (f/k/a Dolya Holdco 9 Limited) (Key Patent Innovations Limited)
• Original Assignee: PolyServe, Inc. (HP Inc.)
• Inventors: Rokop, Terence M., Kingsbury, Brent A., Revitch, Sam
• Granted Patent: US 7,240,057 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/100
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0709 in a distributed system consisting of a plurality of standalone computer nodes, e.g. clusters, client-server systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0793 Remedial or corrective actions recovery from an exception in an instruction pipeline G06F9/3861; by retry G06F11/1402; for recovering from a failure of a protocol instance or entity H04L69/40
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/526 Mutual exclusion algorithms
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99938 Concurrency, e.g. lock management in shared database
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99953 Recoverability

Abstract

A system and method are disclosed for providing journaling in a computer environment. An embodiment of the present invention comprises providing a first node and a second node; providing a journal wherein the journal is accessible by the first node and the second node; requesting a change in lock status by the first node; and executing a task by the second node in response to the request for the change in lock status by the first node.

Claims

1. A method for journaling in a computer environment comprising:

providing a first node and a second node;

providing a journal wherein the journal is accessible by the first node and the second node;

requesting a change in lock status by the first node; and

executing a task by the second node in response to the request for the change in lock status by the first node.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the task is associated with journaling.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the requesting the change in lock status is requesting a lock.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the task is to write journal entries to make a transaction valid.

5. The method of claim 3, wherein the task is to write journal entries and send block data to the first node.

6. The method of claim 3, wherein the task is prepare a list of journal entries and send transaction data for the list to the first node.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the requesting the change in lock status is requesting a lock on space in a journal.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the task is to release the lock on a transaction journal space.

9. The method of claim 7, wherein the task is to write a block in a transaction to a disk and mark the transaction as expired.

10. A system for journaling in a computer environment comprising:

a first node configured to request a change in lock status;

a second node configured to execute a task in response to the request for the change in lock status by the first node; and

a journal, wherein the journal is accessible by the first node and the second node.

11. A computer program product for journaling in a computer environment, the computer program product being embodied in a computer readable medium and comprising computer instructions for:

requesting a change in lock status by the first node;

executing a task by the second node in response to the request for the change in lock status by the first node; and

accessing a journal by the first node.

12. A method for journaling in a computer environment comprising:

scheduling an update to record a transaction;

receiving a request to make this transaction valid; and

recording the transaction in a journal.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the recording the transaction occurs in response to the receiving the request to make this transaction valid.