Method for event triggered monitoring of managed server health

• US 20030236880A1
• Filed: 01/09/2003
• Published: 12/25/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 02/22/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Oracle International Corporation (Oracle Corporation)
• Original Assignee: BEA Systems Incorporated (Oracle Corporation)
• Inventors: Jacobs, Dean Bernard, Srivastava, Rahul, Halpern, Eric M., Srinivasan, Ananthan Bala
• Granted Patent: US 7,152,185 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/224
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/326 for error or online/offline status

Abstract

A Node Manager monitors the status of multiple servers. The Node Manager detects server failures, periodically monitors server health status, and performs server maintenance. When the Node Manager detects a server failure, it determines whether or not the server should be restarted. While periodically monitoring servers, the Node Manager may determine how often to trigger a health check, how long to wait for a response, and how to proceed if the server is deemed failed. The Node Manager may be controlled by an Administrative Server directly or by an external administrative agent. An administrative agent may control the Node Manager by interfacing with the Administrative Server. The Node Manager and AS may authenticate each other and encode their communications to each other for increased security.

Claims

1. A method for monitoring a server comprising:

providing a monitoring instance;

providing a triggering event that causes the monitoring instance to monitor a server; and

determining the status of the server.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein providing a triggering event includes determining a period of time has elapsed.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein providing a triggering event includes receiving a signal from an entity external to the monitoring object.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein said determining the status of a server further comprises:

transmitting a query signal to the server to determine the server'"'"'s status; and

determining whether the server responds to the query signal.

5. The method of claim 4 wherein said determining whether the server responds to the query signal includes waiting a specified period of time before determining the server has not responded to the query signal.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein said determining the status of a server further comprises:

transmitting a query signal to the server to determine the server'"'"'s status; and

receiving the server'"'"'s response to the query signal; and

determining the server'"'"'s status based upon the server'"'"'s response.

7. The method of claim 1 further comprises performing treatment on the server corresponding the status of the server.

8. The method of claim 7 wherein performing treatment includes terminating the server if the server is deemed failed.

9. The method of claim 1 wherein the functionality of the monitoring instance may be controlled by an administration server.

10. The method of claim 9 wherein communication between the monitoring instance and administration server is encoded.

11. The method of claim 1 wherein determining the status of a server is implemented using java language programming.

12. The method of claim 11 wherein the java language programming includes a java method instance.

13. The method of claim 7 wherein performing treatment on the server is implemented using java language programming.

14. The method of claim 13 wherein the java language programming includes a java method instance.

15. The method of claim 1 wherein determining the status of the server includes:

invoking a java servlet located on the server, the servlet configured to return a health status of the server to the monitoring instance.

16. The method of claim 15 wherein the java servlet includes an asynchronous servlet configured to return the health status to the monitoring instance upon the occurrence of an event.

17. The method of claim 1 wherein providing a triggering event includes:

determining whether an interval period has elapsed, the interval period corresponding to a time between successive health checks performed on a server, wherein a value specified in a health check interval parameter corresponds to the interval period.

18. The method of claim 17 wherein the health check interval parameter maybe accessed and set by a java method.

19. The method of claim 1 wherein providing a triggering event includes:

determining whether a timeout period has elapsed, the timeout period corresponding to a time the monitoring instance will wait for a response to a health check query performed by the monitoring instance to the server, wherein a value specified in a health check timeout parameter corresponds to the timeout period.

20. The method of claim 19 wherein the health check timeout parameter may be accessed and set by a java method.

21. The method as claimed in claim 7 wherein performing treatment includes:

determining a value of a auto-kill parameter, the value specified in the auto-kill parameter corresponding to whether or not the monitoring instance will automatically kill a server if the server is deemed failed.

22. The method of claim 21 wherein the health check timeout parameter may be accessed and set by a java method.