Client assisted autonomic computing

• US 20040078622A1
• Filed: 09/18/2002
• Published: 04/22/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 09/18/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Kaminsky, David L., Ogle, David M.
• Granted Patent: US 7,657,779 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 714/4
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0748 in a remote unit communicating with a single-box computer node experiencing an error/fault remote testing G06F11/2294
• 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 11/1415 at system level
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/2023 Failover techniques
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0661 by reconfiguring faulty entities
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1001 for accessing one among a plurality of replicated servers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1008 based on parameters of servers, e.g. available memory or workload monitoring of computer activity G06F11/30
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1017 based on a round robin mechanism
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1019 Random or heuristic server selection
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1034 Reaction to server failures by a load balancer
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/40 for recovering from a failure of a protocol instance or entity, e.g. service redundancy protocols, protocol state redundancy or protocol service redirection management of faults, events, alarms or notifications in data switching networks H04L41/06

Abstract

A method, system and apparatus for server failure diagnosis and self-healing in a server farm. An autonomic server farm which has been configured in accordance with the inventive arrangements can include a multiplicity of servers enabled to respond to requests received from clients which are external to the server farm. A resource director such as an IP sprayer or a network dispatcher can be configured to route requests to selected ones of the servers, in accordance with resource allocation algorithms such as random, round-robin and least recently used. Significantly, unlike conventional server farms whose management of failure diagnosis and self-healing relies exclusively upon the capabilities of the resource director, in the present invention, client-assisted failure detection logic can be coupled to the resource director so as to provide client-assisted management of failure diagnosis and self-healing.

Claims

1. A method of server failure diagnosis and self-healing in a server farm, comprising the steps of:

receiving a retry request from client attempting to engage in a communicative request/response session with an assigned server in the server farm;

determining from said retry request, an occurrence of a failure in said assigned server; and

,

performing operations for remediating said failure in said assigned server.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of, responsive to determining from said retry request, an occurrence of a failure in said assigned server, assigning a different server in the server farm to process said retry request.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein said determining step comprises the step of locating in a request string associated with said retry request an indication of said occurrence of said failure in said assigned server.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein said determining step comprises the step of locating in a cookie associated with said retry request an indication of said occurrence of said failure in said assigned server.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein said performing step comprises the step of performing at least one remedial operation selected from the group consisting of recycling said initial server, restarting a device in said initial server, and restarting an application in said initial server.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein said performing step further comprises the step of notifying an administrative node of said failure.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein said performing step comprises the steps of:

diagnosing said failure; and

,

performing at least one remedial operation based upon said diagnosis wherein said remedial operation is selected from the group consisting of recycling said initial server, restarting a device in said initial server, and restarting an application in said initial server.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein said diagnosing step comprises the steps of:

pinging said assigned server; and

,

performing a traceroute between said assigned server and said client.

9. The method of claim 7, wherein said diagnosing step comprises the steps of:

injecting a test transaction into said assigned server; and

,

monitoring a result produced by said injection.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein said injecting step comprises the step of inducing said client to inject a test transaction into said assigned server.

11. An autonomic server farm comprising:

a plurality of servers enabled to respond to requests received from clients which are external to the server farm;

a resource director configured to route requests to selected ones of said servers; and

,

client-assisted failure detection logic coupled to said resource director.

12. The autonomic server farm of claim 11, further comprising a doctor communicatively coupled to said resource director and configured to diagnose detect failures in said selected ones of said servers.

13. A machine readable storage having stored thereon a computer program for performing server failure diagnosis and self-healing in a server farm, said computer program comprising a routine set of instructions which when executed cause the machine to perform the steps of:

receiving a retry request from client attempting to engage in a communicative request/response session with an assigned server in the server farm;

determining from said retry request, an occurrence of a failure in said assigned server; and

,

performing operations for remediating said failure in said assigned server.

14. The machine readable storage of claim 13, further comprising the step of, responsive to determining from said retry request, an occurrence of a failure in said assigned server, assigning a different server in the server farm to process said retry request.

15. The machine readable storage of claim 13, wherein said determining step comprises the step of locating in a request string associated with said retry request an indication of said occurrence of said failure in said assigned server.

16. The machine readable storage of claim 13, wherein said determining step comprises the step of locating in a cookie associated with said retry request an indication of said occurrence of said failure in said assigned server.

17. The machine readable storage of claim 13, wherein said performing step comprises the step of performing at least one remedial operation selected from the group consisting of recycling said initial server, restarting a device in said initial server, and restarting an application in said initial server.

18. The machine readable storage of claim 13, wherein said performing step further comprises the step of notifying an administrative node of said failure.

19. The machine readable storage of claim 13, wherein said performing step comprises the steps of:

diagnosing said failure; and

,

performing at least one remedial operation based upon said diagnosis wherein said remedial operation is selected from the group consisting of recycling said initial server, restarting a device in said initial server, and restarting an application in said initial server.

20. The machine readable storage of claim 19, wherein said diagnosing step comprises the steps of:

pinging said assigned server; and

,

performing a traceroute between said assigned server and said client.

21. The machine readable storage of claim 19, wherein said diagnosing step comprises the steps of:

injecting a test transaction into said assigned server; and

,

monitoring a result produced by said injection.

22. The machine readable storage of claim 21, wherein said injecting step comprises the step of inducing said client to inject a test transaction into said assigned server.