Apparatus and method for building distributed fault-tolerant/high-availability computer applications

• US 20050193229A1
• Filed: 02/02/2005
• Published: 09/01/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 06/30/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Intel Corporation
• Original Assignee: Intel Corporation
• Inventors: Garg, Ashwani, Patel, Chirayu, Pratap, Sagar Jogadhenu, Malhotra, Pradeep, Kadam, Akshay Ramesh
• Granted Patent: US 7,502,823 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 714/4.1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1482 by means of middleware or OS functionality
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/20 using active fault-masking, e.g. by switching out faulty elements or by switching in spare elements
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0654 using network fault recovery ring fault isolation or reconfiguration in loop networks without recovery actions by a network management system H04L12/437
• 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 67/1031 Controlling of the operation of servers by a load balancer, e.g. adding or removing servers that serve requests
• 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
• CPC Class Codes: Y04S 40/00 Systems for electrical power generation, transmission, distribution or end-user application management characterised by the use of communication or information technologies, or communication or information technology specific aspects supporting them

Abstract

Software architecture for developing distributed fault-tolerant systems independent of the underlying hardware architecture and operating system. Systems built using architecture components are scalable and allow a set of computer applications to operate in fault-tolerant/high-availability mode, distributed processing mode, or many possible combinations of distributed and fault-tolerant modes in the same system without any modification to the architecture components. The software architecture defines system components that are modular and address problems in present systems. The architecture uses a System Controller, which controls system activation, initial load distribution, fault recovery, load redistribution, and system topology, and implements system maintenance procedures. An Application Distributed Fault-Tolerant/High-Availability Support Module (ADSM) enables an application(s) to operate in various distributed fault-tolerant modes. The System Controller uses ADSM'"'"'s well-defined API to control the state of the application in these modes. The Router architecture component provides transparent communication between applications during fault recovery and topology changes. An Application Load Distribution Module (ALDM) component distributes incoming external events towards the distributed application. The architecture allows for a Load Manager, which monitors load on various copies of the application and maximizes the hardware usage by providing dynamic load balancing. The architecture also allows for a Fault Manager, which performs fault detection, fault location, and fault isolation, and uses the System Controller'"'"'s API to initiate fault recovery. These architecture components can be used to achieve a variety of distributed processing high-availability system configurations, which results in a reduction of cost and development time.

Claims

1-99. -99. (canceled)

100. A distributed processing system comprising:

an application to execute a process in a pure distributed mode, wherein the process is associated with an incoming event and is mapped to a resource set;

a router to route communications between the application and another application independent of location of the applications;

an update module to provide distributed functionality in the application; and

a load distributor to distribute the process to the application.

101. The distributed processing system according to claim 100, wherein the application is assigned to the resource set and the application uses the resource set to execute the process.

102. The distributed processing system according to claim 101, wherein the resource set includes a memory responsive to the application.

103. The distributed processing system according to claim 101, wherein the update module provides distributed functionality to update shared data, the shared data to be used by the application to execute the process in a pure distributed mode.

104. A fault tolerant system comprising:

an application to execute a process in a pure fault tolerant mode, wherein the process is associated with an incoming event and is mapped to a resource set;

a router to route communications between the application and another application independent of location of the applications; and

an update module to provide fault tolerant functionality in the application, wherein the application uses the resource set to execute the process.

105. The fault tolerant system according to claim 104, wherein the update module provides fault tolerant functionality to update private data, the private data used by the application to execute the process in a pure fault tolerant mode.

106. The fault tolerant system according to claim 105, wherein the resource set includes resources in an active state and resources in a standby state, the resources in the active state to communicate modifications to the private data to the resources in the standby state.

107. The fault tolerant system according to claim 104, wherein the resource set includes a memory responsive to the application.

108. The fault tolerant system according to claim 104, wherein the application and the other application are located on different processors.

109. A distributed processing, fault tolerant system comprising:

an application to execute a process in a distributed fault tolerant mode, wherein the process is associated with an incoming event and is mapped to a resource set;

a router to route communications between the application and another application independent of location of the applications;

an update module to provide distributed fault tolerant functionality in the application; and

a load distributor to distribute the process to the application.

110. The distributed processing, fault tolerant system according to claim 109, wherein the application is assigned to the resource set and the application uses the resource set to execute the process.

111. The fault tolerant system according to claim 109, wherein the update module provides distributed fault tolerant functionality to update private and shared data, the private and shared data used by the application to execute the process in a distributed fault tolerant mode.

112. The distributed processing, fault tolerant system according to claim 109, wherein the resource set includes a memory responsive to the application.

113. The distributed processing, fault tolerant system according to claim 109, wherein the application and the other application are located on different processors.

114. A method for fault tolerant and distributed processing, comprising:

mapping a process associated with an incoming event to a resource set, the resource set including a critical and a non-critical resource set;

assigning the resource set to an application, wherein the application executes the process in a distributed fault tolerant mode;

associating private data with the non-critical resource set, the private data to be used by the application to execute the process in a fault tolerant mode; and

associating shared data with the critical resource set, the shared data to be used by the application to execute the process in a distributed mode.

115. The method for fault tolerant and distributed processing according to claim 114, further comprising:

bringing the resource set into an active state;

the application using the resource set in the active state to execute the process; and

communicating update information to other resource sets, wherein the non-critical resource set communicates a modification to the private data to one or more counterpart non-critical resource sets in a standby state.

116. The method for fault tolerant and distributed processing according to claim 114, further comprising:

assigning the critical resource set to be a critical master resource set, wherein the critical master resource set is to communicate a modification to the shared data to one or more other critical resource sets mapped to the process.