Urgent Replication Facility

• US 20060136484A1
• Filed: 12/12/2005
• Published: 06/22/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 07/01/1996
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Contorer, Aaron M., Straube, Dave D., Miller, Arnold S., Misra, Pradyumna K., Raman, Balan S., Seaman, Michael R.C.
• Granted Patent: US 7,814,499 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/1844 Management specifically adapted to replicated file systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/54 Interprogram communication

Abstract

A system and method for expediting the replication of at least one specified object to a replica in a distributed computer system. A source object of a source replica determines that it has an urgent change to propagate through the distributed system, and informs a replication facility at the source replica of the urgent change. The facility extracts, or is provided with, the change information from that object, and the source replica communicates information representative of the change to a destination replica. A replication facility at the destination replica provides the change information to a destination replica object, which uses the information to make itself consistent with the source replica object.

Claims

1. A computer-readable medium having stored thereon a data structure for use in reconciling changes between one or more files stored on a first computer system and a replica of the one or more files stored on a second computer system, the data structure comprising:

an update sequence number field storing a value associated with a most recent change that has been made to the one or more files; and

a description field describing the most recent change as belonging to a specific type.

2. A method for reconciling changes between one or more files stored on a first computer system and a replica of the one or more files stored on a second computer system, the method comprising:

maintaining an update sequence number indicative of a number of changes to the one or more files;

detecting a change to the one or more files and, in response to the detected change, increasing the update sequence number to an increased value; and

comparing the increased value of the update sequence number to information indicative of a most recent reconciliation between the one or more files and the replica of the one or more files.

3. A method for replicating data between a first computer system and a second computer system in a distributed computing environment, the method comprising:

storing one or more files on the first computer system;

storing a replica of the one or more files on the second computer system;

maintaining an update sequence number indicative of a number of changes to the one or more files;

detecting a change to the one or more files and, in response to the detected change, increasing the update sequence number to an increased value; and

transmitting the increased value of the update sequence number to the second computer in association with information describing the change.