INCREASING AVAILABILITY OF STATEFUL APPLICATIONS

• US 20130151681A1
• Filed: 12/12/2011
• Published: 06/13/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 12/12/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: SYED, SAAD, DOURNOV, PAVEL, IRUN-BRIZ, LUIS, KHUTORNENKO, MAXIM, SANDERS, COREY, GUPTA, GAURAV, HASSAN, AKRAM, FILHO, IVAN SANTA MARIA, SHAH, ASHISH, PFLEIGER, TODD, REWASKAR, SUSHANT, AZAD, UMER
• Granted Patent: US 8,935,375 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/223
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/656 while running

Abstract

Methods, systems, and computer-readable media for facilitating coordination between a fabric controller of a cloud-computing network and a service application running in the cloud-computing network are provided. Initially, an update domain (UD) that includes role instance(s) of the service application is selected, where the service application represents a stateful application is targeted for receiving a tenant job executed thereon. The process of coordination involves preparing the UD for execution of the tenant job, disabling the role instance(s) of the UD to an offline condition, allowing the tenant job to execute, and restoring the role instance(s) to an online condition upon completing execution of the tenant job. Preparing the UD includes notifying a management role established within the service application of the fabric controller'"'"'s intent to execute the tenant job and receiving a management-role response communicating a presence of replications of internal state(s) of the role instance(s) affected by the tenant job.

Claims

1. One or more computer-readable media having computer-executable instructions embodied thereon that, when executed, perform a method for facilitating interaction between a fabric controller of a cloud-computing network and a service application running in the cloud-computing network, the method comprising:

selecting a first update domain (UD) that includes one or more role instances of the service application, wherein the one or more role instances are operating in an online condition;

preparing the first UD for execution of a tenant job, wherein preparing the first UD comprises;

(a) notifying a management role within the service application of the fabric controller'"'"'s intent to execute the tenant job; and

(b) receiving a response from the management role upon determining whether an internal state of the one or more role instances affected by the tenant job is replicated on a portion of the service application that is unaffected by the tenant job;

initiating disablement of the one or more role instances of the first UD to an offline condition; and

allowing the tenant job to execute on the first UD.

2. The computer-readable media of claim 1, the method further comprising, upon completing execution of the tenant job, restoring the one or more role instances of the first UD to the online condition.

3. The computer-readable media of claim 2, wherein restoring the one or more role instances of the first UD to the online condition comprises:

verifying the one or more role instances affected by the tenant job are functional; and

notifying the management role that execution of the tenant job on the one or more role instances is complete, thereby prompting the service application to resume employing the one or more role instances.

4. The computer-readable media of claim 2, wherein disabling the one or more role instances to an offline condition involves rendering inoperative a set of nodes that host the one or more role instances within the first UD.

5. The computer-readable media of claim 4, wherein restoring the one or more role instances to the online condition involves rendering operative the set of nodes that host the one or more role instances within the first UD.

6. The computer-readable media of claim 5, wherein each of the set of nodes represents a physical machine or a virtual machine capable of running the one or more role instances of the service application, and wherein the role instances represent respective component programs that support the functionality of the service application.

7. The computer-readable media of claim 1, wherein the method further comprises selecting a second UD of role instances for running the tenant job thereon, wherein the first UD and the second UD are mutually exclusive in membership and each represents a discrete phase in propagating the tenant job throughout the cloud-computing network.

8. The computer-readable media of claim 5, wherein the tenant job comprises at least one of a platform-initiated update, a customer-initiated update, a platform-initiated repair, or a customer-initiated repair.

9. The computer-readable media of claim 1, wherein preparing the first UD further comprises allowing the management role to gather additional information by interacting with fabric controller.

10. A computerized method for scheduling a high-priority job when executing a tenant job, the method comprising:

receiving an indication to execute the tenant job on a service application;

identifying an update domain (UD) that includes one or more role instances of the service application, wherein the one or more role instances are operating in an online condition;

preparing the UD for execution of the tenant job;

initiating disablement of the one or more role instances of the UD to an offline condition;

receiving an indication to implement a high-priority job, wherein the high-priority job is predetermined to preempt the tenant job within a priority scheme;

yielding deployment of the tenant job to the high-priority job, wherein the process of yielding comprises;

(a) instructing the service application to perform a truncated set of operations that restore the one or more role instances to the online condition;

(b) placing the tenant job on hold; and

(c) initiating execution of the high-priority job on the one or more role instances;

upon completing execution of the high-priority job, resuming deployment of the tenant job, wherein the process of resuming comprises;

(a) reinitiating disablement of the one or more role instances of the UD to the offline condition; and

(b) allowing execution of the tenant job on the one or more role instances; and

upon completing execution of the tenant job, restoring the one or more role instances of the UD to the online condition.

11. The computerized method of claim 10, wherein preparing the UD for execution of the tenant job comprises:

notifying a management role within the service application of an intent to execute the tenant job; and

receiving a positive response from the management role upon determining the internal state of the one or more role instances affected by the tenant job is replicated on a portion of the service application that is unaffected by the tenant job;

or

receiving a negative response from the management role upon determining that the internal state of the one or more role instances affected by the tenant job is confined to the one or more role instances.

12. The computerized method of claim 11, further comprising, upon receiving the positive response from the management role, allowing the tenant job to execute on the one or more role instances.

13. The computerized method of claim 11, further comprising, upon receiving the negative response from the management role:

when the indication to execute the tenant job is customer-initiated, delaying execution of the tenant job on the one or more role instances in order to allow for replication of the internal state; and

when the indication to execute the tenant job is platform-initiated, proceeding with execution of the tenant job on the one or more role instances.

14. The computerized method of claim 11, wherein restoring the one or more role instances of the UD to the online condition comprises:

verifying the one or more role instances affected by the tenant job are functional; and

notifying the management role that execution of the tenant job on the one or more role instances is complete, thereby prompting the service application to resume employing the one or more role instances.

15. The computerized method of claim 10, wherein the process of yielding further comprises:

transitioning the tenant job to a passive state; and

transitioning the high-priority job to an active state.

16. The computerized method of claim 10, wherein resuming deployment of the tenant job further comprises transitioning the tenant job to the active state.

17. A computer system for performing a method that coordinates the incremental deployment of a tenant job to portions of a service application, the computer system comprising a processing unit coupled to a computer storage medium, the computer storage medium having stored thereon a plurality of computer software components executable by the processing unit, the computer software components comprising:

one or more role instances of the service application, wherein the role instances represent the component programs that support the functionality of the service application;

a tenant-change manager for directing deployment of the tenant job, wherein the process of directing deployment involves communicating an indication of the deployment of the tenant job, initiating disablement of the one or more role instances to an offline condition, allowing for execution of the tenant job on the one or more role instances, and initiating restoration of the one or more role instances to the online condition; and

a management role of the service application for monitoring an internal state of the one or more role instances, wherein, upon receiving the indication of the deployment of the tenant job, the management role is responsible for determining whether the monitored internal state of the one or more role instances affected by the tenant job is replicated on a portion of the service application that is unaffected by the tenant job and for communicating an indication of availability of the internal state to the tenant-change manager.

18. The computer system of claim 17, further comprising a host agent residing on a node that hosts the one or more role instances, wherein the host agent reveals an expected state of the one or more role instances to the service application, wherein the expected state represents the offline condition or the online condition of the one or more role instances, and wherein the node represents a physical machine or a virtual machine within a data center.

19. The computer system of claim 17, further comprising a scheduling component for causing the tenant job to be interrupted by a high-priority job in accordance with a priority scheme.

20. The computer system of claim 17, further comprising a node-state driver for disabling the one or more role instances to the offline condition, executing the tenant job, and restoring the one or more role instances to the online condition under the direction of the tenant-change manager.