FAST RESTART OF APPLICATIONS USING SHARED MEMORY

• US 20190324648A1
• Filed: 07/03/2019
• Published: 10/24/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 11/22/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: SAP SE
• Original Assignee: SAP SE
• Inventors: Kwon, Yong Sik, Noh, Jaeyun, Lee, Juchang, Jang, Ji Hoon, Cha, Sang Kyun
• Granted Patent: US 11,137,911 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 13/1663 Access to shared memory
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/06 Digital input from, or digital output to, record carriers , e.g. RAID, emulated record carriers or networked record carriers
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0604 Improving or facilitating administration, e.g. storage management
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0614 Improving the reliability of storage systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0631 by allocating resources to storage systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0655 Vertical data movement, i.e. input-output transfer; data movement between one or more hosts and one or more storage devices
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/067 Distributed or networked storage systems, e.g. storage area networks [SAN], network attached storage [NAS]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0673 Single storage device
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0679 Non-volatile semiconductor memory device, e.g. flash memory, one time programmable memory [OTP]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/4401 Bootstrapping security arrangements therefor G06F21/57
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/442 Shutdown
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/445 Program loading or initiating bootstrapping G06F9/4401; security arrangements for program loading or initiating G06F21/57
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/461 Saving or restoring of program or task context
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/485 Task life-cycle, e.g. stopping, restarting, resuming execution G06F9/4881 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/52 Program synchronisation; Mutual exclusion, e.g. by means of semaphores
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/544 Buffers; Shared memory; Pipes

Abstract

Technologies are described for restarting an application while maintaining data in memory (e.g., using shared memory). For example, shared memory can be associated with an application. The shared memory can also be associated with a holder process to maintain the shared memory from the time the application stops to the time the application starts again. When the application starts, the shared memory can be associated with the started application. In addition, restart of in-memory databases can be provided using shared memory. For example, in-memory data can be maintained when a database process or database management system stops and starts (e.g., during a restart).

Claims

1-20. -20. (canceled)

21. A method, implemented at least in part by a computing device, the method comprising:

associating shared memory with an application;

creating a holder process by the application;

associating the shared memory with the holder process by the application;

shutting down the application, wherein the holder process remains associated with the shared memory after the application has shut down;

after the application has been shut down, restarting the application; and

associating the shared memory with the restarted application by the holder process.

22. The method of claim 21 wherein the holder process comprises a dedicated shared memory holder process that is dedicated to holding the shared memory for the application during the restarting of the application.

23. The method of claim 21 wherein the application is implemented by a first computer process and the restarted application is implemented by a second computer process.

24. The method of claim 21 wherein associating the shared memory with the holder process occurs when shutting down the application.

25. The method of claim 21, wherein the shared memory is associated with the application by an operating system.

26. The method of claim 21, wherein the shared memory comprises one or more shared memory segments, and wherein associating the shared memory with the holder process comprises:

handing off shared memory segment identifiers identifying the one or more shared memory segments to the holder process.

27. The method of claim 21, further comprising:

checking whether the shared memory is usable by the restarted application.

28. The method of claim 27, wherein checking whether the shared memory is usable by the restarted application comprises checking whether the shared memory has been overwritten.

29. The method of claim 27 wherein checking whether the shared memory is usable by the restarted application comprises:

checking whether the shared memory has been modified since the application was shut down.

30. The method of claim 21, further comprising:

at a time of shutting down the application;

creating one or more checksums for the shared memory; and

saving the one or more checksums in a memory or storage; and

at a time of restarting the application;

creating one or more new checksums for the shared memory; and

comparing the one or more checksums with the one or more new checksums to determine whether data stored within the shared memory has been altered.

31. The method of claim 30, further comprising:

determining that the data stored within the shared memory has been altered;

discarding the data in the shared memory; and

loading data from storage for use with the restarted application.

32. A computer-readable storage medium storing computer-executable instructions for causing a computing device to perform operations, the operations comprising:

associating shared memory with an application;

creating a holder process by the application;

associating the shared memory with the holder process;

stopping the application, wherein the holder process remains associated with the shared memory while the application is stopped;

restarting the application; and

associating the shared memory with the restarted application by the holder process.

33. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 32, wherein the holder process is a dedicated shared memory holder process that is dedicated to holding the shared memory for the application during the restarting of the application.

34. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 32, wherein the shared memory is associated with the application by an operating system.

35. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 32, wherein the shared memory comprises one or more shared memory segments, and wherein associating the shared memory, by the application, with the holder process comprises:

handing off shared memory segment identifiers identifying the one or more shared memory segments to the holder process, wherein the shared memory segment identifiers are associated with the holder process after the handing off the shared memory segment identifiers.

36. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 32, wherein the shared memory comprises one or more shared memory segments, and wherein associating the shared memory with the application by the holder process comprises:

receiving, by the application, shared memory segment identifiers identifying the one or more shared memory segments from the holder process; and

associating the received shared memory segment identifiers with the application.

37. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 32, wherein the operations further comprise:

determining whether the shared memory is usable by the application; and

upon determining that the shared memory is usable, stopping the holder process and running the application using the shared memory.

38. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 37, wherein determining whether the shared memory is usable by the application comprises:

validating the shared memory using, at least in part, one or more checksums to determine whether the shared memory has been modified since the application was stopped.

39. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 32, wherein the operations further comprise:

upon stopping the application;

creating one or more checksums for the shared memory, and

saving the one or more checksums in a memory or storage; and

upon restarting the application;

creating one or more new checksums for the shared memory, and

comparing the one or more checksums with the one or more new checksums to determine whether data stored within the shared memory has been altered.

40. A computing device configured to perform operations, the operations comprising:

associating shared memory with an application;

creating a holder process by the application;

associating the shared memory with the holder process;

shutting down the application, wherein the holder process remains associated with the shared memory after the application has shut down;

after the application has been shut down, restarting the application; and

associating the shared memory, by the holder process, with the restarted application.