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

• US 7,502,823 B2
• Filed: 02/02/2005
• Issued: 03/10/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 06/30/2000
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Intel Corporation
• Original Assignee: Intel Corporation
• Inventors: Garg, Ashwani, Patel, Chirayu, Pratap, Sagar Jogadhenu, Malhotra, Pradeep, Kadam, Akshay Ramesh
• Primary Examiner(s): Meky; Moustafa M
• Application Number:
  US11/050,588
• Publication Number:
  US 20050193229A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,497 Days
• Field of Search: 709200-203, 709217-229
• US Class Current: 709/203
• 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

Method and apparatus relating to building distributed fault-tolerant/high-availability computer applications are described. In an embodiment, a system may include an application, a router, and an update module. The application may execute a process in a pure distributed mode, a pure fault tolerant mode, or a distributed fault tolerant mode. The router may route communications between the application and another application independent of location of the applications. The update module may provide distributed functionality in the application. Other embodiments are also disclosed.

Claims

1. 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.

2. The distributed processing system according to claim 1, wherein the application is assigned to the resource set and the application uses the resource set to execute the process.

3. The distributed processing system according to claim 2, wherein the resource set includes a memory responsive to the application.

4. The distributed processing system according to claim 2, 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.

5. The distributed processing system according to claim 1, wherein the update module is to modify shared data based on a master critical resource set, wherein the shared data is to be used by the application to execute the process in a pure distributed mode.

6. 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.

7. The fault tolerant system according to claim 6, 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.

8. The fault tolerant system according to claim 7, 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.

9. The fault tolerant system according to claim 6, wherein the resource set includes a memory responsive to the application.

10. The fault tolerant system according to claim 6, wherein the application and the other application are located on different processors.

11. The fault tolerant system according to claim 10, wherein one of the processors comprises the router.

12. The fault tolerant system according to claim 10, wherein one of the processors comprises the router.

13. The fault tolerant system according to claim 6, wherein the update module is to modify private data, wherein the private data is to be used by the application to execute the process in a pure fault tolerant mode.

14. 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.

15. The distributed processing, fault tolerant system according to claim 14, wherein the application is assigned to the resource set and the application uses the resource set to execute the process.

16. The fault tolerant system according to claim 14, 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.

17. The distributed processing, fault tolerant system according to claim 14, wherein the resource set includes a memory responsive to the application.

18. The distributed processing, fault tolerant system according to claim 14, wherein the application and the other application are located on different processors.

19. The distributed processing, fault tolerant system according to claim 18, wherein one of the processors comprises the router.

20. The distributed processing, fault tolerant system according to claim 14, wherein the update module is to update private and shared data, wherein the private and shared data are to be used by the application to execute the process in a distributed fault tolerant mode.