Recovery and debugging of failed network-accessible service construction

• US 7,509,519 B2
• Filed: 11/29/2005
• Issued: 03/24/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 11/29/2005
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Kumar, Arun, Dasgupta, Koustuv, Srivastava, Biplav
• Primary Examiner(s): Beausoilel; Robert
• Assistant Examiner(s): Ehne; Charles
• Application Number:
  US11/289,152
• Publication Number:
  US 20070168691A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,211 Days
• Field of Search: 714/4, 714/26, 714/46, 714/57
• US Class Current: 714/4.1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0709 in a distributed system consisting of a plurality of standalone computer nodes, e.g. clusters, client-server systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0793 Remedial or corrective actions recovery from an exception in an instruction pipeline G06F9/3861; by retry G06F11/1402; for recovering from a failure of a protocol instance or entity H04L69/40
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/36 Preventing errors by testing or debugging software

Abstract

In response to determining that computer generation of an abstract workflow plan for a network-accessible service resulted in failure, a method attempts to automatically recover from the failure. Where attempting to automatically recover from this failure is unsuccessful, the method applies remedy rules, to assist in debugging the failure. In response to determining that computer assignment of a physical plan for the abstract workflow plan resulted in failure, the method attempts to automatically recover from the failure. Where attempting to automatically recover from this failure is unsuccessful, the method applies remedy rules, to assist in debugging the failure. In response to determining that computer evaluation of a runtime configuration for the physical plan resulted in a failure, the method attempts to automatically recover from the failure. Where attempting to automatically recover from this failure is unsuccessful, the method applies remedy rules, to assist in debugging the failure.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

in response to determining that computer generation of an abstract workflow plan for a network-accessible service resulted in a failure, attempting to automatically recover from the failure without human intervention in a process that includes one of selecting an alternate abstract workflow plan for the network-accessible service being implemented, and providing other information to assist in abstract workflow plan generation;

where attempting to automatically recover from the failure of the computer generation of the abstract workflow plan is unsuccessful, applying a plurality of plan selection failure remedy rules, with human intervention, to assist in debugging the failure of the computer generation of the abstract workflow plan;

in response to determining that computer assignment of a physical plan for the abstract workflow plan resulted in a failure, attempting to automatically recover from the failure without human intervention in a process that includes one of selection of an alternate physical plan for the abstract workflow plan, and providing other information that can assist in physical plan assignment;

where attempting to automatically recover from the failure of the computer assignment of the physical plan for the abstract workflow plan is unsuccessful, applying a plurality of plan assignment failure remedy rules, with human intervention, to assist in debugging the failure of the computer assignment of the physical plan;

in response to determining that computer evaluation of a runtime configuration for the physical plan resulted in a failure, attempting to automatically recover from the failure without human intervention in a process that includes one of providing a different or alternate runtime configuration of the physical plan, and providing other information that can assist in runtime evaluation; and

,

where attempting to automatically recover from the failure of the computer evaluation of the runtime configuration for the physical plan is unsuccessful, applying a plurality of runtime evaluation failure remedy rules, with human intervention, to assist in debugging the failure of the computer evaluation of the runtime configuration.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein attempting to automatically recover from the failure of the computer generation of the abstract workflow plan for the network-accessible service comprises applying a plurality of rules.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the plurality of rules comprise pre-specified rules.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein the plurality of rules comprise computer-learned rules over time.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein applying the plurality of plan selection failure remedy rules, with human intervention, to assist in debugging the failure of the computer generation of the abstract workflow plan comprises applying rules pertaining to a concept lookup with ontology stage of the computer generation of the abstract workflow plan.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein applying the plurality of plan selection failure remedy rules, with human intervention, to assist in debugging the failure of the computer generation of the abstract workflow plan comprises applying rules pertaining to a filtering and selecting services for composition stage of the computer generation of the abstract workflow plan.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein applying the plurality of plan selection failure remedy rules, with human intervention, to assist in debugging the failure of the computer generation of the abstract workflow plan comprises applying rules pertaining to a composing the abstract workflow plan stage of the computer generation of the abstract workflow plan.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein attempting to automatically recover from the failure of the computer assignment of the physical plan for the abstract workflow plan comprises applying a plurality of rules.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the plurality of rules comprise pre-specified rules.

10. The method of claim 8, wherein the plurality of rules comprise computer-learned rules over time.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein applying the plurality of plan assignment failure remedy rules, with human intervention, to assist in debugging the failure of the computer assignment of the physical plan comprises applying rules pertaining to an instance selection stage of the computer assignment of the physical plan.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein applying the plurality of plan assignment failure remedy rules, with human intervention, to assist in debugging the failure of the computer assignment of the physical plan comprises applying rules pertaining to a deployment stage of the computer assignment of the physical plan.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein attempting to automatically recover from the failure of the computer evaluation of the runtime configuration for the physical plan comprises applying a plurality of rules.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the plurality of rules comprise pre-specified rules.

15. The method of claim 13, wherein the plurality of rules comprise computer-learned rules over time.

16. The method of claim 1, wherein applying the plurality of runtime evaluation failure remedy rules, with human intervention, to assist in debugging the failure of the computer evaluation of the runtime configuration comprises applying rules pertaining to an evaluation stage of the computer evaluation of the runtime configuration.

17. A programmable storage medium for storing a program of machine-readable instructions executable by a digital processing apparatus to perform operations supporting a method of generating an abstract workflow plan, the operations comprising:

generating an abstract workflow plan for a network-accessible server on a network-accessible-service generation mechanism to assign a physical plan for the abstract workflow plan, evaluating a runtime configuration for the physical plan, without human intervention, and attempting to automatically recover from a failure of said abstract workflow plan without human intervention by selecting an alternate abstract workflow plan for the network-accessible service being implemented; and

applying a plurality of rules to assist in debugging a failure recovery-and-remedy mechanism to attempt to, upon failures in generating the abstract workflow plan, assign the physical plan, and evaluate the runtime configuration for the physical plan, with human intervention.

18. The programmable storage medium tangibly embodying a program of machine-readable instructions of claim 17, wherein the applying a plurality of rules to assist in debugging in the failure recovery-and-remedy mechanism further comprises, without human intervention, attempting to automatically recover from the failures by generating the abstract workflow plan, assigning the physical plan, and evaluating the runtime configuration for the physical plan, before applying the plurality of rules to assist in debugging.

19. A programmable storage medium for storing a program of machine-readable instructions executable by a digital processing apparatus to perform operations supporting a method of generating an abstract workflow plan, the operations comprising:

computer-executable code performing a method comprising, without human intervention, attempting to automatically recover from a failure in generating an abstract workflow plan for a network-accessible service, from a failure in assigning a physical plan for the abstract workflow plan, and from a failure in evaluating a runtime configuration for the physical plan, by selecting an alternate abstract workflow plan for the network-accessible service being implemented; and

with human intervention, applying a plurality of rules upon failure to automatically recover to assist in debugging.

20. The programmable storage medium tangibly embodying a program of machine-readable instructions of claim 19, wherein the method further comprises applying the plurality of rules by applying plan selection failure remedy rules where attempting to automatically recover from failure of generation of the abstract workflow plan is unsuccessful, said operations further comprising applying plan assignment failure remedy rules where attempting to automatically recover from failure of assignment of the physical plan, and applying runtime evaluation failure remedy rules where attempting to automatically recover from failure of evaluation of the runtime configuration.