Automatically freezing functionality of a computing entity responsive to an error

• US 7,793,142 B2
• Filed: 02/02/2009
• Issued: 09/07/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 04/29/2003
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Everhart, Craig F., Weight, Russell H., Clark, Thomas K., Jujjuri, Venkateswararao
• Primary Examiner(s): Chu; Gabriel L
• Application Number:
  US12/363,946
• Publication Number:
  US 20090150719A1
• Time in Patent Office: 582 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 714/4.1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0727 in a storage system, e.g. in a DASD or network based storage system drivers for digital recording or reproducing units G06F3/06; circuits for error detection or correction within digital recording or reproducing units G11B20/18; for distributed storage of data in networks, e.g. transport arrangements for network file system [NFS], storage area networks [SAN] or network attached storage [NAS], H04L67/1097
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0781 Error filtering or prioritizing based on a policy defined by the user or on a policy defined by a hardware/software module, e.g. according to a severity level
• 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

Abstract

Facilitating error handling of computing environments, including those environments having file systems. Responsive to an entity of the computing environment, such as a client of a file system, obtaining at least an indication of an error, a portion of functionality of the entity is automatically frozen. The obtaining is, for instance, responsive to an event of another entity of the computing environment, such as a server of the file system. Eventually, the frozen functionality is thawed allowing the functionality to proceed.

Claims

1. A system of facilitating error handling of a computing environment, said system comprising:

a client portion of a client-server application of the computing environment, the client portion obtaining an error indication responsive to an event of another entity of the client-server application of the computing environment that affects the client portion'"'"'s processing, said another entity being a server portion of the client-server application remote from the client portion of the client-server application, and the client-server application being a file system application; and

means for automatically freezing by the client portion of the client-server application a portion of functionality of the client portion of the client-server application, in response to the obtaining the error indication by the client portion, wherein another portion of functionality of the client portion remains unfrozen and continues to process, and the portion of functionality of the client portion automatically frozen comprises a file system operation affected by the event requiring server portion communication or communication to a remote storage system, and the another portion of functionality of the client portion remaining unfrozen comprises another file system operation unaffected by the event, wherein the means for automatically freezing comprises means for stalling processing of at least one thread of the client portion while a freeze indicator flag is set, and concurrently allowing at least one other thread of the client portion to process.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein responsive to the obtaining, the client portion determines whether the event is a critical error, and if not, determines whether a freeze response is predefined for that event, and if so, proceeds with the means for automatically freezing.

3. The system of claim 2, further comprising means for setting a freeze indicator flag within a client state manager (CSM) component of the client portion, the CSM component being responsible for facilitating communications with the server portion.

4. The system of claim 3, wherein the client portion is multi-threaded, with the freeze indicator flag being accessible to the threads of the client portion.

5. The system of claim 4, wherein the means for automatically freezing comprises means for altering behavior of one or more threads of the client portion of the client-server application, in response to setting the freeze indicator flag.

6. The system of claim 4, wherein the means for automatically freezing comprises means for one or more validity checks, in response to setting the freeze indicator flag.

7. The system of claim 1, further comprising ceasing, by a lease renewal thread of the client portion, to send lease renewal messages to the server portion when the freeze indicator flag is set, and automatically failing any lease validity checks responsive to the freeze indicator flag being set.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the means for automatically freezing comprises means for automatically failing one or more lease validity checks of the client portion.

9. The system of claim 1, further comprising means for thawing the portion of functionality of the client portion that is frozen without requiring an unmount or remount of the file system application.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein the means for thawing comprises means for a freeze indicator of the client portion for unlocking transmit, receive and lock reassertion threads of the client portion, and for allowing renewal threads of the client portion to sent lease renewal messages.

11. An article of manufacture comprising:

at least one computer-readable medium having computer readable program code logic to facilitate error handling of a computing environment, the computer readable program code logic when executing performing;

obtaining, by a client portion of a client-server application of the computing environment, an error indication responsive to an event of another entity of the client-server application of the computing environment that affects the client portion'"'"'s processing, said another entity being a server portion of the client-server application remote from the client portion of the client-server application, and the client-server application being a file system application; and

automatically freezing by the client portion of the client-server application a portion of functionality of the client portion of the client-server application, in response to the obtaining the error indication by the client portion, wherein another portion of functionality of the client portion remains unfrozen and continues to process, and the portion of functionality of the client portion automatically frozen comprises a file system operation affected by the event requiring server portion communication or communication to a remote storage system, and the another portion of functionality of the client portion remaining unfrozen comprises another file system operation unaffected by the event, wherein the automatically freezing comprises stalling processing of at least one thread of the client portion while a freeze indicator flag is set, and concurrently allowing at least one other thread of the client portion to process.

12. The article of manufacture of claim 11, wherein responsive to the obtaining, the client portion determines whether the event is a critical error, and if not, determines whether a freeze response is predefined for that event, and if so, proceeds with the automatically freezing.

13. The article of manufacture of claim 12, further comprising setting a freeze indicator flag within a client state manager (CSM) component of the client portion, the CSM component being responsible for facilitating communications with the server portion.

14. The article of manufacture of claim 13, wherein the client portion is multi-threaded, with the freeze indicator flag being accessible to the threads of the client portion.

15. The article of manufacture of claim 14, wherein the automatically freezing comprise altering behavior of one or more threads of the client portion of the client-server application, in response to setting the freeze indicator flag.

16. The article of manufacture of claim 14, wherein the automatically freezing comprises failing one or more validity check, in response to setting the freeze indicator flag.

17. The article of manufacture of claim 11, further comprising ceasing, by a lease renewal thread of the client portion, to send lease renewal messages to the server portion when the freeze indicator flag is set, and automatically failing any lease validity checks responsive to the freeze indicator flag being set.

18. The article of manufacture of claim 11, wherein the automatically freezing comprises failing one or more lease validity checks of the client portion.

19. The article of manufacture of claim 11, further comprising thawing the portion of functionality of the client portion that is frozen without requiring an unmount or remount of the file system application.

20. The article of manufacture of claim 19, wherein the thawing comprises resetting a freeze indicator of the client portion, unlocking transmit, receive and lock reassertion threads of the client portion, and allowing renewal threads of the client portion to sent lease renewal messages.