Method for monitoring server sub-system health

• US 7,849,368 B2
• Filed: 04/10/2008
• Issued: 12/07/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 02/22/2002
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Oracle International Corporation (Oracle Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Oracle International Corporation (Oracle Corporation)
• Inventors: Srivastava, Rahul, Halpern, Eric M.
• Primary Examiner(s): Iqbal; Nadeem
• Application Number:
  US12/100,970
• Publication Number:
  US 20080215918A1
• Time in Patent Office: 971 Days
• Field of Search: 714 1- 4, 714/13, 714/15, 714/16, 714/18, 714/20, 714/21, 714/26, 714/27, 714/31, 714/37, 714/39, 714/47, 714/48
• US Class Current: 714/47.1
• 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 11/0757 by exceeding a time limit, i.e. time-out, e.g. watchdogs
• 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 11/3006 where the computing system is distributed, e.g. networked systems, clusters, multiprocessor systems multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/46; allocation of resources G06F9/50
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3055 Monitoring arrangements for monitoring the status of the computing system or of the computing system component, e.g. monitoring if the computing system is on, off, available, not available error or fault processing without redundancy G06F11/0703; error detection or correction by redundancy in data representation G06F11/08; error detection or correction by redundancy in operation G06F11/14; error detection or correction by redundancy in hardware G06F11/16
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3082 the data filtering being achieved by aggregating or compressing the monitored data

Abstract

A server self health monitor (SHM) system monitors the health of the server it resides on. The health of a server is determined by the health of all of a server'"'"'s sub-systems and deployed applications. The SHM may make health check inquiries to server sub-systems periodically or based on external trigger events. The sub-systems perform self health checks on themselves and provide sub-system health information to requesting entities such as the SHM. Sub-systems self health updates may be based on internal events such as counters or changes in status or based on external entity requests. Corrective action may be performed upon sub-systems by the SHM depending on their health status or the health status of the server. Corrective action may also be performed by a sub-system upon itself.

Claims

1. A method of monitoring the health of a server comprising:

registering a sub-system of the server with a server health monitor;

monitoring the sub-system by the server health monitor;

receiving a health update from the sub-system to the server health monitor wherein the health update provides information regarding the health of the sub-system;

determining health of the server by the server health monitor based at least in part upon the health update received from monitoring the sub-system;

performing a corrective action upon the sub-system, wherein the corrective action is based on the health of the sub-system; and

wherein a parameter specifies the maximum number of times the server can be restarted within a period of time specified by another parameter.

2. The method as claimed in claim 1 further comprising:

configuring the sub-system to be monitored by the server; and

transmitting information to the server health monitor indicating the sub-system is to be monitored by the server health monitor.

3. The method as claimed in claim 2 wherein said configuring the sub-system includes configuring a MBean residing in the sub-system.

4. The method as claimed in claim 1 wherein said monitoring the sub-system includes:

detecting a triggering event; and

performing a health status update on the sub-system by the sub-system, the sub-system determining a health information for the sub-system as a result of the health status update; and

processing the health information.

5. The method as claimed in claim 4 wherein the triggering event is a change in the status of the sub-system.

6. The method as claimed in claim 4 wherein the triggering event is an event occurring external to the sub-system, and the occurrence of the event is communicated to the sub-system.

7. The method as claimed in claim 4 wherein said monitoring the sub-system further comprises:

providing sub-system health information to an entity, the entity having requested the sub-system'"'"'s health information from the sub-system.

8. The method as claimed in claim 2 further comprising:

performing shutdown of the sub-system, and the sub-system unregistering from being monitored by the server health monitor.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein a node manager enables an administrator to start and kill servers remotely.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein a health update indicates that the sub-system is at one of multiple pre-defined health levels.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein health levels correspond to conditions, the conditions including good, failed, and between good and failed.

12. The method of claim 10, wherein the sub-system is set to the critical level if a minimum number of transactions have timed out.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein the health update is triggered periodically by a counter.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein the server health monitor determines that the server has failed if any critical sub-system has failed.

15. The method of claim 1, wherein the server health monitor determines that a sub-system has failed if the sub-system fails to respond.

16. The method of claim 1, wherein the server health monitor can shut down a failed sub-system.

17. The method of claim 1, wherein the server health monitor can shut down the server if a critical sub-system failed.

18. The method of claim 1, wherein all communication between a node manager and an administrative server is encrypted.

19. The method of claim 1, wherein the sub-system performs a health check upon itself and provides sub-system health information to requesting entities.

20. The method of claim 1, wherein the sub-system health updates are triggered by external entity requests, internal events such as counters, or changes in status.