Asynchronous checkpointing with audits in high availability networks

• US 8,041,994 B2
• Filed: 01/09/2009
• Issued: 10/18/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 01/09/2009
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: RPX Corporation
• Original Assignee: Alcatel-Lucent SA (Nokia Corporation)
• Inventors: Wilford, Paul, Sharma, Sameer, Grinshpun, Ed
• Primary Examiner(s): Wilson, Yolanda L
• Application Number:
  US12/318,850
• Publication Number:
  US 20100180106A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,012 Days
• Field of Search: 714/15, 714/4.11, 714/4.12
• US Class Current: 714/15
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1438 Restarting or rejuvenating
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/2038 with a single idle spare processing component
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/2097 maintaining the standby controller/processing unit updated initialisation or re-synchronisation thereof G06F11/1658 and subgroups
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/82 Solving problems relating to consistency ensuring consistency in mirrored systems G06F11/2064
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0668 by dynamic selection of recovery network elements, e.g. replacement by the most appropriate element after failure

Abstract

Example embodiments are directed to methods of ensuring high availability of a network using asynchronous checkpointing of application state data related to an object. Example embodiments include a method of asynchronous checkpointing application state data related to at least one object, including receiving application events and processing the application events to obtain new application state data. The method further includes modifying at least a portion of previously stored application state data and asynchronously and independently checkpointing the modified application state data based on whether the modified application state data has reached a stable state. Example embodiments also include a method of ensuring consistent application state data across a network. This method may include having at least two CAPs independently and asynchronously storing application state data related to at least one object at two different network nodes and automatically auditing the stored application state data to ensure data consistency.

Claims

1. A method of asynchronous checkpointing application state data related to at least one object, comprising:

receiving application events related to the at least one object by at least one cooperating application process (CAP) at a network node;

processing the received application events to obtain new application state data;

modifying at least a portion of a previously stored set of application state data with the new application state data; and

asynchronously and independently checkpointing the modified application state data based on whether the modified application state data has reached a stable state.

2. The method of claim 1, further including:

repeating the asynchronously and independently checkpointing step.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the application state data is a subset of a larger set of application state data.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the checkpointed application state data is stored at a local network node and at a remote network node.

5. The method of claim 1, further including:

automatically auditing the checkpointed state data.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein, the automatically auditing includes,

running at least one of the following types of audits, I) auditing run-time data consistency of the object data across at least a second CAP and the at least one CAP, II) auditing between run-time data and locally checkpointed data for the at least one CAP, III) auditing locally checkpointed data and remotely stored data for a specific object, and IV) auditing non-specific records for the same object.

7. A method of ensuring consistent application state data across CAPs in the same network element, and between Active(s) and Standby network nodes comprising:

independently and asynchronously, by at least two CAPs, storing subsets of application state data related to at least one object at different network nodes;

checkpointing at least one of the subsets of application state data based on whether the at least one of the subsets of application state data has reached a stable state; and

automatically auditing the stored application state data to ensure data consistency.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein, the automatically auditing includes,

running at least one of the following types of audits, I) auditing run-time data consistency of the object data across the at least two CAPs, II) auditing between run-time data and locally checkpointed data for at least one of the at least two CAPs, III) auditing locally checkpointed data and remotely stored data for a specific object, and IV) auditing non-specific records for the same object.

9. The method of claim 7, wherein automatically auditing further includes,

restoring the application state data of the at least one object after one of the different network nodes fails by synchronizing the application state data between the at least two CAPs.

10. The method of claim. 9, wherein the restoring includes state data related to multiple objects.

11. The method of claim 7, wherein the stored dynamic persistent application state data are different subsets of a larger set of dynamic persistent application state data related to the object.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the different subsets of dynamic persistent application state data are stored by different CAPs.

13. A method of ensuring high availability of a network comprising:

applying the method of claim 7 to at least a portion of nodes across the network.