Adding individual database failover/switchover to an existing storage component with limited impact

• US 8,275,907 B2
• Filed: 06/26/2008
• Issued: 09/25/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 06/26/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Thiel, Gregory, Wetmore, Alexander R., Kol, Ayla, Benfield, Rebecca, Kleewein, James, Sundaram, Naresh, Bansal, Yogesh, Wistrom, Mark, Kuppusamy, Manoharan
• Primary Examiner(s): TRUONG, LAN DAI T
• Application Number:
  US12/146,518
• Publication Number:
  US 20090327519A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,552 Days
• Field of Search: 709/239, 709/202, 709/203, 709/218, 709/223, 709/228
• US Class Current: 709/239
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/2025 using centralised failover control functionality
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/2038 with a single idle spare processing component
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/2041 with more than one idle spare processing component
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/00 Information retrieval; Database structures therefor; File system structures therefor
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/107 Computer-aided management of electronic mailing [e-mailing]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/56 Unified messaging, e.g. interactions between e-mail, instant messaging or converged IP messaging [CPM]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/025 for remote control or remote monitoring of applications
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1095 Replication or mirroring of data, e.g. scheduling or transport for data synchronisation between network nodes
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/563 Data redirection of data network streams
• 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

Abstract

High availability architecture that employs a mid-tier proxy server to route client communications to active data store instances in response to failover and switchover. The proxy server includes an active manager client that interfaces to an active manager in each of the backend servers. State information and configuration information are maintained separately and according to semantics consistent with needs of corresponding data, the configuration information changing less frequently and more available, the state information changing more frequently and less available. The active manager indicates to the proxy server which of the data storage instances is the currently the active instance. In the event that the currently active instance is inactive, the proxy server selects a different backend server that currently hosts the active data store instance. Client communications are then routed to the different backend server with minimal or no interruption to the client.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented data system, comprising:

a microprocessor;

a proxy component arranged for execution by the microprocessor configured to route communications between clients and backend servers;

configuration information configured to represent the proxy component as a data storage component that appears to host a plurality of associated backend data store instances, the representation facilitating high availability of data in response to failover at the backend servers; and

an active manager client as part of the proxy component configured to identify a backend server based on the configuration information and retrieving state information from the backend server, the state information stored and maintained separately from the configuration information, the state information including status information of the backend servers and associated backend data store instances, and which one of the plurality of backend data store instances is a currently active backend data store instance, the currently active backend data store instance receiving the communications routed from the clients via the proxy component based on the configuration information and the state information retrieved from the backend server.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the state information is stored and maintained separately from the configuration information.

3. The system of claim 1, further comprising the active manager client communicating to an active manager of the backend server to locate an active backend data store instance as part of failover and switchover.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the proxy component discards session information of a communications session between a client and the backend server when the session ends.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the backend servers and associated backend data store instances are made peer objects.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the backend servers are messaging storage servers having associated message data store instances, and the proxy component connects the clients to an active message data store instance from an inactive message data store instance during failover.

7. The system of claim 1, further comprising a referral component for processing a referral from a backend mailbox server to which a client attempts to interact, or a referral from the proxy component to the backend mailbox server, the referral indicates a different backend mailbox server that hosts an active mail data store instance.

8. A computer-implemented data system, comprising:

a microprocessor;

a proxy component arranged for execution by the microprocessor configured to route communications between messaging clients and messaging storage servers;

configuration information configured to represent the proxy component as a data storage component that appears to host a plurality of associated message data store instances, the representation facilitating high availability of data in response to failover at messaging storage servers; and

an active manager client as part of the proxy component that identifies the messaging store servers based on the configuration information and communicates with activate managers of the messaging storage servers to locate an active message data store instance in response to failover and to retrieve state information, the state information stored and maintained separately from the configuration information, the state information including status information of the messaging storage servers and associated message data store instances, and which one of the plurality of message data store instances is currently the active message data store instance, the currently active backend data store instance receiving the communications routed from the messaging clients via the proxy component based on the configuration information and the retrieved state information.

9. The system of claim 8, the state information stored and maintained separately from the configuration information.

10. The system of claim 8, wherein the state information and the configuration information are maintained separately according to semantics consistent with needs of corresponding data, the configuration information changing less frequently and more available, the state information changing more frequently and less available.

11. The system of claim 8, wherein the active manager client facilitates activation of a new message data store instance and begins directing the clients associated with a hub transport component, a mid-tier client access component, unified messaging component to the new active message data store instance.

12. The system of claim 8, wherein the messaging storage servers each include an active manager that communicates with the active manager client, the active manager client uses the configuration information to find the messaging storage servers and to direct queries to the associated active managers for the active message data store instance.

13. A computer-implemented data method for facilitating high availability of data in response to failover at the backend servers, comprising:

receiving client communications of a client at a mid-tier proxy server;

accessing, by a microprocessor, configuration information that defines backend servers of a server cluster for selection and for directing queries, and represents the mid-tier proxy server as a data storage component that appears to host one or more data store instances;

identifying the selected backend servers based on the configuration information;

querying the selected backend servers for a currently active data store instance;

routing the client communications via the mid-tier proxy server to an active backend server hosting the currently active data store instance; and

retrieving state information from the active backend server, the state information stored and maintained separately from the configuration information, the state information maintaining active and inactive states of data store instances and associated backend servers, the currently active data store instance receiving the routed client communications via the proxy component based on the configuration information and the state information retrieved from the backend server.

14. The method of claim 13, further comprising:

detecting that the currently active data store is inactive; and

routing the client communications to a newly selected active data store instance.

15. The method of claim 13, further comprising:

routing the client communications to the newly selected active data store instance based in part on the state information.

16. The method of claim 15, further comprising the state information and the configuration information maintained according to semantics consistent with needs of corresponding data, the configuration information changing less frequently but more available than the state information, which changes more frequently relative to the configuration information.

17. The method of claim 13, further comprising receiving a referral from a selected backend server to route the client communications to a different backend server, and routing the client communications to the different backend server.

18. The method of claim 13, wherein the mid-tier proxy server includes one of a hub transport role, a unified communications server role, or a client access server role.

19. The method of claim 13, further comprising representing the mid-tier proxy server as the data storage component in the configuration information to provide high availability failover and switchover of data stores instances associated with the backend servers.