Method and computer readable medium for providing checkpointing to windows application groups

• US 8,281,317 B1
• Filed: 12/15/2008
• Issued: 10/02/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 12/15/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Open Invention Network LLC
• Original Assignee: Open Invention Network LLC
• Inventors: Backensto, Keith Richard, Havemose, Allan
• Primary Examiner(s): Ho, Andy
• Assistant Examiner(s): Kim, Paul M
• Application Number:
  US12/334,666
• Time in Patent Office: 1,387 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 719/312
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1438 Restarting or rejuvenating
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1451 by selection of backup contents
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1464 for networked environments
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1469 Backup restoration techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1482 by means of middleware or OS functionality
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/2038 with a single idle spare processing component
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/825 the problem or solution involving locking
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/84 Using snapshots, i.e. a logical point-in-time copy of the data
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/522 Barrier synchronisation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/526 Mutual exclusion algorithms

Abstract

A computer readable medium and method for providing checkpointing to Windows application groups. The checkpointing may be triggered asynchronously using Asynchronous Procedure Calls. The computer readable medium includes computer-executable instructions for execution by a processing system. The computer-executable instructions may be for reviewing one or more command line arguments to determine whether to start at least one of the application groups, and when determining to start the at least one of the application groups, creating a process table in a shared memory to store information about each process of the at least one of the application groups. Further, the instructions may be for registering with a kernel module to create an application group barrier, creating a named pipe for applications of the application group to register and unregister, triggering a checkpoint thread to initiate an application group checkpoint; and launching an initial application of the applications of the application group.

Claims

1. A non-transitory computer readable medium for providing checkpointing to Windows application groups, the computer readable medium having computer-executable instructions for execution by a processing system, the computer-executable instructions for:

reviewing one or more command line arguments to determine whether to start at least one of the application groups;

when determining to start the at least one of the application groups, creating a process table in a shared memory to store information about each process of the at least one of the application groups;

registering with a kernel module to create an application group barrier-synchronization barrier;

creating a named pipe for applications of the at least one of the application groups to register and unregister;

triggering a checkpoint thread to initiate an application group checkpoint;

wherein the instructions are further for;

saving a state of each application; and

saving a group process table to a coordinator checkpoint file;

wherein the process table includes at least one of registration information;

a process identification; and

a binary path name of each process in the application group; and

wherein a name of the coordinator checkpoint file is a combination of a logical name of the application group, the process identification, and a checkpoint count; and

launching an initial application of applications of the at least one of the application groups;

wherein said one or more command line arguments are provided by a shell or programmatically.

2. The computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein the application'"'"'s checkpoint thread triggers, after being released from said barrier-synchronization barrier, checkpointing of application threads asynchronously using one or more Asynchronous Procedure Calls (APC).

3. The computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein the initial application is launched in a suspended state.

4. The computer readable medium of claim 3, wherein the instructions are further for at least one of filling a buffer with computer-executable instructions to load a checkpoint library, calling an initialization function of the checkpoint library, and jumping to an original entry point of the initial application.

5. The computer readable medium of claim 4, wherein the computer-executable instructions are further for inserting the buffer into an address space of the initial application and changing the entry point to begin executing a first instruction of the computer-executable instructions.

6. The computer readable medium of claim 5, wherein the computer-executable instructions are further for resuming starting of the initial application.

7. The computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein the instructions are further for passing at least one of application group checkpoint information and policies to the initial application through operating system environment variables.

8. The computer readable medium of claim 7, wherein the operating system environment variables comprise at least one of a process identification (PID) of a coordinator, a logical name of the at least one of the application groups, and a directory for storing checkpoints.

9. A method for providing checkpointing to Windows application groups, the method comprising:

starting an application;

creating a barrier-synchronization barrier;

executing computer-executable instructions contained in a buffer to load a checkpoint library;

initializing a checkpointer using the checkpoint library;

wherein the application'"'"'s checkpoint thread triggers checkpointing of application threads asynchronously using one or more Asynchronous Procedure Calls (APC) after said checkpoint thread has been released from a barrier-synchronization barrier;

wherein the initialization step comprises at least one of registering with a coordinator and a kernel module, mapping a process table of an application group of the application groups, creating a checkpoint thread, and installing function interceptors;

wherein the kernel module is operable to perform at least one of signaling an application'"'"'s threads to start a checkpoint, controlling a flow of execution during the checkpoint and a restore, and saving and restoring kernel attributes and objects; and

wherein when the kernel module is loaded into a kernel, further comprising registering a named device, and opening the device using the checkpoint library when the application is launched.

10. The method of claim 9, further comprising, when the checkpoint library is loaded, creating a set of objects that are used to record data and a computation state of the application processes.

11. The method of claim 9, wherein the kernel module is loaded and unloaded dynamically, with no changes to an operating system kernel.

12. A non-transitory computer readable medium for triggering and coordinating an application group checkpoint of an application group, the computer readable medium having computer-executable instructions for execution by a processing system, the computer-executable instructions for:

triggering an application group'"'"'s checkpoint by at least one of an elapsed defined period and an external programmatic trigger;

acquiring a checkpoint lock of the application group using the checkpoint thread; and

releasing the application checkpoint thread from a checkpoint barrier-synchronization barrier to trigger a checkpoint of each application in the application group;

wherein said trigger of checkpoint of each application in the application group is performed by Asynchronous Procedure Call (APC);

wherein the instructions are further for;

saving a state of each application; and

saving a group process table to a coordinator checkpoint file;

wherein the process table includes at least one of registration information;

a process identification;

a virtual process identification; and

a binary path name of each process in the application group; and

wherein a name of the coordinator checkpoint file is a combination of a logical name of the application group, the process identification, and a checkpoint count.

13. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 12, wherein the external programmatic trigger is an Asynchronous Procedure Call (APC).

14. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 12, wherein the instructions are further for:

waiting at a barrier-synchronization barrier for each process in the application group to complete a respective checkpoint;

releasing all threads in the application group from a final barrier-synchronization barrier;

resuming each application of the application group; and

releasing the checkpoint lock.