Concurrent execution of a first instance and a cloned instance of an application

• US 9,417,895 B2
• Filed: 06/13/2008
• Issued: 08/16/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 10/19/2007
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Kubisys, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Kubisys, Inc.
• Inventors: Safari, Tigran, Sawyers, Selvin, Acharya, Soubir, Urano, Shinichi
• Primary Examiner(s): Huisman, David J
• Application Number:
  US12/138,598
• Publication Number:
  US 20090150885A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,986 Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1433 during software upgrading
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1471 involving logging of persistent data for recovery
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/302 where the computing system component is a software system
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3664 Environments for testing or debugging software
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3684 for test design, e.g. generating new test cases
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3688 for test execution, e.g. scheduling of test suites
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3692 for test results analysis
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3696 Methods or tools to render software testable
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/80 of semi-structured data, e.g. markup language structured data such as SGML, XML or HTML content-based retrieval of web data G06F16/95
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/45583 Memory management, e.g. access or allocation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/45591 Monitoring or debugging support
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/45595 Network integration; Enabling network access in virtual machine instances
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/815 Virtual
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/84 Using snapshots, i.e. a logical point-in-time copy of the data
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/455 Emulation; Interpretation; Software simulation, e.g. virtualisation or emulation of application or operating system execution engines
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45533 Hypervisors; Virtual machine monitors
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45558 Hypervisor-specific management and integration aspects
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/542 Event management; Broadcasting; Multicasting; Notifications
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/00 Arrangements for maintenance, administration or management of data switching networks, e.g. of packet switching networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/14 Network analysis or design
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/50 : Network service management, e.g. ensuring proper service fulfilment according to agreements
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/70 : Admission control; Resource allocation
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1097 : 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]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/51 : Discovery or management thereof, e.g. service location protocol [SLP] or web services

Abstract

A cloned instance of an application is executed in a computing environment. The cloned instance and a first instance of the application execute concurrently and access shared data. In some examples, testing of the cloned instance includes interacting with the cloned instance to cause a result without interacting with the first instance, and monitoring the result.

Claims

1. A non-transitory machine-readable storage medium that stores a computer program for testing a computer application having a first instance executing in a computing environment, the computer program including executable instructions to cause a machine to:

execute a cloned instance of the application concurrently with execution of the first instance of the application, wherein executing the cloned instance includes interacting with the computing environment through a communication layer that modifies inbound and outbound communications to and from the cloned instance, said interacting including accessing data in a storage element of the computing environment, the storage element being shared with the first instance;

interact with the cloned instance to cause a result without interacting with the first instance through a storage system layer that;

(1) provides a duplicated computing environment that provides the cloned instance a view of data in the storage element relied upon by the first instance of the application, and (2) reconciles the duplicated computing environment with the computing environment in which the first instance is executing by removing data only relevant to incomplete events from a time-fixed data image based on state information associated with filtered write operations of data relied upon by the cloned instance of the application; and

monitor the result.

2. The machine-readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein the storage element stores the data relied upon by the cloned instance of the application and stores the data relied upon by the first instance of the application, and the instructions to interact with the cloned instance of the application comprise instructions to:

alter the data relied upon by the cloned instance of the application, by the storage layer, without altering the data relied upon by the first instance of the application.

3. The machine-readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein the instructions to interact with the cloned instance of the application comprise instructions to:

cause the cloned instance of the application to process input.

4. The machine-readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein the instructions to interact with the cloned instance of the application comprise instructions to:

perform one or more interactions specified in a workflow.

5. The machine-readable storage medium of claim 4, wherein the workflow comprises a sequence of task specifications, each task specification comprising either a single task or a set of tasks to be executed in parallel.

6. The machine-readable storage medium of claim 4, wherein the workflow is recorded in an Extensible Markup Language (XML) format.

7. The machine-readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein the communication layer masks communication between the first instance of the application and the cloned instance of the application.

8. The machine-readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein modifying the inbound and outbound communications to and from the cloned instance includes modifying addresses or names in the inbound and outbound communications.

9. The machine-readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein modifying the inbound and outbound communications to and from the cloned instance includes maintaining isolation between the first instance of the application and the cloned instance of the application.

10. The machine-readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein the communication layer limits usage demand on the computing environment in which the first instance is executing by throttling requests.

11. The machine-readable storage medium of claim 1, wherein the communication layer provides at least one virtual network to enable communication between multiple cloned instances executing in the duplicated computing environment.

12. A computer-implemented method of testing a computer application having a first instance executing in a computing environment, the method comprising:

executing a cloned instance of the application concurrently with execution of the first instance of the application, wherein executing the cloned instance includes interacting with the computing environment through a communication layer that modifies inbound and outbound communications to and from the cloned instance, said interacting including accessing data in a storage element of the computing environment, the storage element being shared with the first instance;

interacting with the cloned instance to cause a result without interacting with the first instance through a storage system layer that;

(1) provides a duplicated computing environment that provides the cloned instance a view of data in the storage element relied upon by the first instance of the application, and (2) reconciles the duplicated computing environment with the computing environment in which the first instance is executing by removing data only relevant to incomplete events from a time-fixed data image based on state information associated with filtered write operations of data relied upon by the cloned instance of the application; and

monitoring the result.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the storage element stores the data relied upon by the cloned instance of the application and stores the data relied upon by the first instance of the application, and interacting with the cloned instance of the application comprises:

executing instructions by the storage system layer to alter the data relied upon by the cloned instance of the application without altering the data relied upon by the first instance of the application.

14. The method of claim 12, wherein interacting with the cloned instance of the application comprises causing the cloned instance of the application to process input.

15. The method of claim 12, wherein interacting with the cloned instance of the application comprises performing one or more interactions specified in a workflow.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein the workflow comprises a sequence of task specifications, each task specification comprising either a single task or a set of tasks to be executed in parallel.

17. The method of claim 15, wherein the workflow is recorded in an Extensible Markup Language (XML) format.

18. The method of claim 12, wherein the communication layer masks communication between the first instance of the application and the cloned instance of the application.

19. The method of claim 12, wherein modifying the inbound and outbound communications to and from the cloned instance includes modifying addresses or names in the inbound and outbound communications.

20. The method of claim 12, wherein modifying the inbound and outbound communications to and from the cloned instance includes maintaining isolation between the first instance of the application and the cloned instance of the application.

21. The method of claim 12, wherein the communication layer limits usage demand on the computing environment in which the first instance is executing by throttling requests.

22. The method of claim 12, wherein the communication layer provides at least one virtual network to enable communication between multiple cloned instances executing in the duplicated computing environment.