Recovering usability of cloud based service from system failure

• US 9,436,553 B2
• Filed: 08/04/2014
• Issued: 09/06/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 08/04/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Inventors: Sadovsky, Art, Sadykov, Timur, Premaraj, Ashish, Narayanan, Venkat, Ojha, Smita
• Primary Examiner(s): GUYTON, PHILIP A
• Application Number:
  US14/451,369
• Publication Number:
  US 20160034355A1
• Time in Patent Office: 764 Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• 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 11/0751 Error or fault detection not based on redundancy power supply failures G06F1/30; network fault management H04L41/06
• 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 11/142 Reconfiguring to eliminate the error group management mechanisms in a peer-to-peer network H04L67/1044
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3414 Workload generation, e.g. scripts, playback
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3438 monitoring of user actions tracking the activity of the user H04L67/535
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/805 Real-time
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/86 Event-based monitoring
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/10 in which an application is distributed across nodes in the network software deployment G06F8/60; multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/46
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/30 Profiles
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/535 Tracking the activity of the user network monitoring arrangements H04L43/00; recording of computer activity G06F11/34

Abstract

Usability of a cloud based service is recovered from a system failure. A customer transaction associated with the customer experience is executed to simulate the customer experience in the cloud based service. A failure associated with a subsystem the cloud based service is detected from an output of the customer transaction. A recovery action is determined to be associated with the failure. The recovery action is executed on the subsystem and monitored to determine a success status.

Claims

1. A method executed on a computing device to recover usability of a cloud based service from a failure, the method comprising:

simulating a customer transaction associated with a customer experience;

detecting the failure associated with the cloud based service from an output of the customer transaction;

determining a recovery action associated with the failure;

executing the recovery action;

monitoring the recovery action to determine a success status associated with the recovery action; and

selecting the customer experience from a set of customer experiences associated with a health monitoring of the cloud based service, wherein the customer experience is selected based on a criteria that includes at least one from a set of;

a frequency of use, a historical use distribution, and a recentness of use.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving a selection of the customer experience from a set of customer experiences associated with a health monitoring of the cloud based service, wherein the selection is made by a stakeholder including one from a set of a customer associated with the customer experience and an administrator of the cloud based service.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining the customer experience storing the customer transaction along with one or more other customer transactions; and

simulating the one or more other customer transactions to detect the failure or one or more other failures associated with the cloud based service.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

mapping the failure to a subsystem associated with the cloud based service; and

executing the recovery action on the subsystem to restore the subsystem to a healthy status.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

mapping the failure to a failed subsystem associated with the cloud based service; and

executing the recovery action to reroute one or more processes associated with the failed subsystem to a healthy subsystem that provides failover functionality.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

tracking one or more metrics associated with the customer experience while monitoring the recovery action to determine that the one or more metrics are above one or more thresholds associated with the success status.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

matching the failure to the recovery action from a list of recovery actions.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

in response to a determination that the success status is negative, determining another recovery action that is associated with the failure; and

executing the other recovery action.

9. The method of claim 8, further comprising:

monitoring the other recovery action to determine the success status associated with the other recovery action.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

generating the failure from the output by analyzing the output to differentiate one or more failed subsystems associated with the cloud based service.

11. A computing device to recover usability of a cloud based service from a failure, the computing device comprising:

a memory;

a processor coupled to the memory, the processor executing a management application in conjunction with instructions stored in the memory, wherein the management application is configured to;

simulate a customer transaction associated with a customer experience, wherein the customer experience stores the customer transaction;

detect the failure associated with the cloud based service from an output of the customer transaction;

determine a recovery action associated with the failure;

execute the recovery action;

monitor the recovery action to determine a success status associated with the recovery action; and

select the customer experience from a set of customer experiences associated with a health monitoring of the cloud based service, wherein the customer experience is selected based on a criteria that includes at least one from a set of;

a frequency of use, a historical use distribution, and a recentness of use.

12. The computing device of claim 11, wherein the management application is further configured to:

generate a report that includes information associated with the failure; and

transmit the report to a stakeholder associated with the cloud based system, wherein the stakeholder includes a customer associated with the customer experience and an administrator of the cloud based system.

13. The computing device of claim 11, wherein the management application is further configured to:

generate a report that includes information associated with the recovery action and the success status; and

transmit the report to a stakeholder associated with the cloud based system, wherein the stakeholder includes a customer associated with the customer experience and an administrator of the cloud based system.

14. The computing device of claim 11, wherein the management application is further configured to:

analyze the output to determine one or more criteria that includes at least one from a set of;

identification information of one or more subsystems associated with the cloud based service that are failing, a number of the one or more subsystems that are failing, and a pattern associated with the one or more subsystems that are failing.

15. The computing device of claim 14, wherein the management application is further configured to:

include the one or more criteria in the failure; and

map the failure to the recovery action based on the criteria.

16. The computing device of claim 11, wherein the management application is further configured to:

generate an availability number from metrics associated with one or more subsystems of the cloud based service within the output;

determine the failure in response to a determination that the availability number is less than a threshold, wherein the threshold is configurable by an administrator of the cloud based service.

17. A computer-readable memory device with instructions stored thereon to recover usability of a cloud based service from a failure, the instructions comprising:

simulating a customer transaction associated with a customer experience, wherein the customer experience stores the customer transaction;

detecting the failure associated with the cloud based service from an output of the customer transaction;

determining a recovery action associated with the failure;

executing the recovery action;

monitoring the recovery action to determine a success status associated with the recovery action;

generating a report that includes information associated with the failure, the recovery action, and the success status;

transmitting the report to a stakeholder associated with the cloud based system, wherein the stakeholder includes a customer associated with the customer experience and an administrator of the cloud based system; and

tracking one or more metrics associated with the customer experience while monitoring the recovery action to determine that the one or more metrics are above one or more thresholds associated with the success status.

18. The computer-readable memory device of claim 17, wherein the instructions further comprise:

in response to a determination that the success status is negative, determining another recovery action that is associated with the failure;

executing the other recovery action; and

monitoring the other recovery action to determine the success status associated with the other recovery action.

19. The computer-readable memory device of claim 17, wherein the instructions further comprise:

analyzing the output to determine one or more criteria that includes at least one from a set of;

identification information of one or more subsystems associated with the cloud based service that are failing, a number of the one or more subsystems that are failing, and a pattern associated with the one or more subsystems that are failing;

including the one or more criteria in the failure; and

mapping the failure to the recovery action based on the criteria.