Method and apparatus for redundancy in an ATM using hot swap hardware underlying a virtual machine

• US 9,514,011 B2
• Filed: 03/21/2014
• Issued: 12/06/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 01/28/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Bank of America Corp.
• Original Assignee: Bank of America Corp.
• Inventors: Munson, Nicholas J., Twigg, David W., Farinella, Daniel J.
• Primary Examiner(s): McCarthy, Christopher
• Application Number:
  US14/221,464
• Publication Number:
  US 20140208157A1
• Time in Patent Office: 991 Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1402 Saving, restoring, recovering or retrying
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/203 using migration
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/805 Real-time
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/815 Virtual
• CPC Class Codes: G07F 19/20 Automatic teller machines [ATMs]
• CPC Class Codes: G07F 19/211 Software architecture within ATMs or in relation to the ATM network

Abstract

A method and apparatus for providing redundancy in an Automatic Teller Machine (ATM) is provided. Application software may be run on top of a virtual environment such as a virtual machine and/or a virtual disk environment. Should a software component fail, the virtual environment will “crash” but the ATM hardware and operating system will remain intact. If the software is fatally flawed—e.g., due to a faulty “upgrade” the older version may be “rolled back” from a previously stored virtual environment.

Claims

1. An automatic teller machine comprising:

at least one computer comprising;

at least one central processing unit;

at least one memory; and

at least one device interface;

at least one device connected to the device interface;

at least one software program running on the at least one computer comprising at least one virtual environment, wherein a failure in the at least one virtual environment does not cause a failure of the automatic teller machine; and

wherein the at least one virtual environment comprises at least two virtual environments, and wherein each of the two virtual environments simulates a hardware environment capable of supporting multiple applications, and wherein a failure in at least one of the at least two virtual environments triggers replacement of the at least one of the at least two virtual environments by another of the at least two virtual environments.

2. The device of claim 1 wherein at least one of the at least one virtual environment comprises at least one virtual machine(s).

3. The device of claim 2 wherein at least one of the at least one virtual machine comprises at least one virtual disk.

4. The device of claim 1 wherein at least one of the at least one virtual environment comprises at least one virtual disk.

5. The device of claim 4 wherein the at least one virtual disks comprise at least two virtual disks, wherein a failure in at least one virtual environment triggers replacement of the at least one of the at least two virtual disk(s) by another of the at least two virtual disks.

6. The device of claim 5 wherein at least one software program is restarted in the at least one virtual environment(s) utilizing the other of the at least two virtual disk(s).

7. The device of claim 1 wherein a failure in at least one hardware device triggers replacement of the at least one of the at least two virtual environments(s) by another of the at least two virtual environment(s).