Enterprise service availability through identity preservation

• US 20070168500A1
• Filed: 08/07/2006
• Published: 07/19/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 02/07/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Hewlett Packard Enterprise Development LP (Hewlett-Packard Enterprise Company)
• Original Assignee: Mimosa Systems Incorporated (Iron Mountain Incorporated)
• Inventors: Ravi, T.M., D'Souza, Roy
• Granted Patent: US 7,870,416 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/224
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1662 the resynchronized component or unit being a persistent storage device re-synchronization of failed mirror storage G06F11/2082; rebuild or reconstruction of parity RAID storage G06F11/1008
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/2028 eliminating a faulty processor or activating a spare
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/2038 with a single idle spare processing component
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/2048 where the redundant components share neither address space nor persistent storage
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/2097 maintaining the standby controller/processing unit updated initialisation or re-synchronisation thereof G06F11/1658 and subgroups
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 15/173 using an interconnection network, e.g. matrix, shuffle, pyramid, star, snowflake
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/252 between a Database Management System and a front-end application

Abstract

Systems and methods are described for service availability that provides automated recovery of server service in a timely and application intelligent manner, maintaining application consistency and integrity, while preserving server identity. The systems and methods, referred to herein as a Service Preservation System (SPS), manage complete recovery of server data and preserve continuity of server service, reestablishing user access to server(s) after an event or disaster in which in which primary or other server(s) fail. The failures, disasters, and losses referred to herein can be at many levels and include, but are not limited to, accidental deletion of an item, loss of an entire mailbox, loss of an entire disk drive, loss of an entire server, and/or loss of an entire server site.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

continuously shadowing one or more servers, the servers including application data that provides services to a plurality of clients;

generating and maintaining a copy of the application data on at least one near-line server during the shadowing; and

restoring the services to the clients using one or more standby servers in response to a detected failure of the one or more servers, the restoring including copying the copy of the application data from the near-line server to the standby server.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein each of the servers and the standby servers is identified and addressed independently.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the replica includes one or more portions of the data of one or more of the servers, the near-line server, and the standby servers.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the shadowing generates and maintains the replica of the data in near real-time on the near-line server, wherein the shadowing maintains complete integrity and consistency of the data.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the restoring includes preserving continuity of the services by automatically re-establishing access to the services by the clients.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the restoring includes restarting services corresponding to the data on the standby server.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the restoring includes rebinding mailboxes in a directory service to the standby server.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the restoring includes re-homing the clients.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the servers include one or more messaging and collaboration servers.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the data includes one or more of application data, databases, storage groups, mailbox data, and server data.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the servers include Exchange Servers.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein generating and maintaining the replica includes generating at least one data surrogate using information of the data and a plurality of data changes of the data received from the one or more servers.

13. The method of claim 12, further comprising updating the at least one data surrogate using information of at least one additional data change received from the one or more servers.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the updating is performed at least one of upon receipt of the at least one additional data change, subsequent to receipt of a plurality of additional data changes, and following processing operations on the at least one additional data change.

15. A method comprising:

continuously shadowing one or more live servers, the live servers including data that provides services to a plurality of clients;

generating and maintaining a replica of the data during the shadowing; and

automatically restoring the services to the clients in response to a detected failure of the one or more live servers, the restoring including copying the replica of the data to the one or more live servers.

16. Computer readable medium including executable instructions which, when executed in a processing system, provide service preservation by:

continuously shadowing one or more servers, the servers including application data that provides services to a plurality of clients;

generating and maintaining a replica of the application data on at least one near-line server during the shadowing; and

automatically restoring the services to the clients using one or more standby servers in response to a detected failure of the one or more servers, the restoring including copying the copy of the application data from the near-line server to the standby server.

17. The medium of claim 16, wherein each of the servers and the standby servers is identified and addressed independently.

18. The medium of claim 16, wherein the replica includes one or more portions of the data of one or more of the servers, the near-line server, and the standby servers.

19. The medium of claim 16, wherein the shadowing generates and maintains the replica of the data in near real-time on the near-line server, wherein the shadowing maintains complete integrity and consistency of the data.

20. The medium of claim 16, wherein the restoring includes one or more of preserving continuity of the services by automatically re-establishing access to the services by the clients, restarting services corresponding to the data on the standby server, rebinding mailboxes in a directory service to the standby server, re-homing the clients.

21. The medium of claim 16, wherein generating and maintaining the replica includes generating at least one data surrogate using information of the data and a plurality of data changes of the data received from the one or more servers.

22. The medium of claim 21, further comprising updating the at least one data surrogate using information of at least one additional data change received from the one or more servers, wherein the updating is performed at least one of upon receipt of the at least one additional data change, subsequent to receipt of a plurality of additional data changes, and following processing operations on the at least one additional data change.