System and method for application monitoring and automatic disaster recovery for high-availability

• US 7,426,652 B2
• Filed: 09/09/2003
• Issued: 09/16/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 09/09/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: MessageOne, Inc. (Dell Technologies Inc.)
• Original Assignee: MessageOne, Inc. (Dell Technologies Inc.)
• Inventors: Jones, Kelly M., Liccione, John
• Primary Examiner(s): Baderman; Scott T.
• Assistant Examiner(s): Contino; Paul F
• Application Number:
  US10/657,561
• Publication Number:
  US 20040158766A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,834 Days
• Field of Search: 714/6, 714/3
• US Class Current: 714/3
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/2023 Failover techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/2038 with a single idle spare processing component
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/046 comprising network management agents or mobile agents therefor
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0654 using network fault recovery ring fault isolation or reconfiguration in loop networks without recovery actions by a network management system H04L12/437
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/22 comprising specially adapted graphical user interfaces [GUI]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0817 by checking functioning

Abstract

Stable and automated recovery of an application executing on a primary computer system by transitioning to a secondary computer system is provided. Intelligent agents installed on a primary client server allow the primary environment to be replicated on a host, secondary environment. This creates continuous availability of applications executing on the primary system via the mirrored host environment. Every transaction on the client environment (e.g., every piece of data) is replicated in real-time on the host environment. A simple mechanism (e.g., a button) is provided to allow access to the secondary environment thereby switching over from the client environment to the host environment in the case of, with respect to the primary environment, a disaster, a need to perform maintenance, system failure and the like.

Claims

1. A method for providing a user with an application monitoring and disaster recovery management tool, comprising the steps of:

deploying a first plurality of intelligent agents within a primary computing environment, said primary computing environment including a primary server executing an application, and wherein each of said first plurality of intelligent agents monitors a metric related to said application;

monitoring, by a monitoring and management server module executing on a management server, a plurality of states, each of said plurality of states being rendered by one of said first plurality of intelligent agents, wherein said management server is in communication with said primary computing environment and a secondary computing environment;

displaying to a user, via a graphical user interface in communications with said monitoring and management server module, said plurality of states; and

performing a failure switch-over from said primary computing environment to a secondary computing environment having a secondary server capable of executing said application in response to a first input received from said user via said graphical interface, wherein said first input is received by said monitoring and management server module as a result of a button click by the user on said graphical user interface;

whereby said method allows for disaster recovery and fault tolerance, and limits computing down-time experienced by end users of said primary computing environment.

2. A method for providing a user with an application monitoring and disaster recovery management tool, comprising the steps of:

deploying a first plurality of intelligent agents within a primary computing environment, said primary computing environment including a primary server executing an application, and wherein each of said first plurality of intelligent agents monitors a metric related to said application;

monitoring, by a monitoring and management server module executing on a management server, a plurality of states, each of said plurality of states being rendered by one of said first plurality of intelligent agents, wherein said management server is in communication with said primary computing environment and a secondary computing environment;

displaying to the user, via a graphical user interface in communications with said monitoring and management server module, said plurality of states; and

performing a failure switch-over from said primary computing environment to a secondary computing environment having a secondary server capable of executing said application in response to a first input received from the user via said graphical interface;

performing a switch-back from said secondary computing environment to said primary computing environment in response to a second input received from the user via said graphical interface, wherein said second input is received by said monitoring and management server module and as a result of a button click by the user on said graphical user interface;

whereby said method allows for disaster recovery and fault tolerance, and limits computing down-time experienced by end users of said primary computing environment.

3. An article of manufacture for providing a user with an application monitoring and disaster recovery management tool, the article of manufacture comprising:

a computer usable storage medium; and

processor instructions stored on said computer usable storage medium for causing a computer to;

deploy a plurality of intelligent agents within a primary computing environment, said primary computing environment including a primary server executing an application, and wherein each of said plurality of intelligent agents monitors a metric related to said application;

monitor a plurality of states, each of said plurality of states being rendered by one of said plurality of intelligent agents;

display to the user, via a graphical user interface, said plurality of states; and

perform a failure switch-over from said primary computing environment to a secondary computing environment having a secondary server capable of executing said application in response to a single action input received from the user via said graphical user interface, wherein said single action is a button click by the user on said graphical user interface.

4. The article of manufacture of claim 3, wherein said application is an electronic mail application, and further comprising:

processor instructions for causing the computer to temporarily change the hostname of said secondary server to the hostname of said primary server.

5. The article of manufacture of claim 3, wherein said the processor instructions for causing the computer to deploy a plurality of intelligent agents comprises:

processor instructions for causing the computer to query said application once every pre-determined time period in order for each said plurality of intelligent agents to monitor said corresponding metric related to said application.