Method to detect boot failure of peer compute node by determining if watchdog timers exceeds threshold of normal boot operation
AssigneeStratus Technologies Ireland Ltd.
InventorDerek Shute
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Abstract
In part, in one aspect, the disclosure relates to a method of monitoring an active compute node in a fault tolerant system. The method may include monitoring a boot process of a first compute node by interrogating one or more watchdog timers running on the first compute node during the boot process; determining a boot process outcome for the first compute node, wherein the boot process outcome is a failure if the one or more of the watchdog timers exceeds a threshold time indicative of normal boot operation; performing a first action if the outcome is a failure; and performing a second action if the outcome is not a failure.
Claims19
A method of monitoring an active compute node in a fault tolerant system comprising:
- monitoring a boot process of a first compute node, using a second compute node of the fault tolerant system, by interrogating one or more watchdog timers running on the first compute node during the boot process, wherein the first compute node is the active compute node;
- determining a boot process outcome for the first compute node, wherein the boot process outcome is a failure if the one or more of the watchdog timers exceeds a threshold time indicative of normal boot operation;
- performing a first action if the outcome is a failure;
- and
- performing a second action if the outcome is not a failure, wherein the second action is initiating a migration process such that the second compute node can take over for the first compute node with the second compute node becoming a new active compute node.
A fault tolerant computer system comprising:
- a first compute node comprising a Fault Resilient Boot (FRB) hardware device, wherein the FRB hardware device is configured to generate a set of watchdog timers, wherein each watchdog timer in the set corresponds to a phase or an event in a boot process;
- a communications interface;
- a management processor;
- and
- a second compute node, wherein the second compute node is in communication with the FRB hardware device using the communications interface,
- wherein the second compute node comprises the management processor,
- the management processor configured to read each watchdog timer in the set of watchdog timers,
- the management processor configured to determine if each watchdog timer exceeds a threshold time for its respective phase of the boot process, wherein not exceeding the threshold time for each respective timer corresponds to the normal operation of the compute node during the corresponding phase of the boot process.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.