US 2003/0120716 A1 · Fault tolerance associations for IP transport protocols

Abstract

The present disclosure addresses a system and method for failure tolerant communications using a transmission control protocol, preferably SCTP. In a preferred embodiment, an association is created between two instances of SCTP, where each instance is an endpoint. While an SCTP association provides for multiple IP addresses providing for multiple paths between the instances, it expressly does not provide for failover of the node occupied by the instance itself. The preferred embodiment provides a duplicate instance of SCTP on a separate node in the cluster which provides a hot back-up to the primary instance. The duplicate instance is maintained by replicating the state information for the association to keep the duplicate instance relatively synchronized with the primary instance.

Claims23

Dependent claims

A system for communicating between an outside computer and a cluster of computers comprising a first computer and a second computer, comprising:

a primary instance of a transmission control protocol resident on the first computer;
a primary data structure coupled to the primary instance describing the state of an association defining pathways between the cluster and the outside computer;
a secondary instance of a transmission control protocol resident on the second computer;
a secondary data structure coupled to the secondary instance replicated from the primary data structure;
an intra-cluster network coupling the first computer and the second computer;
a synchronization process coupled to the primary data structure and the secondary data structure replicating the primary data structure to the secondary data structure across the intra-cluster network to synchronize the structures;
wherein the primary instance comprises a first node in the association between the outside computer and the cluster and wherein the outside computer comprises an opposite node;
wherein the secondary instance comprises a second node in the association between the outside computer and the cluster;
wherein the association is configured such that the first node and the second node appear to the opposite node as different addresses for the same node.

6 more elements

A method of communicating between an outside computer and a first computer using a transmission control protocol comprising:

instantiating a primary instance of the transmission control protocol on the first computer;
instantiating a corresponding instance of the transmission control protocol on the outside computer;
instantiating a secondary instance of the transmission control protocol on a second computer coupled to the first computer;
building an association defining pathways of communication between the primary instance and the corresponding instance wherein the secondary instance is defined as an alternate address for the primary instance;
storing state information regarding the association in a primary data structure coupled to the primary instance but located on a separate computer from the primary instance and coupled to the secondary instance;
communicating between the primary instance and the corresponding instance through the pathways defined by the association using the transmission control protocol;
updating state information regarding the association in the primary data structure;
and
on failure of the first computer on which the primary instance resides, communicating between the secondary instance and the corresponding instance through the pathways defined by the association as stored in the primary data structure.

6 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Fault tolerance associations for IP transport protocols

Life of this patent

Fault tolerance associations for IP transport protocols

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims23