Systems and/or methods for intelligent and resilient failover for cloud computing environments

A non-transitory computer readable storage medium tangibly storing instructions that, when executed by at least one processor associated with a distributed computing system including a plurality of computing nodes cooperating to execute a shared application and/or service accessible by client computing devices over a network, perform functionality comprising:

• receiving a signal indicative of a potential problem with a component of the distributed computing system and/or the network;
• responsive to receipt of the signal, identifying, from a store including a plurality of rules, at least one rule to be executed to determine how to respond to the potential problem, the at least one rule being identified based on (a) attributes of the received signal including which component generated the signal and what information is included in and/or otherwise associated with it, and (b) other network-related data;
• executing the at least one identified rule to determine whether a failover is or might be needed;
• in response to a determination that a failover is needed, confirming that the failover is needed and, based on the confirming, selectively triggering a failover service to initiate a preprogrammed failover sequence;
• and
• in response to a determination that a failover might be needed, initiating operation of a resilience mode in which:
• information regarding the potential problem is communicated to one or more components of or connected to the distributed computing system, other than the component that generated the received signal, without immediately initiating a preprogrammed failover sequence;
• and
• the operation of the resilience mode is continued, without initiating a preprogrammed failover sequence, until one or more predefined conditions are met, at which point either (a) the operation of the resilience mode is cancelled and the failover service is triggered to initiate a preprogrammed failover sequence, or (b) the operation of the resilience mode is cancelled and the failover service is not triggered.

A distributed computing system, comprising:

• a plurality of computing nodes cooperating to execute a shared application and/or service accessible by client computing devices over a network;
• a failover service;
• and
• processing resources, including at least one processor, configured as a multiplexer for use with the distributed computing system, the multiplexer being configured to at least:
• receive a signal indicative of a potential problem with a component of the distributed computing system and/or the network;
• responsive to receipt of the signal, identify, from a store including a plurality of rules, at least one rule to be executed to determine how to respond to the potential problem, the at least one rule being identified based on (a) attributes of the received signal including which component generated the signal and what information is included in and/or otherwise associated with it, and (b) other network-related data;
• execute the at least one identified rule to determine whether a failover is or might be needed;
• in response to a determination that a failover is needed, confirm that the failover is needed and, based on the confirming, selectively trigger the failover service to initiate a preprogrammed failover sequence;
• and
• in response to a determination that a failover might be needed, initiate operation of a resilience mode in which:
• information regarding the potential problem is communicated to one or more components of or connected to the distributed computing system, other than the component that generated the received signal, without immediately initiating a preprogrammed failover sequence;
• and
• the operation of the resilience mode is continued, without initiating a preprogrammed failover sequence, until one or more predefined conditions are met, at which point either (a) the operation of the resilience mode is cancelled and the failover service is triggered to initiate a preprogrammed failover sequence, or (b) the operation of the resilience mode is cancelled and the failover service is not triggered.