US 7,681,075 B2 · Method and system for providing high availability to distributed computer applications

Abstract

Method, system, apparatus and/or computer program for achieving transparent integration of high-availability services for distributed application programs. Loss-less migration of sub-programs from their respective primary nodes to backup nodes is performed transparently to a client which is connected to the primary node. Migration is performed by high-availability services which are configured for injecting registration codes, registering distributed applications, detecting execution failures, executing from backup nodes in response to failure, and other services. High-availability application services can be utilized by distributed applications having any desired number of sub-programs without the need of modifying or recompiling the application program and without the need of a custom loader. In one example embodiment, a transport driver is responsible for receiving messages, halting and flushing of messages, and for issuing messages directing sub-programs to continue after checkpointing.

Claims23

Dependent claims

A method of fault protection for applications distributed across multiple computer nodes, comprising:

providing high-availability application services for transparently loading applications, registering applications for protection, detecting faults in applications, and initiating recovery of applications;
taking checkpoints, by said high-availability application services, of one or more sub-programs within applications executing across multiple computer nodes;
flushing and halting a transport connection during said taking checkpoints in response to execution of a transport control layer interposed between a distributed application and the transport connection;
wherein the transport connection itself is not responsible for the flushing and the halting of transport traffic;
restoring said one or more sub-programs from said checkpoints in response to initiating recovery of one or more said applications by said high-availability application services;
wherein said high-availability application services are provided to said one or more sub-programs running on a primary node, while at least one backup node stands ready in the event of a fault and subsequent recovery;
and
coordinating execution of individual sub-programs within a coordinator program which is executed on a node accessible to the multiple computer nodes.

5 more elements

A computer executable program stored in memory for loss-less migration of a distributed application program, said program comprising:

a high-availability services module configured for execution in conjunction with an operating system upon which at least one application can be executed on one or more computer nodes of a distributed system;
and
programming within said high-availability services module executable on said computer nodes for loss-less migration of sub-programs within said at least one application for, checkpointing of all states in a transport connection, coordinating checkpointing of the state of the transport connection across the distributed system, restoring all states in the transport connection to the state they were in at the last checkpoint, coordinating recovery within a restore procedure that is coupled to the transport connection
flushing and halting the transport connection during said checkpointing in response to execution of a transport control layer interposed between the distributed application program and the transport connection;
wherein the transport connection itself is not responsible for the flushing and the halting of transport traffic.

2 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Method and system for providing high availability to distributed computer applications

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Method and system for providing high availability to distributed computer applications

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims23