Container-Based Application Reification with Secondary Storage Pointers
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing technologies face challenges in efficiently preserving and recreating the state of applications and their data across different computing environments, particularly in scenarios where data needs to be restored from secondary repositories without disrupting the primary production environment.
Innovation Solution
The use of software containers to encapsulate application configurations and data versions, allowing for the creation of templates that include pointers to secondary storage, enabling the recreation of a specific application state without requiring data restoration from secondary storage.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If data is restored from secondary storage repositories to recreate application state, then data integrity and operational consistency are ensured, but extensive data transfer and system disruption occur
Solution Approach 1:
The system segments application state into two independent components: application configuration (stored in container templates) and data (stored in secondary repositories). This segmentation allows the application configuration to be recreated quickly without requiring data transfer, while data integrity is maintained through pointers to the original data locations.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces container templates as an intermediary that contains pointers to data in secondary storage repositories. These templates act as mediators that enable application state recreation without direct data transfer, thus maintaining data integrity while eliminating extensive data transfer time.
2Reliability
If data is restored from secondary storage repositories to recreate application state, then operational consistency is ensured, but system disruption occurs
Solution Approach 1:
By segmenting application state into configuration and data components, the system allows configuration recreation through lightweight container templates while leaving data intact in secondary repositories. This eliminates system disruption while ensuring operational consistency through the use of pointers to original data.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent creates copies of application configuration in the form of container templates that contain pointers to data. These templates can be rapidly instantiated to recreate application state without copying or moving the actual data, thus maintaining system availability while ensuring operational consistency.
3Loss of time
If container templates include pointers to secondary storage, then data transfer is reduced, but template complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The container template serves as an intermediary structure that contains simplified pointers to data in secondary repositories. While the overall system architecture becomes more complex, the template itself remains a lightweight structure that dramatically reduces data transfer time compared to traditional restoration methods.
Data Source
AI summary
Embodiments disclosed herein provide systems, methods, and computer readable media for container based application reification. In a particular embodiment, an application reification system is provided including one or more computer readable storage media and a processing system operatively coupled with the one or more computer readable storage media. The application reification system further includes program instructions stored on the one or more computer readable storage media that, when read and executed by the processing system, direct the processing system to preserve a version of application data at a first time and a configuration of an application at the first time. At a second time subsequent to the first time, the program instructions direct the processing system to create a template for a container containing the application in the configuration and a pointer to the version of the application data in a secondary storage repository.