Home Site Hashing for Distributed Server Data Consistency

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Solution Overview

Problem

Service providers face challenges in maintaining data consistency across multiple sites or server nodes, particularly during disruptions in communication, leading to issues with user identifier registration and availability.

Innovation Solution

A system that associates each user-specified identifier with a specific home site among multiple server nodes, using a hash function to determine the home site for registration, ensuring that only the home site processes the registration request and preventing duplicate registrations.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Reliability

If multiple sites or server nodes are used to provide network services, then service availability and redundancy are improved, but data consistency and integrity across sites deteriorate

Engineering Contradiction:
Improveservice availabilityVSAvoiddata consistency
Core Design Contradiction:
ReliabilityVSStability of the object's composition

Solution Approach 1:

The patent segments the service system into multiple independent sites or server nodes, each capable of providing services autonomously. This segmentation improves reliability through redundancy while the home site concept maintains data consistency by designating a primary responsible site for each user identifier.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #1Segmentation

Solution Approach 2:

The patent introduces an intermediary mechanism where the home site acts as a mediator for all operations related to a specific user identifier. This intermediary approach ensures that data consistency is maintained across distributed sites while allowing service availability to be improved through multiple access points.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #24Intermediary (Mediator)

2Stability of the object's composition

If user registration is handled centrally at one site, then data consistency is improved, but service availability and redundancy deteriorate

Engineering Contradiction:
Improvedata consistencyVSAvoidservice availability
Core Design Contradiction:
Stability of the object's compositionVSReliability

Solution Approach 1:

The patent applies local quality by allowing each site to have specific responsibilities for certain user identifiers based on the home site determination. This enables local processing and registration at appropriate sites while maintaining overall data consistency, thus improving both service availability and data consistency simultaneously.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #3Local quality

3Loss of time

If requests are routed to the closest site, then transmission latency is reduced, but data consistency deteriorates due to communication disruptions

Engineering Contradiction:
Improvetransmission latencyVSAvoiddata consistency
Core Design Contradiction:
Loss of timeVSStability of the object's composition

Solution Approach 1:

The patent performs preliminary action by determining the home site for each user identifier in advance and storing this information. This allows requests to be routed efficiently to the correct site while maintaining data consistency, as the home site assignment is established beforehand and communicated across the distributed system.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #10Preliminary action

Data Source

PatentEP2564344B1Method and apparatus for coordinating service information across multiple server nodes
Publication Date: 2020.02.12 NOKIA TECHNOLOGIES OY
  • EP2564344B1 patent drawingFigure 1
  • EP2564344B1 patent drawingFigure 2
  • EP2564344B1 patent drawingFigure 3

AI summary

An approach is provided for coordinating service information (e.g., account registration identifiers) across multiple server nodes. A server receives a request to register an identifier for an account. The server determines whether it is a home site for the identifier and processes the request based, at least in part, on the determination.