Idempotent Job Preemption for Cloud System Consistency
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Solution Overview
Problem
In cloud-scale, distributed, and asynchronous network security systems, updating infrastructure with idempotent jobs leads to significant resource utilization and potential device failure or delay, necessitating rate-limiting that degrades administrator experience.
Innovation Solution
Implementing a method to identify and preempt idempotent jobs when subsequent jobs of the same type are received, allowing only one job to execute and deferring or removing others to conserve resources and ensure eventual consistency.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If jobs are submitted at a high rate to update infrastructure, then system consistency is improved, but resource utilization increases leading to device failure and delays
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary identification of duplicate jobs before execution. When a job is submitted, the system checks if an identical job (same type and identifier) is already in the queue or being executed, and preemptively marks it for skipping, preventing redundant resource consumption before it occurs.
Solution Approach 2:
The system implements a feedback mechanism where job status (deferred, preempted, removed) is tracked and communicated back to the job management process. This feedback allows the system to adjust job submission and execution dynamically, preventing resource exhaustion by informing administrators about duplicate job detection.
2Loss of energy
If rate-limiting is applied to control job submission, then resource utilization is reduced, but administrator experience degrades and additional delay is introduced
Solution Approach 1:
The system provides self-service functionality by automatically detecting and filtering duplicate jobs without requiring administrator intervention. The intelligent job management system autonomously identifies redundant submissions and marks them for skipping, eliminating the need for manual rate-limiting while preserving administrator workflow.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent replaces the mechanical approach of rate-limiting (which artificially restricts job submission rates) with an intelligent filtering mechanism that selectively processes only necessary jobs. This substitution uses logic-based identification of duplicate jobs rather than blunt rate controls, maintaining administrator freedom while conserving resources.
3Reliability
If all submitted jobs are executed, then complete coverage is achieved, but significant delay occurs in job execution and system consistency
Solution Approach 1:
The system extracts and removes redundant jobs from the execution queue before processing. By identifying jobs with matching types and identifiers that are already being executed or deferred, the system takes out unnecessary duplicates from the processing stream, reducing total execution time while maintaining complete coverage of necessary updates.
Solution Approach 2:
The system discards duplicate jobs that have already been submitted and are pending or executing, recognizing that re-execution would be redundant. This discarding mechanism prevents time waste on duplicate processing while ensuring that the original job completion will achieve the desired system consistency.
Data Source
AI summary
Methods, non-transitory computer readable media, workload management devices, and network traffic management systems that optimize systems with idempotent workloads are illustrated. With this technology, an identification is made when a status indicates a jobs is deferred. A determination is then made when the job is preempted based on a type of the job, when the identification indicates the job is deferred and the type and an identifier of the job matches another job. Another status is adjusted to indicate the other job is deferred. The status is then modified to indicate that the job is preempted, or the job is removed, when the determination indicates the job is preempted. Accordingly, jobs are selectively preempted, such as based on idempotency of the associated workload, to achieve intended consistent states for objects faster, with increased reliability, and with reduced overhead.