Prioritized Failure Log Transfer for Remote Diagnostics
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing systems face challenges in accessing and transferring failure event log data from a host node experiencing system failure, particularly due to network instability, bandwidth limitations, and storage constraints, which can hinder the determination of the cause of the failure.
Innovation Solution
A method that detects system failures and prioritizes a subset of log files based on descending priority for transfer to a remote storage device, ensuring that critical data is collected and stored before a complete system failure or loss of connection, thereby facilitating diagnosis.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Loss of information
If all log files are transferred to ensure complete failure data collection, then the completeness of failure analysis data is improved, but the bandwidth consumption and transfer time increase significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts and prioritizes only the most critical log files and data elements needed for failure analysis. By identifying and selecting high-priority log files (such as system logs, error logs, and crash dumps) rather than transferring all available logs, the system achieves sufficient diagnostic information while significantly reducing bandwidth consumption and transfer time.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent segments the log data into priority levels (high, medium, low) and transfers segments in order of priority. This segmentation allows the system to transfer critical failure data first, ensuring diagnostic completeness while limiting total data volume. Lower priority logs can be transferred later or omitted if bandwidth is constrained.
2Reliability
If log data is transferred immediately after system failure to ensure data availability, then the reliability of data collection is improved, but the risk of connection loss or network failure during transfer increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements preliminary actions by immediately identifying and prioritizing critical log files at the moment of failure detection, before attempting transfer. The system prepares the high-priority data subset for transfer and initiates the transfer process immediately, maximizing the window of opportunity while the host node is still accessible. This preliminary prioritization ensures that even if the connection is lost during transfer, the most critical data is already in transit or queued for transfer.
3Quantity of substance
If limited storage capacity is used for remote log storage to reduce costs, then the storage efficiency is improved, but the ability to store complete failure data sets is reduced
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts only the essential failure diagnostic data needed for effective analysis, excluding redundant or low-value log files. By carefully selecting high-priority log files (system logs, error logs, application crash dumps) and excluding lower-priority data, the system achieves sufficient diagnostic completeness while adhering to storage capacity constraints.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent applies different quality standards to different log files based on their diagnostic value. High-priority logs receive full retention and transfer, while medium and low-priority logs are selectively retained or omitted. This differential approach ensures that limited storage capacity is allocated to the most diagnostically valuable data, maintaining analysis effectiveness within storage constraints.
4Productivity
If network constraints are considered to reduce transfer size, then the transfer feasibility is improved, but the risk of insufficient diagnostic information increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent performs preliminary identification and prioritization of critical log files before the transfer process begins. By pre-selecting high-priority data subsets based on failure type and diagnostic importance, the system ensures that even reduced transfers contain sufficient diagnostic information. This preliminary action allows the system to adapt transfer size to network constraints while maintaining diagnostic adequacy.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent dynamically adjusts transfer parameters (data subset selection, compression level, transfer timing) based on network conditions and failure characteristics. By changing these parameters, the system optimizes the balance between transfer feasibility and diagnostic information sufficiency, ensuring that transferred data is both manageable in size and sufficient for effective failure analysis.
Data Source
AI summary
Apparatus and computer program product including program instructions configured to cause a processor to perform operations. The operations may include detecting a system failure in a host node, wherein the host node locally stores log files during operation of the host node. The operations may further include receiving a request for failure event log data stored by the host node, and identifying an amount of available storage capacity of a designated remote data storage device, prioritizing data from the log files to be included in the failure event log data, and selecting a subset of the failure event log data in order of descending priority until the total amount of the selected data would substantially fill the remote data storage device. Still further, the operations may include transferring, in response to receiving the request, the selected subset of the data to the designated remote data storage device.