Distributed Provisioning Checkpoint Rollback Mechanism
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Existing methods for provisioning software components in data centers face challenges with failure recovery due to the difficulty in taking consistent distributed checkpoints, leading to incomplete rollback capabilities and manual intervention.
Innovation Solution
A system and method that define a global state representing the overall provisioning state of multiple components, enabling incremental state transitions and rollback procedures to revert to previous checkpoints in case of failures, facilitating automated recovery.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If traditional provisioning methods are used with manual or automated tools, then software components can be installed and configured, but failure during installation results in scrapping the provisioning run and requires manual intervention to restart
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary actions by capturing the global state of all software components at checkpoint intervals during provisioning. This pre-captured state information enables automatic recovery without manual intervention, as the system can revert to known good states when failures occur.
Solution Approach 2:
The provisioning system implements self-service through automated failure detection and recovery mechanisms. When a failure is detected, the system automatically identifies the last consistent global state checkpoint and initiates rollback procedures without requiring human intervention, allowing the provisioning process to resume autonomously.
2Adaptability or versatility
If individual software components are independently installed and configured, then each component can be managed separately, but selective unconfiguration/uninstallation becomes difficult due to inter-component configuration links
Solution Approach 1:
The system segments the provisioning process into independent, manageable units by establishing discrete global state checkpoints that capture the state of individual components. This segmentation allows selective rollback of specific components to previous states without affecting others, enabling easy unconfiguration and reconfiguration of individual components.
Solution Approach 2:
The global state checkpoint mechanism acts as an intermediary layer between individual software components. This intermediary captures and manages the state of each component independently, allowing selective modification, removal, or reconfiguration of individual components while maintaining awareness of their relationships through the checkpoint system.
3Reliability
If checkpoint/restart techniques are applied to single process components, then installation and failure recovery of related components within a single node can be achieved, but consistent distributed checkpointing across multiple nodes remains infeasible
Solution Approach 1:
The system implements a universal checkpointing mechanism that functions across distributed nodes in a standardized manner. The global state checkpoint captures information from multiple nodes using a consistent format and methodology, making the checkpointing process feasible across distributed environments without requiring complex node-specific implementations.
Solution Approach 2:
The system merges the state information from multiple distributed nodes into a unified global state checkpoint. By combining the state of individual components across different nodes into a single coherent checkpoint representation, the system achieves consistent distributed checkpointing without requiring complex coordination protocols between nodes.
Data Source
AI summary
A system and method for associating a state with a distributed system and transitioning component states with recovery to reverse transitioning attempts includes defining a global state representing an overall provisioning state of a plurality of components involved in a system wherein a set of global states are employed as provisioning checkpoints. Individual software component methods are defined for transitioning from one state to another. Individual states are associated with a global state. A rollback method is defined by which a destination global state may be rolled back to a previous global state in an event of a failure.