Lucent Technologies Inc.

Alcatel Lucent

Ncr Corporation

8631654 Canada Inc.

Dale F Rathunde

Jerome Edward Rog

William E Witt

William E Barker

Deepak Elandassery

John H Pokropinski

Reginald L Allen

Bonnie Lewis Prokopowicz

Debra K Haddad

Jorge D Penaranda

Susan A Lee

James P Schoonover

Raymond D Smith

Saju George Oommen

Paul M Susa

Antonio J M Ransom

John A Dziadosz

A system allowing for path monitoring and notification in a system of switching elements and processing elements is provided. An exemplary technique uses a monitoring and notification module configured to generate and output monitoring messages across multiple paths defined by the plurality of switching elements and the plurality of processing elements, detect a fault in the system based on the monitoring messages, and generate and output multiple alert messages across the multiple paths to initiate recovery from the fault As such, a single element (or group of elements) does not become isolated from the rest of the elements in the system.

Method and system for traffic flow and link management using domain notifications

Methods and systems are presented for updating software applications in a processor cluster, in which the cluster is divided into first and second processor groups and the first group is isolated from clients and from the second group with respect to network and cluster communications by application of IP filters. The first group of processors is updated or retrofitted with the new software and brought to a ready-to-run state while the second group is active to serve clients. The first group is then transitioned to an in-service state after isolating the then-active service providing application on second group. Thereafter, the second group of processors is offlined, updated or retrofitted, and transitioned to an in-service state to complete the installation of the new application version across the cluster with reduced or zero downtime and without requiring backward software compatibility.

Apparatus and method for server network management to provide zero planned retrofit downtime

A method and apparatus for fault analysis and fault isolation in a system of networked processors by using a central event correlation function and logical fault signature to provide for fault isolation of failed processing elements is presented. This central event correlation method uses asynchronous events from multiple input sources of same and different technologies and time-based fault correlation and ageing to match unique fault signatures and determine levels of fault recovery escalation over time. This mechanism uses an event driven recovery table to recognize a unique fault signature, count and age faults, provide fault threshold based recovery and generate events as needed to drive recovery escalation.

Method and apparatus for time-based event correlation

A plurality of local network groups of computers () are coupled together by a network (). Independent processing systems that execute a single operating system are coupled together by a network () to form the local network groups. The independent processing systems may have more than one CPU (). One or more of the independent processing systems may share power, cooling and a housing, thereby forming a common fault processor group (). An application is written to execute across multiple independent processing systems and common fault processor groups. That is, the application runs in many instances that each run on independent processing systems. The multiple instances of the application provide some measure of high availability by using N+K sparing or the like. The application is for example, call processing or radio control. A processor notification list () keeps track of the independent processing systems that cooperatively provide an application. The independent processing systems monitor state information for independent processing systems on its processor notification lists. Also, the independent processing systems exchange messages periodically with independent processing systems on its processor notification list. The failure to receive a message is noted as a failure that requires recovery. Multiple high availability software systems are permitted to coexist under a single operating system by virtue of a new software layer that coordinates initialization and requires registration of all high availability software.

Method and apparatus for high availability distributed processing across independent networked computer fault groups

A method and apparatus for preserving call-state information on a wireless communication system is provided. The method includes periodically replicating stable call call-state information between a first and second processor via a network connection. The method also includes performing a transient clear to drop transient calls in existence at the time of an outage of an active first RCS application process or processor. The method also includes forming network-based active call facilities paths to a second RCS application instance and transitioning the second RCS application instance to an active state thereby avoiding a service interruption for the stable calls previously handled by the active first RCS application instance.

Method and apparatus for stable call preservation

A system and method for performing dynamic load balancing during system operation between a pair of APs (AP pair) serving at least one cell in common. A first RCS instance runs as an active RCS instance on one member of the AP pair and a second RCS instance runs as a standby RCS instance on the other member of the AP pair. The first RCS instance is redesignated as a standby RCS instance for the cell and the second RCS instance is redesignated as an active RCS instance for the cell. Active message processing is then transferred from the first RCS instance to the second RCS instance during network operation and without service interruption to the cell.

Dynamic load balancing during message processing in a wireless communication service network

A method and an apparatus for providing scalable layers of highly available applications using loosely coupled commercially available computers. The software running on the loosely coupled computers is divided into three layers: the system layer, the platform layer, and the application layer, each having its own process group activation and fault recovery strategy. A process group contains software processes that depend upon a set of resources common to the process group. In addition to depending upon a common set of resources, processes within a process group share a fault recovery strategy. Fault recovery is performed at the process group level, such that if one process within a process group fails, fault recovery is takes place for all processes within the process group. In the preferred embodiment, an application layer process group may be paired with another application layer process group on a separate computer. As part of certain escalated process group fault recovery strategies, upon taking an application layer process group out of service, its paired application layer process group, if any exists, takes over performing the functions of the process group that was taken out of service.

Method and apparatus for providing scaleable levels of application

A computer system having a scaleable software architecture is disclosed. The scaleable communication or data replication architecture that enables transparent replication of data or state information over a network of geographically dispersed processing units. Transparent data replication over a geographically dispersed computer network is useful in applications such as parallel computing and disaster recovery. The communication architecture also provides a transparent interface to a kernel I/O subsystem, device drivers and system applications. The communication architecture provides a distributed data model presenting a single system image of the I/O subsystem that allows two or more geographically dispersed processing units or clusters thereof, access to common data. In one particular implementation, the communication architecture permits RAID algorithms, such as RAID level 1 and RAID level 5 state information to be applied to the geographically dispersed network for site disaster recovery. The distributed data model software package may be run on uni-processor or multi-processor systems each having the same or different operating environments.

Growing community of inventors

Geneva, IL, United States of America

Dale F Rathunde