Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Netapp, Inc.

Oracle America, Inc.

Oracle International Corporation

Ellard Roush

Joseph Brown

Dennis Dalessandro

Zoram Thanga

Sambit Nayak

Nicholas Aaron Solter

Tirthankar Das

Andrew L Hisgen

Thorsten Früauf

Technology is disclosed for improving performance during playback of logged data storage operations. The technology can monitor a log to which data storage operations are written before data is committed to a volume; determine counts of various types of data storage operations; and when the counts exceed a specified threshold, cause the data storage operations to be committed to the volume. Some data storage operations can be coalesced during playback to further improve performance.

Performance during playback of logged data storage operations

Technology is disclosed for improving performance during playback of logged data storage operations. The technology can monitor a log to which data storage operations are written before data is committed to a data storage device or a volume; determine counts of various types of data storage operations; and when the counts exceed a specified threshold, cause the data storage operations to be committed to the data storage device or the volume. Some data storage operations can be coalesced during playback to further improve performance.

Some embodiments may include multiple computers comprising a multi-level security system. The security system includes a first set of zones and a second set of zones, each having access to resources of a computer, a first security container having a first security label containing the first set of zones, and a second security container with a second security label containing the second set of zones. The resources and data of each of the first and second set of zones inherit the security label of their corresponding security container. The security system further includes a global zone, the global zone has access to the resources of the computer, a kernel having access to the security label information for each security container and zone, where requests for data and resources stored on the computer are first sent to the kernel, and the kernel adds the security label data, the kernel or the global zone on any computer perform security checks, and then the request may then be processed by the kernel or global zone on any computer.

Multi-level security cluster

The administrative work needed to configure a virtual cluster is a major obstacle that limits its adoption by customers. Moreover, an organization can spend much time and effort testing a cluster configuration and would like to deploy this cluster configuration at many sites. To address these problems, the disclosed embodiments provide a mechanism that facilitates migrating a virtual cluster from a first computer system to a second computer system. During operation, the system captures the virtual cluster configuration state, including application configuration state and executables. The system then instantiates this captured state on a second computer system, thus re-creating the virtual cluster state of the first computer system on the second computer system.

Method and system for migrating the state of a virtual cluster

In general, the invention relates to a method for managing a two-node cluster. The method includes determining, by a first server node, that a second server node is disconnected from the two-node cluster when a first heartbeat response is not received from the second server node and sending a first echo request from the first server node to a first external system, where the first external system is specified on each server node of the two-node cluster. The method further includes receiving a first echo response for the first echo request from the first external system at the first server node and, in response to receiving the first echo response, providing, by the first server node, services of the two-node cluster independent of the second server node.

Method and system for a weak membership tie-break

A system and method for controlling access to a shared storage device in a computing cluster having at least two nodes configured as cluster members provide fencing and quorum features without using the device controller hardware/firmware so fencing can be provided with storage devices that do not support disk reservation operations, such as with non-SCSI compliant disks. A polling thread on each node periodically reads a designated storage space on the shared storage device at a polling interval to determine if its corresponding node registration key is present, and halts the node if the key has been removed. A cluster membership agent removes a corresponding node registration key from the designated storage space of the shared storage device and publishes new membership information indicating that the corresponding node has departed the cluster only after delaying for a time period greater than the polling interval.

System and method for controlling access to shared storage device

Virtual clusters are based upon virtual operating systems. The physical cluster includes a plurality of physical server nodes. Each physical server node includes a plurality of physical resources and a virtualizing subsystem. The virtualizing subsystem is capable of creating separate environments that logically isolate applications from each other. The separate environments are virtual operating systems. A virtual operating system is configured on each physical server node by defining properties of the virtual operating system. A virtual cluster is composed of a plurality of virtual operating systems that are on a plurality of physical server nodes. A cluster application runs on the virtual cluster. The virtual cluster presents the plurality of virtual operating systems that compose the virtual cluster to the cluster application such that the cluster application is isolated from any other virtual operating systems that compose other virtual clusters on the plurality of physical server nodes.

Virtual cluster based upon operating system virtualization

A cluster file system including a file server primary configured to satisfy a plurality of file operation requests, a file server secondary configured to be promoted to the file server primary in the event of a failure of a node on which the file server primary is located, a plurality of file agents configured to process the plurality of file operation requests on the node, and a reference counting subsystem configured to track an object reference of the plurality of file agents.

Cluster file system node failure file recovery by reconstructing file state

A method and system thereof for supporting multiple versions of software, such as software organized as components or objects. In one embodiment, a software component (e.g., a new object) is implemented on a server node. A translator is created on the server node. The translator provides an interface to the new object for an invocation request associated with a different version of the object (e.g., an older version of the object). The new object is referenced by one identifier, and the translator is referenced by another identifier. In essence, the translator provides a form of version transparency.

Software upgrades with multiple version support

One embodiment of the present invention provides a system that supports multiple versions of highly available objects. A highly available object is a primary object and one or more secondary objects. In an environment supporting multiple versions, the client, the primary, and the secondary objects can each be running either old or new software. Highly available objects introduce a need to process checkpoints where the primary and each of the secondary objects can be at different software versions. In one such situation, the system receives a change to a new version primary object at a node running new version primary software. Next, the system creates a new version checkpoint from this change and distributes the new version checkpoint to nodes executing new version software. The system also translates the new version checkpoint into an old version checkpoint and distributes this old version checkpoint to nodes executing old version software. Note that system can similarly handle an invocation retry where the newly promoted primary object can be an older or newer version.

Growing community of inventors

Burlingame, CA, United States of America

Ellard Roush