Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Gregory Irving Thiel

Yogesh Bansal

Ayla Kol

Manoharan Kuppusamy

Alexander Wetmore

Rebecca Benfield

James Charles Kleewein

Todd Carlyle Luttinen

Konstantin E Ryvkin

Parul Manek

Naresh Sundaram

David Andrew Sterling

Kushal Suresh Narkhede

Bradley David Rutkowski

Srinivasachakrapani Kotipalli

Mark Wistrom

Rajesh Kumar Maskara

Sabitha Abraham

Nikita Kozhekin

Dhananjay Ramakrishnappa

Saraswathy Srinivasan

Timothy Mark Moore

David Allen Dion

Rajsekhar Das

Thomas Jay Miller

Bradford R Clark

Peter Byrne

Dmitri Gavrilov

Mathrubootham Janakiraman

Brian Kress

Shawn Bracewell

Rebecca L Anderson

Brad D Rutkowski

Martin Andras Chisholm

Ross Edward Smith, Iv

Shuab Khan

Brad Rutkowski

Kurt Lawrence Friedrich

A client-side system detects a current location of a client device and a cloud interaction metric. The geographic area around the location of the client device is divided into grid sections. The client-side system identifies a pre-defined reference location corresponding to the grid section that the client device location resides in. The pre-defined reference location, corresponding to that grid section, and the cloud interaction metric are provided to a remote server computing system.

Abstracting geographic location to a square block of pre-defined size

A server kernel processing system receives an input/output (I/O) request from a user mode computing environment. The I/O request is analyzed to determine whether it is a modification request to modify data in a target volume. If so, target analysis logic determines whether the request is for a target volume that is within a first or second protected volume. If the request is to modify data stored in the first protected volume, the request is blocked. If the request is to modify data in a second protected volume, then a whitelist is examined to determine whether the requesting process and user are on the whitelist. If not, the request is also blocked.

Protecting selected disks on a computer system

A method for directing network traffic includes, at a network device, receiving network traffic provided by one or more client computing devices. The network device directs the network traffic to a service entity over a first network path. A path quality indicator is received that indicates whether the network traffic directed over the first network path satisfies one or more experience criteria. Based at least on the path quality indicator indicating that the network traffic directed over the first network path does not satisfy the one or more experience criteria, the network device redirects some or all of the network traffic to the service entity over a second network path.

Network path redirection

Various embodiments of the present technology generally relate to systems and methods for intelligent load shedding. More specifically, various embodiments of the present technology generally relate to intelligent load shedding of traffic based on current load state of target capacity. In some embodiments, a first server can send a capacity request indicating that the first server is nearing capacity and needs assistance with load. In response to the capacity request, an assistance request can be published to additional nearby servers. The servers can respond with a status update providing load and availability information. Based on the load and availability information (or other information such as latency), a second server from the additional servers can be selected and traffic can be routed away from the first server to the second server.

Near real-time computation of scaling unit's load and availability state

Various embodiments of the present technology generally relate to systems and methods for intelligent load shedding. More specifically, various embodiments of the present technology generally relate to intelligent load shedding of traffic based on current load state of target capacity. In some embodiments, a domain name resolution request to translate a domain name into an Internet protocol (IP) address can be received at DNS server. A status of each of multiple scaling units mapped to the domain name can be determined. A set of IP addresses (e.g., four IP addresses) corresponding to a subset of the multiple scaling units closest to the requesting device with statuses indicating availability for new traffic can be identified. Then, the set of IP addresses can be sent to the requesting device. The requesting device can the select which IP address to use (e.g., randomly) to route the traffic.

Intelligent load shedding of traffic based on current load state of target capacity

Systems, methods, and software are disclosed that provide enhanced replication for message services. In one implementation, updates to a replication source are replicated to replication targets. The replication is monitored to identify an individual health of the replication for each of the replication targets. A composite health of the replication is determined based on the individual health of the replication for each of the replication targets. The updates to the replication source are then controlled based on the composite health of the replication.

Enhanced replication

A computer cluster can be divided into a plurality of failure scopes and a voting constraint can be enforced. The voting constraint can allow a portion of the cluster to provide the service if a majority of health votes from cluster members is obtained by that portion. A loss of connectivity between a first failure scope, which has a majority of cluster members in the cluster, and one or more other failure scopes in the cluster can be detected. The loss of connectivity can be such that the first failure scope does not have connectivity to a member in any other failure scope in the cluster. In response to detecting the loss of connectivity, a split brain situation in the cluster can be automatically protected against by preventing the first failure scope from providing the service.

Split brain protection in computer clusters

A primary active manager can manage a first copy of a database in a first computer system cluster according to a set of management rules that provide for an active copy and one or more passive copies of the database at a given time. The primary active manager can also manage a second copy of the database in a second computer system cluster according to the rules. The rules can allow the first copy of the database or the second copy of the database to be the active copy if one or more criterion in the rules is met for that active copy. The first copy can be designated as the active copy and the second copy can be designated as a passive copy. A failure of the first copy can be detected, and in response, the second copy can be automatically designated as the active copy.

Active/passive database management across clusters

High availability architecture that employs a mid-tier proxy server to route client communications to active data store instances in response to failover and switchover. The proxy server includes an active manager client that interfaces to an active manager in each of the backend servers. State information and configuration information are maintained separately and according to semantics consistent with needs of corresponding data, the configuration information changing less frequently and more available, the state information changing more frequently and less available. The active manager indicates to the proxy server which of the data storage instances is the currently the active instance. In the event that the currently active instance is inactive, the proxy server selects a different backend server that currently hosts the active data store instance. Client communications are then routed to the different backend server with minimal or no interruption to the client.

Adding individual database failover/switchover to an existing storage component with limited impact

Techniques to leverage replication to provide rolling point in time backup are described. Some embodiments are directed to techniques to provide rolling point in time backup with simplified restoration through distributed transactional re-creation. In one embodiment, for example, a technique may comprise creating a plurality of availability copies of a primary set of data; designating at least one of the plurality of availability copies as a backup copy; creating a log file that indicates changes to the primary set of data; updating the plurality of availability copies from the log file in near real time, without updating the backup copy; and restoring at least one of: the primary set of data and an availability copy using the backup copy and content resubmitted from a content contributor when an error occurs in at least one of: the primary set of data and an availability copy. Other embodiments are described and claimed.

Techniques for leveraging replication to provide rolling point in time backup with simplified restoration through distributed transactional re-creation

A data resiliency layer provides manageable data resiliency policy options for email related applications. Through one or more APIs such applications are enabled to query whether a data resiliency policy is satisfied for a given mailbox or database at a given point in time. Email related applications may consume this information to modify their behavior such as to wait, repeat, or fail the actions at hand to the point where data committal is guaranteed to a degree specified by the data resiliency policy.

Policy driven distributed data resiliency

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Black Diamond, WA, United States of America

Gregory Irving Thiel