International Business Machines Corporation

Netapp, Inc.

Juan C Gomez

Sandeep Madhav Uttamchandani

Linda Marie Duyanovich

Kristal T Pollack

Joseph S Glider

Manoj Premanand Naik

Henry Esmond Butterworth

Marc M Eshel

John A Muth

Manoj K Negi

Subram Natarajan

A layout of a file system is optimized to meet storage requirements of a distributed consensus protocol implemented on a plurality of nodes of a cluster. Illustratively, the file system has an on-disk layout representation that enables efficient input/output (I/O) operation performance. The on-disk layout of the file system embodies a plurality of file system objects: membership, snapshot and log objects. Each object is allocated an area or region (e.g., a contiguous storage space) on-disk. In addition, each object has two or more storage container instances, e.g., files. In the case of snapshot and membership objects, the two files of each object are used in a circular (alternating) fashion so that write operations directed to a first file storing a current copy of the snapshot/membership content may be performed without destroying a previous committed copy of the snapshot/membership content stored in a second file.

Optimized file system layout for distributed consensus protocol

A system and method for solving the weak membership problem in a system of nodes that might include redundancies. Each node is given the same random seed. Each node uses a link state protocol to determine the current system topography, and then an optimization such as simulated annealing is run on the topography at each node, independently of the other nodes, to determine the optimum weak membership for use thereof in subsequent system operations. Since each node starts with the same random seed, the nodes all arrive at the same solution without having to communicate a common solution between nodes.

System and method for determining weak membership in set of computer nodes

A state management system preserves a state for a cluster of file servers in a cluster file system in the presence of load balancing, failover, and fail-back events. The system provides a file and record locking solution for a clustered network attached storage system running on top of a cluster file system. The system employs a lock ownership scheme in which ownership identifiers are guaranteed to be unique across clustered servers and across various protocols the clustered servers may be exporting. The system supports multi-protocol clustered NAS gateways, NAS gateway server failover and fail-back, and load-balancing architectures. The system further eliminates a need for a lock migration protocol, resulting in improved efficiency and simplicity.

System and method for preserving state for a cluster of data servers in the presence of load-balancing, failover, and fail-back events

Disclosed is an autonomic abnormality detection device having a plurality of agents, a server with a one or more processors, a data storage device and a corrective actions engine. The device is adapted to detect and diagnose abnormalities in system components. Particularly, the device uses agents to track performance/workload measurements of system components and dynamically compiles a history of those performance/workload measurements for each component. In order to detect abnormalities a processor compares current performance/workload measurements for a component to the compiled histories for that component and for other components. The processor can further be adapted to determine possible causes of a detected abnormality and to report the abnormality, including the possible causes, to a corrective actions engine.

System and method for recording behavior history for abnormality detection

A computer and method for problem detection and determination for automated system management in a system, wherein the method comprises monitoring system state, workload, and performance parameters of the system; comparing the monitored parameters against normal system performance behavior of the system, wherein the normal system performance behavior is maintained as a mapping of a system state and workload-to-performance parameters; summarizing performance abnormalities at a specified layer in the system as computation and data-processing attributes, wherein the performance abnormalities comprise deviations from the normal system performance behavior; correlating the performance abnormalities across multiple layers in the system using an attribute-based framework; and communicating a root-cause of the performance abnormalities.

Technique for mapping goal violations to anamolies within a system

A cluster computer system capable of filtering stale messages resulting from changes in a cluster membership. The system has interconnected nodes each hosting one or more applications and having a node filter for filtering messages to and from other nodes based on a membership identification and information about source nodes and destination nodes of the messages. Each application of a hosting node includes multiple application filters corresponding to other nodes in the system for filtering messages to and from the application based on the membership identification and an application view of the cluster membership. Each node further includes a communication agent for detecting when another node is disconnected from the membership and for updating its filters with the membership identification that reflects the node disconnection.

System and method for filtering stale messages resulting from membership changes in a distributed computing environment

A system and method of conducting resource flow control sessions in a computer network comprises sending a resource request from a client computer to a server computer; assigning to the client computer a flow control window, wherein a size of a flow control window is based on resources available to the server computer and a level of activity of a corresponding client computer, wherein the server computer is in any of a busy and idle state of activity; determining whether to change the size of the flow control window upon receiving the resource request based on the level of activity of the corresponding client computer and a current utilization of resources during a particular session of use; tracking a number of active sessions of use of the resources in a predetermined time window; and maintaining the flow control window with a maximum queue size per number of sessions value.

Stable, minimal skew resource flow control technique in large scale enterprise storage systems

Controlling the timing of execution of test instructions by a target computing device is disclosed. A method initiates a test process at each target computing device. The method receives a process handle of the test process from each target computing device, as generated at the target computing device. The method repeats sending to each target computing device the process handle of the test process, and a test instruction to be executed at the target computing device, until the target computing device has finished executing all the test instructions. A test instruction may be a test script made up of a number of test commands that are to be executed as a group, or a test instruction may be a single test command. Timing of execution of each test instruction can be controlled by deciding when to send the test instruction to a target computing device.

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San Jose, CA, United States of America

Juan C Gomez