Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Rishi Rakesh Sinha

Lu Xun

Gopala Krishna Reddy Kakivaya

Gopala Krishna R Kakivaya

Mansoor Mohsin

Alex Wun

Architecture that provides reliable communications of broadcast data (e.g., a message) in a collection of nodes. Each node in the collection is assigned a range of identifiers in a token. The union of the tokens for all nodes is the entire identifier range space. Each node that receives a reliable broadcast message from an originator node acknowledges receipt of the message using its token. One or more intermediate nodes forward the message from the originator node to other nodes with which the originator node has no direct communications (multi-level node structure). The indirect nodes each send acknowledgements back to the parent nodes (which can be an intermediate node) which combine the tokens to ensure the entire range space for the associated assigned token range is covered. The originator node ultimately receives tokens to compute if all nodes have received the message.

Reliable broadcast in a federation of nodes

Determining if a new federation should be formed. A method includes a voter node determining that it has sufficient votes to form a new federation. The method further includes determining that no node existing in a previous federation already has a quorum of valid global tickets. Each global ticket indicates that a node agrees that a federation should continue to exist. As a result, the voter node forms a new federation.

Cluster voter model

Obtaining tight knowledge about nodes in a federated ring structure. The tight knowledge includes information about neighbors of a given node. The method includes at a given node, sending a join request, requesting to join a federated ring in a distributed computing environment. The method further includes, at the given node, receiving a join reply. The join reply provides an initial view of at least a portion of a neighborhood of the given node. The neighborhood is a set of nodes logically proximate the given node. The method further includes, at the given node, sending a lock request to nodes in the neighborhood to request that the other nodes in the given node's neighborhood are locked so as to not have overlapping nodes joining the given node's neighborhood simultaneously.

Node joining protocol for cluster federation

Architecture that applies to a collection of nodes (e.g., a federation) and manages membership of the nodes to the collection via an external datastore. The storage of node state and collection state is stored in the external and highly available datastore. New nodes can now join the collection through the external store. The machines (nodes) in the collection create a lease with the external store that allows the external store to maintain precise knowledge of the set of machines alive in the collection. The external store thus allows the new machines to join the collection while ensuring that there exists only one ring in the collection. In other words, the disclosed architecture protocol ensures that any given point of time there is just one ring for the collection. Moreover, this can be in addition to a current join protocol, which ensures that consistent routing is available.

Storing state of distributed architecture in external store

Systems and methods that ensure formation of a single ring from a seed node at any given time. A 'bootstrap' phase is included in a node's life cycle, to mitigate adverse affects of split-brain conditions in a network. During such bootstrap phase, if an existing ring is found, the seed node can join the existing ring in a same manner as a non-seed node does. If no ring is detected, the bootstrap phase attempts to elect a seed node to be the 'super-seed node', wherein a new ring can then be formed with such new super-seed node as the first node.

Growing community of inventors

Bothell, WA, United States of America

Rishi Rakesh Sinha