Enterprise service availability through identity preservation
View Patent ↗Systems and methods are described for service availability that provides automated recovery of server service in a timely and application intelligent manner, maintaining application consistency and integrity, while preserving server identity. The systems and methods, referred to herein as a Service Preservation System (SPS), manage complete recovery of server data and preserve continuity of server service, reestablishing user access to server(s) after an event or disaster in which in which primary or other server(s) fail. The failures, disasters, and losses referred to herein can be at many levels and include, but are not limited to, accidental deletion of an item, loss of an entire mailbox, loss of an entire disk drive, loss of an entire server, and/or loss of an entire server site.
1. A method comprising:
continuously shadowing one or more live servers using at least one near-line server including a first near-line server by generating and maintaining a replica of data of the one or more live servers in an application consistent manner, wherein the generating and maintaining comprises generating write-ahead logs by the one or more live servers and receiving the write-ahead logs by the at least one near-line server, the at least one near-line server updating the replica by applying the write-ahead logs to the replica, the one or more live servers including data that provides services to a plurality of clients;
storing the replica of the data using the at least one near-line server in communication with the one or more live servers; and
automatically restoring the services to the clients using one or more standby servers in communication with the at least one near-line server in response to a detected failure of the one or more live servers, the restoring including copying the replica of the data to the one or more standby servers, the at least one near-line server to provide data access to at least one of the one or more live servers and the one or more standby servers as part of a restore operation in continuing to provide the services to the plurality of clients.
2. The method of claim 1 , wherein each of the one or more live servers and the one or more standby servers is identified and addressed independently.
3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the replica includes one or more portions of the data.
4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the replica of the data is stored on the at least one near-line server during the shadowing.
5. The method of claim 4 , wherein the replica of the data is copied to the one or more standby servers from the at least one near-line server.
6. The method of claim 4 , wherein the shadowing generates and maintains the replica of the data in near real-time on the at least one near-line server, wherein the shadowing maintains complete integrity and consistency of the data.
7. The method of claim 4 , wherein the at least one near-line server includes a near-line server co-located with the one or more standby servers.
8. The method of claim 7 , wherein the one or more standby servers are located at a geographic location of the one or more live servers.
9. The method of claim 7 , wherein the one or more standby servers are located at a different geographic location from the one or more live servers.
10. The method of claim 1 , wherein the restoring includes preserving continuity of the services by automatically re-establishing access to the services by the clients.
11. The method of claim 1 , wherein the restoring includes restarting services corresponding to the data on the one or more standby servers.
12. The method of claim 1 , wherein the restoring includes rebinding mailboxes in a directory service to the one or more standby servers.
13. The method of claim 1 , wherein the restoring includes re-homing the clients.
14. The method of claim 1 , wherein the at least one near-line server includes a first near-line server co-located with the one or more live servers at a first site and a second near-line server located at a second site.
15. The method of claim 14 , wherein the replica of the data is stored on the first near-line server during the shadowing.
16. The method of claim 15 , further comprising replicating the replica from the first near-line server to the second near-line server.
17. The method of claim 16 , wherein the replica of the data is copied to the one or more standby servers from the first near-line server.
18. The method of claim 16 , wherein the replica of the data is copied to the one or more standby servers from the second near-line server.
19. The method of claim 1 , wherein the at least one near-line server includes the first near-line server and the second near-line server.
20. The method of claim 19 , wherein the replica of the data is stored on the first near-line server during the shadowing.
21. The method of claim 20 , further comprising replicating the replica from the first near-line server to the second near-line server.
22. The method of claim 21 , wherein the replica of the data is copied to the one or more standby servers from the first near-line server.
23. The method of claim 21 , wherein the replica of the data is copied to the one or more standby servers from the second near-line server.
24. The method of claim 1 , wherein the one or more live servers include one or more messaging and collaboration servers.
25. The method of claim 24 , wherein the data includes one or more of application data, databases, storage groups, mailbox data, and server data.
26. The method of claim 1 , wherein the one or more live servers include Exchange Servers.
27. The method of claim 26 , wherein restoring the services to the clients includes rebinding mailboxes in Active Directory.
28. The method of claim 26 , wherein restoring the services to the clients includes identifying Exchange roles and services.
29. The method of claim 26 , wherein restoring the services to the clients includes re-homing Exchanges roles and services.
30. The method of claim 26 , wherein restoring the services to the clients includes re-homing Public Folder Stores.
31. The method of claim 26 , wherein restoring the services to the clients includes removing duplicate items from system mailboxes.
32. The method of claim 26 , wherein restoring the services to the clients includes restarting Exchange services.
33. The method of claim 26 , wherein restoring the services to the clients includes restoring Outlook services to the clients, wherein Outlook is an electronic mail and personal information management application.
34. The method of claim 26 , wherein restoring the services to the clients includes restoring signal stability routing protocol services to the clients.
35. The method of claim 1 , wherein generating and maintaining the replica includes generating at least one data surrogate using information of the data and a plurality of data changes of the data received from the one or more live servers.
36. The method of claim 35 , further comprising updating the at least one data surrogate using information of at least one additional data change received from the one or more live servers.
37. The method of claim 36 , wherein the updating is performed at least one of upon receipt of the at least one additional data change, subsequent to receipt of a plurality of additional data changes, and following processing operations on the at least one additional data change.
38. The method of claim 1 , wherein the one or more live servers include one or more of local servers, remote servers, database servers, messaging servers, electronic mail servers, instant messaging servers, voice-over Internet Protocol servers, collaboration servers, portals, customer relationship management (CRM) servers, enterprise resource planning (ERP) servers, business-to-business servers, and content management servers.
39. The method of claim 1 , wherein generating and maintaining the replica includes host-based replication of the data on the one or more standby servers.
40. The method of claim 39 , wherein host-based replication comprises:
writing data of the one or more live servers to local storage of the one or more live servers; and
writing data of the one or more live servers to remote storage of the one or more standby servers.
41. The method of claim 40 , wherein automatically restoring the services includes a standby server assuming an identity and address of a live server that has failed.
42. The method of claim 1 , wherein generating and maintaining the replica includes storage-based replication of the data on the one or more standby servers.
43. The method of claim 42 , wherein storage-based replication comprises
writing data of the one or more live servers to local storage of the one or more live servers; and
replicating data of the local storage of the one or more live servers to remote storage of the one or more standby servers.
44. The method of claim 43 , wherein automatically restoring the services includes a standby server assuming an identity and address of a live server that has failed.
45. The method of claim 1 , wherein generating and maintaining the replica includes writing data of the plurality of clients to components of a live server and to components of a standby server.
46. The method of claim 45 , wherein automatically restoring the services includes switching the clients from a failed live server to a standby server to which data was written.
47. Computer readable medium including executable instructions which, when executed in a processing system, perform service preservation by:
continuously shadowing one or more live servers using at least one near-line server including a first near-line server by generating and maintaining a replica of data of the one or more live servers in an application consistent manner, wherein the generating and maintaining comprises generating write-ahead logs by the one or more live servers and receiving the write-ahead logs by the at least one near-line server, the at least one near-line server updating the replica by applying the write-ahead logs to the replica, the one or more live servers including data that provides services to a plurality of clients;
storing the replica of the data using the at least one near-line server in communication with the one or more live servers; and
automatically restoring the services to the clients using one or more standby servers in communication with the at least one near-line server in response to a detected failure of the one or more live servers, the restoring including copying the replica of the data to the one or more standby servers, the at least one near-line server to provide data access to at least one of the one or more live servers and the one or more standby servers as part of a restore operation in continuing to provide the services to the plurality of clients.