Automated computing appliance disaster recovery
View Patent ↗A system and method for automatic disaster recovery of a computing appliance including reconstruction of its previous operational state. A configuration bundle that includes configuration data, software revision level and a list of system updates is used to recover the device's operation state. The system and method can also be utilized to recover a not fully functional member of a clustered computing system from the configuration information stored on other members of the cluster.
1. A method for recovering a computing appliance to a previous operational state after a failure, comprising:
creating a disaster recovery medium, wherein the disaster recovery medium includes:
a configuration bundle, wherein the configuration bundle includes;
a system database;
meta data associated with the computing appliance; and
one or more configuration files; and
one or more software packages installed on the computing appliance;
running, automatically upon detecting connection of the disaster recovery medium to the computing appliance; an initialization program on the computing appliance to reach a first operational state;
accessing the disaster recovery medium from the computing appliance, wherein accessing includes reading portions of the database, the metadata and the configuration files and storing the portions read to a storage medium on the computing appliance;
installing the software packages on the computing appliance to reach a second operational state, wherein installing includes reading, by the computing appliance, the software packages from the disaster recovery medium; and
applying, from within the computing appliance, portions of the configuration bundle stored on the computing appliance to restore the computing appliance to the previous operational state.
2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the disaster recovery medium further includes a failsafe configuration for restoring the computing appliance to a third operational state if the configuration bundle is unable to restore the computing appliance to a previous operational state.
3. The method of claim 1 , wherein installing the one or more software packages includes installing a base package.
4. The method of claim 3 , wherein installing the one or more software packages includes installing one or more update packages after installation of the base package.
5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the running of the initialization program occurs automatically upon rebooting the computing appliance with the disaster recovery medium connected.
6. The method of claim 1 , wherein accessing the disaster recovery medium includes connecting to the disaster recovery medium through the computing appliance's universal serial bus port.
7. The method of claim 1 , wherein accessing the disaster recovery medium includes connecting to the disaster recovery medium over a network connection.
8. The method of claim 1 , wherein creating the disaster recovery medium includes:
detecting failure of the computing appliance; and
retrieving the configuration bundle associated with the computing appliance from a storage location.
9. The method of claim 8 , wherein creating the disaster recovery medium further includes:
obtaining one or more software patches applied to the computing appliance; and
saving the configuration bundle and the one or more software patches onto the disaster recovery medium.
10. The method of claim 9 , wherein obtaining the one or more software patches includes
connecting to a remote server over a network connection; and
downloading the one or more software patches.
11. A system, comprising:
a computing appliance;
a disaster recovery medium connected to the computing appliance, wherein the disaster recovery medium includes:
a configuration bundle, wherein the configuration bundle includes:
a system database;
meta data associatedwith the computing appliance; and
one or more configuration files associated with the computing appliance; and
one or more software packages;
wherein the computing appliance automatically accesses the disaster recovery medium upon detecting connection of the disaster recovery medium to the computing appliance, wherein the accessing includes:
running an initialization program stored on the disaster recovery medium to reach a first operational state;
reading portions of the database, the metadata and the configuration files and storing the portions read to a storage medium on the computing appliance;
installing the software packages on the computing appliance to reach a second operational state, wherein installing includes reading, by the computing appliance, the software packages from the disaster recovery medium; and
applying, from within the computing appliance, portions of the configuration bundle stored on the computing appliance to restore the computing appliance to the previous operational state.
12. The system of claim 11 , wherein the disaster recovery medium further includes a failsafe configuration for restoring the computing appliance to a third operational state if the configuration bundle is unable to restore the computing appliance to a previous operational state.
13. The system of claim 11 , wherein the computing appliance accessing the disaster recovery medium further includes installing a base package as part of installing the software packages.
14. The system of claim 13 , wherein the computing appliance accessing the disaster recovery medium further includes installing one or more update packages after installation of the base package as part of installing the software packages.
15. The system of claim 11 , wherein the computing appliance is configured to run the initialization program automatically upon rebooting with the disaster recovery medium connected.
16. The system of claim 11 , wherein the computing appliance accessing the disaster recovery medium includes connecting to the disaster recovery medium through the computing appliance's universal serial bus port.
17. The system of claim 11 wherein the computing appliance accessing the disaster recovery medium includes connecting to the disaster recovery medium over a network connection.
18. The system of claim 11 , wherein the disaster recovery medium includes a configuration bundle associated with the computing appliance retrieved from a storage location upon detecting a failure of the computing appliance.
19. The system of claim 18 , wherein the disaster recovery medium includes one or more software patches applied to the computing appliance.
20. The system of claim 19 , wherein the disaster recovery medium includes one or more software patches downloaded through a connection to a remote server over a network connection.