Partial fault tolerance in an embedded appliance
View Patent ↗A system and method for partial fault tolerance in an embedded appliance is disclosed. The method comprises providing an embedded appliance having first and second digital storage locations, with the second location including a boot manager and a recovery operating system. An image instance of the operational section of the first digital storage location can be copied at a selected frequency to a selected location on the second digital storage location. Files in the image instance can be re-mapped to operate at the second digital storage location. The embedded appliance can be rebooted from the second digital storage location using the boot manager to load an operating system in the image instance to operate the embedded appliance from the image instance at the selected location on the second digital storage location when the operational section of the first digital storage location is inaccessible.
1. A method for partial fault tolerance in a telephony server, comprising:
providing a telephony server, having only a first digital storage location and a second digital storage location, wherein the telephony server operates from an operational section of the first digital storage location;
providing a boot manager and a recovery operating system on the second digital storage location;
copying an image instance of the operational section of the first digital storage location at a selected frequency to a selected location on the second digital storage location;
re-mapping selected files in the image instance to enable the operating system in the image instance to operate on the second digital storage location;
providing at least one additional partition on the second digital storage location which is not used for storing an image instance of the operational section of the first digital storage location, such that the second digital storage location can be used for additional purposes;
booting the telephony server from the second digital storage location using the boot manager to load an operating system in the image instance to operate the telephony server from the image instance at the selected location on the second digital storage location when the operational section of the first digital storage location is inaccessible; and
performing a restore of the operational section by copying the image instance of the operational section from the selected location on the second digital storage location to the first digital storage location while operating the telephony server from the second digital storage location to enable the telephony server to operate from the first digital storage location.
2. The method of claim 1 , further comprising providing telephony server, wherein the first digital storage location and the second digital storage location are each a separate magnetic hard disk drive operating in the telephony server.
3. The method of claim 1 , further comprising providing the telephony server, wherein the first digital storage location and the second digital storage location are separate locations on at least one solid state drive operating in the telephony server.
4. The method of claim 1 , further comprising copying the image instance of the operational section of the first digital storage location to the selected location on the second digital storage location, wherein the selected location is an image instance emergency boot partition on the second digital storage location.
5. The method of claim 4 , further comprising copying the image instance of the operational section of the first digital storage location to the image instance emergency boot sector on the second digital storage location while the telephony server is operating from the operational section of the first digital storage location.
6. The method of claim 1 , further comprising storing a plurality of temporally distinct image instances of the operational section from the first digital storage area on the second digital storage location.
7. The method of claim 6 , further comprising restoring a previous version of the operational section by copying one of the temporally distinct image instances of the operational section from the second digital storage location to the first digital storage location to replace the operational section on the first digital storage location.
8. The method of claim 1 , further comprising compressing the plurality of temporally distinct image instances and storing the compressed temporally distinct image instances in a separate partition on the second digital storage location.
9. A computer program product, comprising a non-transitory machine-readable storage medium having a computer readable program code embodied therein, said computer readable program code adapted to be executed to implement a method for partial fault tolerance in a telephony server, comprising:
providing a telephony server, having a first digital storage location and a second digital storage location, wherein the telephony server operates from an operational section of the first digital storage location;
providing a boot manager and a recovery operating system on the second digital storage location;
copying an image instance of the operational section of the first digital storage location at a selected frequency to a selected location on the second digital storage location;
re-mapping files in the image instance to operate on the second digital storage location;
providing at least one additional partition on the second digital storage location which is not used for storing an image instance of the operational section of the first digital storage location, such that the second digital storage location can be used for additional purposes;
booting the telephony server from the second digital storage location using the boot manager to load an operating system in the image instance to operate the telephony server from the image instance at the selected location on the second digital storage location when the operational section of the first digital storage location is inaccessible; and
performing a restore of the operational section by copying the image instance of the operational section from the selected location on the second digital storage location to the first digital storage location while operating the telephony server from the second digital storage location to enable the telephony server to operate from the first digital storage location.
10. The computer program product of claim 9 , further comprising providing the telephony server, wherein the first digital storage location and the second digital storage location are each a separate magnetic hard disk drive operating in the embedded appliance.
11. The computer program product of claim 9 , further comprising providing the telephony server, wherein the first digital storage location and the second digital storage location are separate locations on at least one solid state drive operating in the telephony server.
12. The computer program product of claim 9 , further comprising copying the image instance of the operational section of the first digital storage location to the selected location on the second digital storage location, wherein the selected location is a image instance emergency boot partition on the second digital storage location.
13. The computer program product of claim 9 , further comprising copying the image instance of the operational section of the first digital storage location to the image instance emergency boot sector on the second digital storage location while the telephony server is operating from the operational section of the first digital storage location.
14. The computer program product of claim 9 , further comprising storing a plurality of temporally distinct image instances of the operational section from the first digital storage area on the second digital storage location.
15. The computer program product of claim 14 , further comprising restoring a previous version of the operational section by copying one of the temporally distinct image instances of the operational section from the second digital storage location to the first digital storage location to replace the operational section on the first digital storage location.