Automated invalidation of job output data in a job processing system

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10067788-B2
Application number	US-201615255742-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Sep 2, 2016
Priority date	Dec 11, 2013
Publication date	Sep 4, 2018
Grant date	Sep 4, 2018

Abstract

A computing system can provide user interfaces and back-end operations to facilitate review and invalidation of executed jobs. The system can provide an interface that allows the operator to review quality-control information about a completed job. Once the operator identifies a job as invalid, the operator can be presented with further options, such as whether to invalidate only the reviewed job or the job and all its descendants. The operator can also review antecedent jobs to an invalid job (e.g., in order to trace the root of the problem) and can selectively invalidate antecedent jobs.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method comprising:
identifying, using one or more processors of a computing system, a first job and a set of one or more antecedent jobs of the first job, wherein each antecedent job in the set of one or more antecedent jobs has been executed to completion or failure and produced data that was directly or indirectly consumed by the first job;
identifying, using the one or more processors, a second job in the set of one or more antecedent jobs, wherein the second job produced invalid data that was directly or indirectly consumed by the first job;
identifying, using the one or more processors, a set of one or more descendant jobs of the second job, wherein each descendant job in the set of one or more descendant jobs has been executed to completion or failure and directly or indirectly consumed the invalid data produced by the second job; and
invalidating, using the one or more processors, the second job and each descendant job in the set of one or more descendant jobs.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein invalidating the second job and each descendant job in the set of one or more descendant jobs comprises:
storing execution indicia specifying that the second job and each descendant job in the set of one or more descendant jobs produced data that is invalid.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the second job produced invalid data that was indirectly consumed by the first job.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein identifying the first job comprises:
presenting, at a user interface, one or more jobs that produced output data that is suspect according to a quality-control metric; and
receiving, via the user interface, a user input indicating that a particular job of the one or more jobs should be invalidated, wherein the particular job is identified as the first job when the user input indicates that the particular job should be invalidated.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein identifying the first job comprises:
analyzing quality control data for a plurality of jobs to detect a statistical anomaly; and
selecting a suspect job based on the statistical anomaly.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein identifying the second job in the set of one or more antecedent jobs comprises:
presenting, at a user interface, a representation of quality-control data for a first antecedent job in the set of one or more antecedent jobs, wherein the first antecedent job produced data that was directly consumed by the first job; and
receiving, via the user interface, a first user input indicating that the first antecedent job should be invalidated.

7. The method of claim 6 , wherein identifying the second job in the set of one or more antecedent jobs comprises:
presenting, at the user interface, a representation of quality-control data for a second antecedent job in the set of one or more antecedent jobs, wherein the second antecedent job produced data that was directly consumed by the first antecedent job; and
receiving, via the user interface, a second user input indicating that the second antecedent job should be invalidated.

8. A system comprising:
one or more processing units; and
one or more storage media storing instructions for execution by the one or more processing units, the instructions configured for:
identifying a first job and a set of one or more antecedent jobs of the first job, wherein each antecedent job in the set of one or more antecedent jobs has been executed to completion or failure and produced data that was directly or indirectly consumed by the first job;
identifying a second job in the set of one or more antecedent jobs, wherein the second job produced invalid data that was directly or indirectly consumed by the first job;
identifying a set of one or more descendant jobs of the second job, wherein each descendant job in the set of one or more descendant jobs has been executed to completion or failure and directly or indirectly consumed the invalid data produced by the second job; and
invalidating the second job and each descendant job in the set of one or more descendant jobs.

9. The system of claim 8 , wherein invalidating the second job and each descendant job in the set of one or more descendant jobs comprises:
storing execution indicia specifying that the second job and each descendant job in the set of one or more descendant jobs produced data that is invalid.

10. The system of claim 8 , wherein the second job produced invalid data that was indirectly consumed by the first job.

11. The system of claim 8 , wherein identifying the first job comprises:
presenting, at a user interface, one or more jobs that produced output data that is suspect according to a quality-control metric; and
receiving, via the user interface, a user input indicating that a particular job of the one or more jobs should be invalidated, wherein the particular job is identified as the first job when the user input indicates that the particular job should be invalidated.

12. The system of claim 8 , wherein identifying the first job comprises:
analyzing quality control data for a plurality of jobs to detect a statistical anomaly; and
selecting a suspect job based on the statistical anomaly.

13. The system of claim 8 , wherein identifying the second job in the set of one or more antecedent jobs comprises:
presenting, at a user interface, a representation of quality-control data for a first antecedent job in the set of one or more antecedent jobs, wherein the first antecedent job produced data that was directly consumed by the first job; and
receiving, via the user interface, a first user input indicating that the first antecedent job should be invalidated.

14. The system of claim 13 , wherein identifying the second job in the set of one or more antecedent jobs comprises:
presenting, at the user interface, a representation of quality-control data for a second antecedent job in the set of one or more antecedent jobs, wherein the second antecedent job produced data that was directly consumed by the first antecedent job; and
receiving, via the user interface, a second user input indicating that the second antecedent job should be invalidated.

15. One or more non-transitory computer-readable media having stored thereon executable instructions that, when executed by one or more processors of a computer system, cause the computer system to perform operations comprising:
identifying a first job and a set of one or more antecedent jobs of the first job, wherein each antecedent job in the set of one or more antecedent jobs has been executed to completion or failure and produced data that was directly or indirectly consumed by the first job;
identifying a second job in the set of one or more antecedent jobs, wherein the second job produced invalid data that was directly or indirectly consumed by the first job;
identifying a set of one or more descendant jobs of the second job, wherein each descendant job in the set of one or more descendant jobs has been executed to completion or failure and directly or indirectly consumed the invalid data produced by the second job; and
invalidating the second job and each descendant job in the set of one or more descendant jobs.

16. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable media of claim 15 , wherein invalidating the second job and each descendant job in the set of one or more descendant jobs comprises:
storing execution indicia specifying that the second job and each descendant job in the set of one or more descendant jobs produced data that is invalid.

17. The one or more non-transitory computer-readab

Assignees

• Dropbox Inc

Inventors

• Kishore Shaunak
• Dray Karl

Classifications

• G06F17/40

  Data acquisition and logging (for input to computer G06F3/00) · CPC title

• G06F11/3006

  where the computing system is distributed, e.g. networked systems, clusters, multiprocessor systems (multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/46; allocation of resources G06F9/50) · CPC title

• G06F9/4843 Primary

  by program, e.g. task dispatcher, supervisor, operating system · CPC title

• G06F11/3065

  Monitoring arrangements determined by the means or processing involved in reporting the monitored data (error or fault reporting or logging G06F11/0766) · CPC title

• G06F3/04842

  Selection of displayed objects or displayed text elements (G06F3/0482 takes precedence) · CPC title