Versioned records management using restart era

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10915403-B2
Application number	US-201916388009-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Apr 18, 2019
Priority date	Jan 19, 2016
Publication date	Feb 9, 2021
Grant date	Feb 9, 2021

Abstract

A versioned records management computing system that uses a restart era in order to promote rapid recovery. A persistent store includes a multi-versioned record collection. The records are also associated with a restart era that corresponds to the era of operation of the computing system after a restart. Upon a recovery, the current restart era changes. An object collection media has an object collection that conforms to an object model such that the object model is used to operate upon the records. The object collection media is operable such that the object collection is durable so as to survive restarts of the system to thereby allow for accelerated recovery.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method for facilitating crash recovery of supporting components of a computer system through managed control of multiple data records having different restart era identifiers, where the supporting components perform operations that are dependent on the multiple data records such that faster recovery of the multiple data items allows for faster recovery of the supporting components, and where a restart era identifier of a data record initially identifies a particular restart era during which that data record was created, the method being performed by the computer system and comprising:
identifying, within persistent main memory of the computer system, a plurality of data records, wherein each data record in the plurality of data records is marked with a corresponding restart era identifier to indicate whether said each data record was created during a current restart era of the computer system or a previous restart era of the computer system;
selectively promoting a set of data records that are included in the plurality of data records and that are marked as being created during the previous restart era, wherein promoting the set of data records is performed by updating corresponding restart era identifiers for the set of data records to indicate the current restart era instead of the previous restart era;
for remaining data records whose restart era identifiers still indicate the previous restart era, sweeping said remaining data records from the persistent main memory; and
causing supporting components of the computer system to perform operations using data items having restart era identifiers indicative of the current restart era.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein at least some data records included in the plurality of data records represent multiple versions of a same data unit.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein each data record in the plurality of data records is a row in a database.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein a particular supporting component included among the supporting components of the computer system is an index that maps a particular record included in the persistent main memory.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein restart eras, including the previous restart era and the current restart era, uniquely identify an era of time bounded by a computing crash recovery.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein selectively promoting the set of data records is performed as a background process.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein a visibility is determined for each of at least some data records included in the plurality of data records.

8. The method of claim 1 , wherein the supporting components are brought into the persistent main memory.

9. The method of claim 1 , wherein shadow copies of the supporting components are included in the persistent main memory.

10. The method of claim 1 , wherein shadow copies of the supporting components are included within a log.

11. A computer system comprising:
one or more processor(s); and
one or more computer-readable hardware storage device(s) having stored thereon computer-executable instructions that are executable by the one or more processor(s) to cause the computer system to:
identify, within persistent main memory of the computer system, a plurality of data records, wherein each data record in the plurality of data records is marked with a corresponding restart era identifier to indicate whether said each data record was created during a current restart era of the computer system or a previous restart era of the computer system;
selectively promote a set of data records that are included in the plurality of data records and that are marked as being created during the previous restart era, wherein promoting the set of data records is performed by updating corresponding restart era identifiers for the set of data records to indicate the current restart era instead of the previous restart era;
for remaining data records whose restart era identifiers still indicate the previous restart era, sweep said remaining data records from the persistent main memory; and
cause supporting components of the computer system to perform operations using data items having restart era identifiers indicative of the current restart era.

12. The computer system of claim 11 , wherein at least some data records included in the plurality of data records represent multiple versions of a same data unit.

13. The computer system of claim 11 , wherein each data record in the plurality of data records is a row in a database.

14. The computer system of claim 11 , wherein a particular supporting component included among the supporting components of the computer system is an index that maps a particular record included in the persistent main memory.

15. The computer system of claim 11 , wherein restart eras, including the previous restart era and the current restart era, uniquely identify an era of time bounded by a computing crash recovery.

16. The computer system of claim 11 , wherein selectively promoting the set of data records is performed as a background process.

17. The computer system of claim 11 , wherein a visibility is determined for each of at least some data records included in the plurality of data records.

18. The computer system of claim 11 , the previous restart era includes multiple previous restart eras.

19. One or more hardware storage device(s) having stored thereon computer-executable instructions that are executable by one or more processor(s) of a computer system to cause the computer system to:
identify, within persistent main memory of the computer system, a plurality of data records, wherein each data record in the plurality of data records is marked with a corresponding restart era identifier to indicate whether said each data record was created during a current restart era of the computer system or a previous restart era of the computer system;
selectively promote a set of data records that are included in the plurality of data records and that are marked as being created during the previous restart era, wherein promoting the set of data records is performed by updating corresponding restart era identifiers for the set of data records to indicate the current restart era instead of the previous restart era;
for remaining data records whose restart era identifiers still indicate the previous restart era, sweep said remaining data records from the persistent main memory; and
cause supporting components of the computer system to perform operations using data items having restart era identifiers indicative of the current restart era.

20. The one or more hardware storage device(s) of claim 19 , wherein restart eras, including the previous restart era and the current restart era, uniquely identify an era of time bounded by a computing crash recovery.

Assignees

• Microsoft Technology Licensing Llc

Inventors

• Larson Per-Ake
• Fitzgerald Robert Patrick
• Diaconu Cristian

Classifications

• G06F16/2365

  Ensuring data consistency and integrity · CPC title

• G06F11/1474

  in transactions (updating of structured data in databases G06F16/23) · CPC title

• G06F11/1471 Primary

  involving logging of persistent data for recovery · CPC title

• G06F11/1441 Primary

  Resetting or repowering · CPC title

• G06F11/1417 Primary

  Boot up procedures · CPC title