Enhanced mechanisms for granting access to shared resources

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9742686-B2
Application number	US-201314083622-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Nov 19, 2013
Priority date	Sep 26, 2013
Publication date	Aug 22, 2017
Grant date	Aug 22, 2017

Abstract

Mechanisms are provided, in a data processing system comprising a plurality of nodes, each node being a computing device, for controlling access to a critical section of code. These mechanisms send, by a sender node of the data processing system, an access request for requesting access to the critical section of code. The critical section of code is a portion of code that accesses a shared resource. The mechanisms receive, in the sender node, from a plurality of receiver nodes in the data processing system, responses to the access request. Each response in the responses includes a number of active nodes perceived by a corresponding receiver node that transmitted the response. The mechanisms control, by the sender node, access to the critical section of code based on the number of active nodes identified in each of the responses received from the receiver nodes.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method, in a data processing system comprising a plurality of nodes, each node being a computing device, for controlling access to a critical section of code, the method comprising:
sending, by a sender node of the data processing system, an access request for requesting access to the critical section of code, wherein the critical section of code is a portion of code that accesses a shared resource;
receiving, by the sender node, from a plurality of receiver nodes in the data processing system, responses to the access request, wherein each response in the responses includes a number of active nodes perceived by a corresponding receiver node that transmitted the response; and
controlling, by the sender node, access to the critical section of code based on the number of active nodes identified in each of the responses received from the receiver nodes.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the access request is sent by the sender node to receiver nodes, in the plurality of nodes, that are viewable by the sender node as being members of a cluster of nodes.

3. The method of claim 2 , further comprising:
in response to the sender node entering an up state, determining if a number of nodes viewable by the sender node as being members of the cluster of nodes represents a quorum of nodes in the plurality of nodes; and
in response to the number of nodes viewable by the sender node not being a quorum of nodes, inhibiting the sending of the access request.

4. The method of claim 3 , wherein inhibiting the sending of the access request comprises:
initiating a tunable delay timer that measures a tunable delay timeout period of time during which the sending of the access request is inhibited; and
sending the access request in response to the tunable delay timeout period of time expiring.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein controlling access to the critical section of code based on the number of active nodes identified in each of the responses received from the receiver nodes comprises, for each response received from a receiver node:
comparing, by the sender node, a first number of active nodes indicated in the response to a second number of active nodes viewable by the sender node; and
self denying, by the sender node, access to the critical section of code in response to a discrepancy between the first number of active nodes and the second number of active nodes.

6. The method of claim 5 , further comprising:
permitting, by the sender node, access to the critical section of code in response to each first number of active nodes in each response received from receiver nodes being equal to or less than the second number of active nodes.

7. The method of claim 5 , further comprising:
in response to the second number of active nodes being smaller than any of the first number of active nodes in any of the responses received from the receiver nodes:
initiating an asymmetric view timer; and
inhibiting sending of access requests by the sender node during a time period measured by the asymmetric view timer.

8. The method of claim 7 , further comprising:
inhibiting responses indicating access granted, by the sender node, to access requests from other nodes in the plurality of nodes, during the time period measured by the asymmetric view timer.

9. The method of claim 1 , wherein the response of the corresponding receiver node comprises a number of nodes in an up state perceived by the corresponding receiver node, a number of nodes in a downbeat state perceived by the corresponding receiver node, and an indicator of whether the corresponding receiver node consents to access by the sender node to the shared resource.

10. The method of claim 9 , wherein, for the response of the corresponding receiver node, the number of active nodes perceived by the corresponding receiver node is calculated by the sender node as a sum of the number of nodes in an up state and the number of nodes in the downbeat state.

Assignees

• IBM

Inventors

• Cruz-Aguilar Esdras E
• Ganesh Perinkulam I
• Kandasamy Madhusudanan
• Meyer Charles E
• Tovcimak Stephen J

Classifications

• H04L41/0893

  Assignment of logical groups to network elements · CPC title

• H04L47/70 Primary

  Admission control; Resource allocation · CPC title

• H04L69/28

  Timers or timing mechanisms used in protocols · CPC title

• H04L43/0817

  by checking functioning · CPC title

• H04L43/10

  Active monitoring, e.g. heartbeat, ping or trace-route · CPC title