Information exchange for process pair replacement in a cluster environment

摘要

A redundant system includes a primary process and a backup process. The system is configured to conduct online software replacement by sending an instruction to the backup process to terminate, and then starting a replacement backup process using an updated code version. Tokenized checkpoints are provided to the replacement backup process from the primary process, the tokenized checkpoints including a basic data structure and a token data structure. The token data structure includes one or more tokens that may be considered or may be ignored by the replacement backup process. After the state of the replacement backup process has been established, the replacement backup process is designated to be the new primary process. At that time, a new backup process is started using the updated code.