US 12,353,869 B2
Update software replica in a distributed system
Jan Camenisch, Thalwil (CH); Manu Drijvers, Zürich (CH); Johan Granström, Kilchberg (CH); Stefan Kaestle, Zürich (CH); and Yvonne-Anne Pignolet, Zurich (CH)
Assigned to DFINITY STIFTUNG, Zürich (CH)
Appl. No. 18/272,325
Filed by DFINITY STIFTUNG, Zürich (CH)
PCT Filed Jan. 14, 2021, PCT No. PCT/EP2021/050679
§ 371(c)(1), (2) Date Jul. 13, 2023,
PCT Pub. No. WO2022/152383, PCT Pub. Date Jul. 21, 2022.
Prior Publication US 2024/0311124 A1, Sep. 19, 2024
Int. Cl. G06F 8/65 (2018.01)
CPC G06F 8/65 (2013.01) 20 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A distributed network, the distributed network comprising a replicated computing cluster, the replicated computing cluster comprising a plurality of nodes, wherein each of the plurality of nodes of the replicated computing cluster is configured to run a replica, wherein each of the replicas is configured to
run one or more computational units, wherein the one or more computational units are pieces of software which have their own unit state;
perform consecutive processing rounds comprising a consecutive processing of input blocks comprising a plurality of transactions in a deterministic and replicated manner, thereby computing a sequence of round states;
perform software upgrades of the replica at handover states of the round states at pre-agreed handover rounds of the consecutive processing rounds;
provide, upon request of another replica, via a communication interface that is independent of the software upgrades, a handover package, the handover package being configured to enable an obtainment of the handover state; wherein
the distributed network is configured to perform the software upgrades from a current software version of the replica to a new software version of the replica by
performing the processing rounds up to and including the computing of the handover state of the pre-agreed handover round with the current software version;
installing the new software version; and
performing the processing rounds subsequent to the handover round with the new software version starting from the handover state.