Amazon patents system to safely break servers to test reliability
This patent describes a framework for testing how well large computer networks handle problems. It works by deliberately causing specific failures in a controlled way, then automatically checking if the system recovers as expected.
In the filing’s own words
The present disclosure generally relates to systems and methods for a controlled fault injection and validation framework used to test the availability and resiliency of a distributed system. Specifically, some embodiments of the present disclosure relate to receiving a request for a failure injection, creating a failure configuration based on the requested failure injection, scanning for pending failures in the database, injecting pending failures into a target service with an agent, scheduling validation tasks mapped to the failure injection, running validation tasks, and updating the result of the validation tasks in the database.
What exactly they claim (claim 1)
1. A system for injecting controlled failures and validations into a distributed computing system, the system comprising: one or more processors; and a memory that stores computer-executable instructions, wherein the computer-executable instructions, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to: receive a failure injection request, wherein the failure injection request identifies a first failure to test in the distributed computing system; generate a failure configuration file for the first failure based at least partly on the failure injection request; upon detecting the failure configuration file, inject the first failure into a target service of the distributed computing system using an agent, wherein the agent comprises first executable instructions related to the first failure; upon detecting that injection of the first failure is complete, create a validation configuration file for the first failure, wherein the first failure corresponds to a validation; upon detecting the validation configuration file, run the validation in the target service of the distributed computing system using the agent, wherein the agent comprises second executable instructions related to the validation; and upon receiving a reporting request from a user device, transmit resulting data of the validation and the first failure to the user device.
Facts
- Company
- Amazon (Amazon Technologies, Inc.)
- Official title
- System and method for controlled fault injection and validation in distributed systems
- Patent number
- US12762001B1
- Application number
- 18824523
- Filed
- Sep 4, 2024
- Granted
- Oct 13, 2026
- Inventors
- 5
- Claims
- 20
Classified under
G06F 11/079 Physics & computingG06F 11/0766 Physics & computingG06F 11/26 Physics & computingG06F 11/261 Physics & computingMore from Amazon in AI & software
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Summaries are simplified from the filing’s own abstract and first claim. A patent filing is not a product announcement.
Patent data and drawings: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Nebula is not affiliated with or endorsed by the USPTO.