Patent ID: 7523097
Filing Date: 2009-04-21
Classification: G06F,H04L,Y10S

Abstract:
1. A method comprising: establishing, with a network device, a communication session with a client; receiving, with the network device, a lock command from the client via the communication session; locking candidate configuration data in response to the lock command from the client to grant an archive system exclusive access to the candidate configuration data of the network device and lock the candidate configuration data so that no other clients can edit the candidate configuration data, wherein the candidate configuration data represents an editable working copy of current operational configuration data of the network device; after locking the candidate configuration data, receiving a load command from the client and, in response to the load command, loading, from the archive system, archived configuration, data that represents previous operational configuration data of the network device to replace the locked candidate configuration data; in response to a first commit command from the client, temporarily committing the candidate configuration data to temporarily restore the archived configuration data as the operational configuration data of the network device; upon temporarily committing the candidate configuration data, enabling a timer within the network device; in response to receiving a second commit command from the client prior to the timer exceeding a pre-set time limit, permanently committing the candidate configuration data to restore the archived configuration data as the operational configuration data of the network device; upon expiration of the timer without receiving the second commit command with the network device, executing a first rollback to undo any changes to the operational data from the archived configuration data as loaded into the candidate configuration data; and upon failure of the communication session prior to receiving the second commit command, executing a second rollback to undo any changes made to the candidate configuration data by the archived configuration data to ensure the candidate configuration is synchronous with the operational configuration of the network device.