Patent ID: 8024601

Claim:
A server restarting method for a computing system comprising: a plurality of active servers connected to a disk device comprising a plurality of storage areas; at least one backup server connected to said disk device; and an administration server to which each of said active servers and said backup server are connected, said administration server storing a snapshot containing memory content of said each active server in said storage areas, the method comprising said administration server performing steps of: receiving an alert from a first active server; determining whether said alert corresponds to a predetermined condition; issuing an instruction to said first active server to obtain an additional snapshot in addition to a previous snapshot obtained by said first active server when it is determined that said alert corresponds to said predetermined condition; storing said additional snapshot in a storage area different from a storage area that stores said previous snapshot; and storing information in a disk management storage area that relates together said additional snapshot, said storage area that stores said additional snapshot, and said predetermined condition, wherein when a failure occurs in one of said active servers, designated a failed active server, then: extracting a plurality of storage areas in which a snapshot corresponding to said failed active server is stored based on said information in said disk management storage area; selecting a storage area corresponding to said predetermined condition from among said extracted storage areas using said information in said disk management storage area; and starting up said backup server.