Preventing propagation of a system failure caused by faulty instructions in a distributed environment

摘要

A sequence of instructions is executed 102 on a first client in a client-server distributed system. The instructions are provided to multiple clients by a management control server, and relate to maintenance actions, such as software patches. If a failure is detected 104 on the first client as a result of carrying out the instructions, the client will generate a warning message 106 which includes a means of identifying the faulty instructions. A message is sent 108 for informing a second client in the environment. The message may cause the second client to determine if it carries the same instructions, and, if so, whether they have been executed or installed. If they have not, the faulty instructions are prevented from operating on the second client. If they have, and no error has occurred, the message from the first client is dismissed; if the same error has occurred, further messages are dispatched. This prevents the cascading distribution of the failure throughout the environment.