International Business Machines Corporation

Bernd Dowedeit

Juergen P Schneider

Walter Schueppen

Roland Haibl

The number of concurrent systems locks supported on a Sysplex is limited. Since persistent system locks may not be released for a long time, the limit may be reached resulting in outage periods. Access to resources may be managed through shared variables across a cluster of computing systems. Processes running on the cluster can use shared variables that are either exclusive or non-exclusive. An exclusive shared variable associates a resource with a process that has exclusive control of the resource. Since each exclusive shared variable is unique across the cluster, another application cannot create a second exclusive shared variable to control the resource. There is no limit on the number of exclusive shared variables that can be created on a cluster. Using exclusive shared variables instead of persistent system locks can prevent a system from reaching the limit of concurrent system locks while allowing processes exclusive use of resources.

Management of cluster-wide resources with shared variables

A mechanism is provided to exchange information comprised in objects between object-oriented and non-object-oriented environments. The mechanism converts an object or a collection of objects into key-value-pairs clearly assigned to its originate object and vice versa. The mechanism feeds the keys and the values of the clearly assigned key-value-pairs one-by-one into a data stream to be used to transport information comprised in the objects from an object-oriented to a non-object-oriented environment and vice versa. Each key and/or value is only fed one time into the data stream and is then replaced by a placeholder referring to the key and/or value already sent.

Method to exchange objects between object-oriented and non-object-oriented environments

A system and procedure for controlling and monitoring programs in a computer network system. An important advantage of the present invention is that a user interface for controlling and monitoring the programs in the computer network system remains unchanged when compared to the user interface of single computers. The computer network simulates a single computer. The system administrator controls and monitors the programs in the computer network system as in a single computer. The user interface is independent of the computer, i.e. the system administrator only needs to call one computer in the computer network system. The selection of the computer in the computer network system is carried out by automatic addressing. This computer is responsible for centralized control and monitoring in the whole computer network. The selection is made dynamically, i.e. other computers or several computers at the same time can take over the these central functions (dynamic centralization).

System and procedure for controlling and monitoring programs in a computer network

An apparatus and method for implementation in a computing system (5) which allows the transfer of control from one process (10) to another process (40). The input/output supervisor (20) and a newly provided control mechanism (50) are used to switch control. Transfer of data between the two processes is carried out using a data pool (75). This data pool (75) is accessible to both processes (10, 40) through the control mechanism (50).

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Holzgerlingen, Germany

Bernd Dowedeit