International Business Machines Corporation

Donald Francis Ferguson

Gennaro A Cuomo

James Thomas Rayfield

Avraham Leff

Thomas James Freund

Glyn Normington

Stephen James Cocks

Robert Anthony Storey

Andrew John Bainbridge

Robert Thomas Uthe

Brian Keith Martin

Kathryn Heninger Britton

Jason Robert McGee

Christopher Creighton Mitchell

Samar Choudhary

John William Sweitzer

Shikha Srivastava

Carol Ann Jones

Richard Adam King

Elizabeth A Schreiber

Vijay Pandiarajan

Daniel Christopher Shupp

Joseph A Bohn

Douglas Robert Petty

Graeme Neville Dixon

Timothy G Shortley

Goran D Zlokapa

Anand Byrappagari

Jeffrey Alan Frey

William Thomas Newport

Isabelle Marie Rouvellou

James Z Teng

Robert R Rogers

Ignacio Silva-Lepe

Jen-Yao Chung

Christopher Frank Codella

Vinoj Narayan Kumar

Jakka Sairamesh

Leonidas Georgiadis

Christos N Nikolaou

Ted Eric Blank

George W Wang

Angelo Pruscino

Randall A Cieslak

Erhard Rahm

Christos Nicholas Nikolaou

Content aggregation is used to build administration consoles. Preferred embodiments enable providing a solution-based approach to information technology ('IT') administration, whereby content can be flexibly arranged to provide a content view that is adapted for the IT solution deployed in a particular IT environment. In preferred embodiments, portal technology is used for the aggregation framework, and portlets are used for creating content. Alternatively, other approaches such as struts and tiles may be used. Preferred embodiments deploy an administration console as a Web-accessible application, and this console consolidates the administration interfaces for an arbitrary set of management operations, including administration of an arbitrary collection of hardware and/or software resources. Roles/permissions may be used when rendering content for the console, thereby customizing a view to individual end users (or user groups).

Using content aggregation to build administration consoles

A method, apparatus, system, and signal-bearing medium that in an embodiment determine the active partitions of an application and assign the active partitions among servers via a routing table. The routing table is sent to a client, who uses the routing table to send requests and/or messages to the active partitions. In an embodiment, the routing table includes identifiers of the active partitions and the associated partitions. If one of the servers fails or if the partitions have a loading imbalance, the partitions are reassigned via the routing table.

Routable application partitioning

A method of caching contextually variant objects in a common cache. The method can include identifying an object type for a requested object and determining whether the requested object has an object type which is specified among an enumerated set of cacheable object types which can be stored in the common cache. Importantly, each cacheable object type can have an associated context. If the requested object has an object type which is specified among the enumerated set of cacheable object types, a cache key can be computed for the requested object using cache key formulation rules for the associated context. Finally, the requested object can be retrieved from the common cache using the formulated cache key. Notably, in one aspect of the invention, the method also can include the step of invalidating individual objects in the common cache according to corresponding cache policies of associated contexts.

Context-sensitive caching

A method for upgrading one of several computer programs stored on an application server in a distributed computing environment while permitting the application server to continue to service requests for other computer programs. In accordance with the method, the application server is prevented from receiving any new requests for the computer program. The system then waits until all current requests serviced by the application server for that computer program have ended. Then, after acknowledging completion of upgrading of the computer program, the application server is permitted to receive any new requests for the computer program. Apparatuses for carrying out the inventive method are provided.

System and method for upgrading software in a distributed computer system

In accordance with the present invention, methods are included, which may be implemented by employing a program storage device readable by machine, tangibly embodying a program of instructions executable by the machine to perform method steps for anonymously integrating an object oriented software component with message oriented clients. A method is included for anonymously integrating object-oriented software components and message-oriented clients wherein a first object-oriented component performs the steps of performing invocations which are serviced by one of message-oriented clients and object-oriented components and servicing the invocations which are performed by one of the message-oriented clients and the object-oriented components such that the first object-oriented component is unaware that the invocations are performed and serviced by one of the message-oriented clients and the object-oriented components.

Integration mechanism for object-oriented software and message-oriented software

An information-handling system operable within a distributed object computing environment (DOCE) is disclosed that includes an object-based program for controlling object searching in a constraint-based filtering mode over said DOCE. The object-based program for controlling object searching further comprises means for providing hierarchical storage of a name/binding value during a search. Additionally, the object-based program includes a means for providing the addition of properties as name/value pair sequence to each node within a tree search performed by the object-based program. Further, the search mechanism includes means for providing recursive searching of the group properties as well as means for providing meta-knowledge of the class within the DOCE for attribute search. Moreover, the system includes means for invoking a base-filterable class, which introduces methods that verify whether an object satisfies a given filter, and where the base-filterable class further provides a filterable subclass that provides the methods needed to build a filter.

Information-handling system, method, and article of manufacture including and object search mechanism that provides constraint-based filtering in a distributed object system

In a data processing environment where a client requests a server to perform part of its processing, a method of updating the client's version of server-related data without requiring the client to be a server, includes steps of: receiving, at a control point server, a first request from the client requesting that server-related data be transferred from the control point server to the client; and in response to the first request, sending the server-related data from the control point server to the client, along with a unique bind token identifying a version number of the server-related data such that each time the server-related data changes a new unique bind token is associated with the data, where the client uses the server-related data to form a second request for the server to perform part of the client's processing, and where the client sends said bind token to the server as part of the second request.

Updating server-related data at a client

A method of performing workload management within an object-oriented client/server computing environment wherein one of a plurality of servers is chosen to satisfy a client request based on at least one workload management policy, said method, which takes place within the client, includes steps of: deciding whether a client application program has issued a request for a server to do some work; forming an extended object reference based on said request, said extended object reference having, in addition to a server address field and an object key field, at least one additional field; accessing workload management policy data based on said extended object reference; and selecting one of said plurality of servers based on said accessed workload management policy data.

Workload management in a client-server network with distributed objects

A resource allocation manager and technique for servers within a computer system. Resources are initially allocated to servers and in order to enhance system performance, resources are reallocated based on a minimization of the maximum performance index. In one example, the server with the largest performance index is allocated additional resources and the server with the smallest performance index loses some of its resources.

Goal-oriented resource allocation manager and performance index

In a multiple processor transaction processing system, a class response time goal for each class of transactions is enforced by a workload manager, which computes a current average class response time for each transaction class and derives a current class performance index for each of these classes with respect to its class response time goal. Whenever a transaction arrives, the workload manager considers a number of different possible transaction servers to which that arriving transaction could be routed and predicts estimated new values for the class performance indices for each of the considered routing choices. An overall goal satisfaction index is determined for each one and the routing choice corresponding to the best overall goal satisfaction index is selected as the routing choice. In the preferred embodiment, the workload manager also priority rates or orders the classes in accordance with the current class performance indices so that a transaction of a class which is performing more poorly (as judged by its class performance index) gets a higher dispatch priority at the server to which it is routed than a transaction of a class that is performing better.

Workload manager for achieving transaction class response time goals in

Failures are detected in servers of a transaction processing system, and transactions are routed to less failure prone servers in the system. Servers in the transaction processing system which are faulty for some transaction classes but good for others are detected, and such servers are used in a judicious manner to maximize the throughput and minimize the response time of the system. Error prone servers are occasionally probed to determine if they have improved in terms of their error characteristics. The mechanism implemented consists of three elements. The first is the selection of a routing algorithm based on the state of the transaction processing system. Second, transactions are used to probe systems considered too faulty for use in order to determine if they have improved in terms of their failure characteristics. Finally, soft ABENDs are detected. The algorithm for transaction routing to detect and control the problem of failing servers in a transaction processing system consists of two parts: The first part routes transactions to servers based on the length of the server queues, the response time of the transactions (i.e., queuing delay plus processing delay), and the perceived failure rate. The second part of the algorithm ensures that error prone servers are not completely ignored. Occasional transactions are used to probe servers in order to determine if they have improved in terms of their error characteristics.

Routing transactions in the presence of failing servers

Growing community of inventors

Yorktown Heights, NY, United States of America

Donald Francis Ferguson