International Business Machines Corporation

Jeffrey David Aman

David B Emmes

Peter Bergersen Yocom

Donna N Dillenberger

Catherine Krueger Eilert

Gary M King

Donald W Schmidt

Curt Lee Cotner

Steven Jay Greenspan

Donald Fred Ault

Melvin R Zimowski

John Elliott Arwe

Patrick Michael Livecchi

Ernest Scott Bender

Michael Gary Spiegel

David Vincent Bostjancic

Michael Wayne Brown

Yuk Lung Chan

John Alan Bivens

Jeffrey Alan Frey

Rajesh Ramkrishna Bordawekar

Mathew S Thoennes

Michael E Baskey

Bernard R Pierce

Gary Stuart Puchkoff

Carl Edward Clark

Christopher Meyer

Hiren Ramlal Shah

Rodney Alan Little

David Walsh Palmieri

David Andrew Booz

Yuksel Gunal

Mark Alvin Sehorne

Frank S Samuel, Jr

Nancy P Riggs

Steven Edward Rosengren

Donna Ngar-Ting Dillenberger

Donna N T E Dillenberger

Thomas J Szczgielski

Satwinder S Kahlon

Gregory M Dritschler

A method and apparatus for managing CPU resources of a logically partitioned computing environment without shared memory access. A logical partition needing additional resources sends a message requesting such resources to a central domain manager, which sends messages to other partitions in the same group requesting that they assess their ability to donate resources to the requesting partition. Upon receiving such assessment request, each logical partition assesses its ability to donate resources to the requesting partition and responds accordingly to the domain manager. If at least one partition responds that it can donate resources to the requesting partition, the domain manager sends a message to a selected donor partition requesting that it reconfigure itself to donate resources to the requesting partition. Upon receiving a notification from the donor partition that it has successfully reconfigured itself, the domain manager notifies the requesting partition, which reconfigures itself to accept the donated resources.

Method and apparatus for managing central processing unit resources of a logically partitioned computing environment without shared memory access

An apparatus and method for distributing traffic across a group of machines using application instance statistics. In order to perform load balancing in accordance with the present invention, a method of generating weights to bias load balancing distributions is provided. The application instances to which traffic is being distributed, or the application middleware, are instrumented to establish certain metrics about the application while running. The application instance instrumentation will provide application statistics such as number of successful transactions, application response times, application topology, importance of transactions being processed, time the application is blocked waiting for resources, resource consumption data, and the like. These metrics are collected, processed, and then presented as a set of weights to the load balancing apparatus to govern its distribution of traffic. With such application metrics available, traffic can be disbursed based on the current state of the application instances and other application instances in the transaction's path, the application instance's likelihood to complete the request, or even higher level business-oriented goals.

Method for determining load balancing weights using application instance topology information

A technique is disclosed for managing a workload distributed across multiple data processing systems to enhance shared resource access to meet a common performance standard. The technique includes on at least one system, measuring performance of the work units on the system to create local performance data, and on at least some of the systems sending the local performance data to at least one other system of the multiple data processing systems. The method further includes on at least one of the systems, receiving the performance data from the sending systems to create remote performance data, and adjusting at least one control parameter for accessing shared resources in response to the local and remote performance data to modify the performance of the work units distributed across the data processing systems to achieve the common performance standard. A dynamic resource clustering process is also employed to enhance the shared resource management.

Workload management method to enhance shared resource access in a multisystem environment

In a virtual machine environment, the invention enables creation of a long running, reusable, virtual machine are disclosed. The environment includes a shared heap where requisite runtime code to bring the virtual machine into a 'ready' mode are loaded, linked, verified, initialized and compiled. Subsequent virtual machines are started and jointly use the shared heap. Applications create their objects in 'private heaps' that are exclusively reserved for the respective applications. At the end of execution of an application, each private heap is reinitialized. Static initializers are run in a persistent area of each private heap. This persistent area is reset to its initial values in between execution of applications. This obviates the need to terminate the virtual machine.

Long running, reusable, extendible, virtual machine

A server instance includes a first region to perform one or more privileged functions and a second region to perform one or more non-privileged functions. Thus, the privileged functions are separate from the non-privileged functions. The first region includes at least a portion of an object request broker, which is used in communicating with one or more clients coupled to the server instance. The second region executes non-privileged application code, and can be replicated within the server instance based on workload management criteria.

Separating privileged functions from non-privileged functions in a server instance

A system and method for processing a request utilizing a database management system in a computer system is disclosed. The database management system manages at least one database. At least one database subsystem corresponding to the database management system is available. The computer system includes a plurality of worker threads. The method and system include assigning the request to a worker thread of the plurality of worker threads. The worker thread is for aiding in execution of the request. The method and system also include providing a connection to a particular database subsystem for the worker thread and associating the connection with the worker thread if the worker thread has not previously used the particular database subsystem. The method and system further include reusing the connection to the particular database subsystem that is associated with the worker thread if the worker thread has previously used the particular database subsystem.

Method and system for managing connections to a database management system

Apparatus and accompanying methods for use preferably in a multi-system shared data (sysplex) environment (,), wherein each system (,) provides one or more servers (,), for dynamically and adaptively assigning and balancing new work and for new session requests, among the servers in the sysplex, in view of attendant user-defined business importance of these requests and available sysplex resource capacity so as to meet overall business goals. Specifically, systems and servers are categorized into two classes: eligible, i.e., goal-oriented servers running under a policy and for which capacity information is currently available, and candidate, i.e., servers which lack capacity information. Work requests for a client application are assigned first to various eligible systems and eligible servers thereon based on their current capacity to accept new work and in a manner that meets business goals inherent in a sysplex policy; followed, if additional servers are requested by that application, to candidate systems and candidate servers thereon. As to session placement, first those system(s) are selected that have lowest utilization, at a target importance level, but with sufficient available capacity at that level. Competing servers on the selected system(s) are then evaluated based on their corresponding session count data to yield a single resulting server. Thereafter, identification of multiple servers and their corresponding weights are returned to, e.g., a client application, for eventual routing of work requests to those servers, or the identification of a single server is returned to that application for establishing a new session therewith.

Apparatus and accompanying method for assigning session requests in a multi-server sysplex environment

In a client/server system, a method and apparatus for a listening daemon to distribute work and client connectivity across multiple processes each supporting multiple threads. Upon receiving a request from a client, a listening daemonaccepts the conversation, thus creating a socket. The listening daemon then does a putwork( ) call which places a work request on a system managed work queue. The work request behaves in a manner very similar to spawn in that it provides for parameters to be passed as well as transfer of ownership of the socket. In the meantime, server processes that are created either manually or by the operating system create multiple threads, which invoke a getwork( ) service to retrieve work requests created by the listening daemon. The getwork( ) service transfers the socket to the calling process and notifies the thread which file descriptors it has inherited. The thread is then able to process the client request and respond directly to the client without requiring an intermediate process to provide the communication link. The present invention allows a server in a client/server system to spread the workload across multiple threads in multiple processes, avoiding the creation of too many processes or too many threads in a single process. The direct transfer of the socket eliminates the unnecessary overhead typically required to rebind a new process to the client application.

Method and apparatus for transferring file descriptors in a multiprocess, multithreaded client/server system

Method and system for managing connections to a database management

A method and apparatus for controlling the assignment of units of work to workload enclaves in a client/server system in which units of work are organized into enclaves with the units of work in each enclave being managed as a single entity. Incoming work requests are queued for processing by one or more worker threads of one or more server processes. In response to the receipt of an incoming work request, a putwork() service of the operating system kernel defines an workload enclave for the work request and adds the work request to a queue of incoming work requests to enqueue the request. In response to a request from a worker thread for more work, a getwork() service of the operating system kernel removes a work request from the queue to dequeue the request and associates the worker thread with the enclave defined for the request. If a worker thread must create a new unit of work while processing a work request, it calls an appropriate service of the operating system kernel, which creates the new unit of work and associates the new process with the enclave of the worker thread. The worker thread is disassociated from the enclave upon completion of the work request.

Method and apparatus for controlling the assignment of units of work to

Distributed computing environment (DCE) remote procedure calls (RPCs) are integrated with an advisory work load manager (WLM) to provide a way to intelligently dispatch RPC requests among the available application server processes. The routing decisions are made dynamically (for each RPC) based on interactions between the location broker and an advisory work load manager. Furthermore, when the system contains multiple coupled processors (tightly coupled within a single frame, or loosely coupled within a computing complex, a local area network (LAN) configuration, a distributed computing environment (DCE) cell, etc.), the invention extends to balance the processing of RPC requests and the associated client sessions across the coupled systems. Once a session is assigned to a given process, the invention also supports performance monitoring and reporting, dynamic system resource allocation for the RPC requests, and potentially any other benefits that may be available through the specific work load manager (WLM).

Integrating distributed computing environment remote procedure calls

A method and apparatus for controlling the number of servers in an information handling system in which incoming work requests belonging to a first service class are placed in a queue for processing by one or more servers. The system also has units of work assigned to a second service class that acts as a donor of system resources. In accordance with the invention, a performance measure is defined for the first service class as well as for the second service class. Before adding servers to the first service class, there is determined not only the positive effect on the performance measure for the first service class, but also the negative effect on the performance measure for the second service class. Servers are added to the first service class only if the positive effect on the performance measure for the first service class outweighs the negative effect on the performance measure for the second service class.

Method and apparatus for controlling the number of servers in a

Apparatus and accompanying methods for use preferably in a multi-system shared data (sysplex) environment (100), wherein each system (110) provides one or more servers (115), for dynamically and adaptively assigning and balancing new work and for new session requests, among the servers in the sysplex, in view of attendant user-defined business importance of these requests and available sysplex resource capacity so as to meet overall business goals. Specifically, systems and servers are categorized into two classes: eligible, i.e., goal-oriented servers running under a policy and for which capacity information is currently available, and candidate, i.e., servers which lack capacity information. Work requests for a client application are assigned first to various eligible systems and eligible servers thereon based on their current capacity to accept new work and in a manner that meets business goals inherent in a sysplex policy; followed, if additional servers are requested by that application, to candidate systems and candidate servers thereon. As to session placement, first those system(s) are selected that have lowest utilization, at a target importance level, but with sufficient available capacity at that level. Competing servers on the selected system(s) are then evaluated based on their corresponding session count data to yield a single resulting server. Thereafter, identification of multiple servers and their corresponding weights are returned to, e.g., a client application, for eventual routing of work requests to those servers, or the identification of a single server is returned to that application for establishing a new session therewith.

System for assignment of work requests by identifying servers in a

System of assigning work requests based on classifying into an eligible

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Poughkeepsie, NY, United States of America

Jeffrey David Aman