Electric Cloud, Inc.

John Ousterhout

Scott Stanton

Usman Muzaffar

John Eric Melski

Sven Delmas

Sandeep Tamhankar

John Graham-Cumming

Anders Wallgren

John Grahm-Cumming

Eric Melski

The embodiments of the invention described herein employ sophisticated techniques for managing distributed processes in a process automation system. Specifically, one embodiment of the invention implements a general purpose property mechanism in which arbitrary data is attached to any object in the system (e.g., projects, procedures, jobs, job steps, resources, etc), thereby providing a convenient way to configure the system without modifying the underlying program code. In addition, in one embodiment, a three-tier hierarchy of data object is employed: 'projects,' 'procedures,' and &#x201c;steps&#x201d; (or &#x201c;projects,&#x201d; &#x201c;jobs&#x201d; and &#x201c;job steps&#x201d; during runtime). A property may be attached to any object on any tier of the hierarchy to configure that object and (potentially) all of the objects which reference the property. The properties and property sheets may be attached both statically (before runtime) and dynamically (during runtime). Moreover, one embodiment of the invention employs a unique property substitution syntax to allow the value for a particular property to be located and substituted dynamically at runtime. In addition, advanced report generation techniques are described below in which the report generation process is logically separated into a data gathering stage and a report generation stage. The data gathering stage extracts certain specified properties and diagnostic information from each job step. The extracted information is then stored in a highly flexible, reusable data format which is used to create different types of user-configurable reports.

Process automation system and method employing multi-stage report generation

Process automation system and method employing property attachment techniques

A multi-tiered process automation system employing a novel property attachment mechanism is described. For example, a computer-implemented method according to one embodiment of the invention comprises: providing one or more project objects, procedure objects, and step objects; generating attachment data attaching a plurality of properties to the project objects, procedure objects, and step objects, each of the properties having a value associated therewith, wherein at least some of the properties are generated and attached to the project objects, procedure objects, and step objects at runtime, during execution of the project objects, procedure objects, and step objects, respectively; storing the attached properties with the associated values and attachment data; receiving a request to execute one or more of the objects; interpreting the attachment data to identify the properties attached to each of the one or more objects; and executing the one or more of the objects within the process automation system using the values associated with the one or more properties.

Process automation system and method having a hierarchical architecture with multiple tiers

A method is described comprising: scheduling jobs for a program build to execute in parallel across a plurality of nodes; predicting the files required to complete each of the jobs; and preloading the files to each node prior to the execution of each job.

Architecture and method for executing program builds

A method implemented within a distributed build system is described comprising: transmitting a first source file from a program build file repository to a first node, the first node using the source file to generate a target file identified in the build process; receiving a request for the first source file from a second node; and redirecting the second node to retrieve the first source file from the first node rather than from the program build file repository.

System and method for intelligently distributing source files within a distributed program build architecture

A method is described for executing program builds comprising: scheduling jobs for a program build based on dependencies between files used in the jobs; executing the jobs according to the schedule; collecting file usage information from each of the jobs, the file usage information indicating operations performed on the files in each of the jobs; and analyzing the file usage information to determine whether any one of the jobs resulted in a conflict.

Conflict detection and correction in a program build environment

A method for executing program builds is described comprising: executing jobs for a program build in parallel according to a first job schedule; detecting a recursive build invocation in one of the jobs; analyzing dependency information associated with the recursive build invocation; and based on the analysis, supplementing the first job schedule with additional job schedule data.

System and method for processing recursive invocations within a program build

A method for executing program builds is described comprising: analyzing file dependency information contained within a first file; scheduling jobs for a program build based on the analysis of the dependency information; executing the jobs according to the schedule; collecting file usage information from each of the jobs; and supplementing the file dependency information with the file usage information.

Growing community of inventors

Palo Alto, CA, United States of America

John Ousterhout