Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Microsoft Corporation

Kenneth David Wolf

Erik B Christensen

Edmund Samuel Victor Pinto

Nicholas Alexander Allen

Nathan Christopher Talbert

Justin David Brown

John Anthony Taylor

Geoffrey M Kizer

Stefan R Batres

Michael Steven Vernal

Donald F Box

Stephen James Millet

Leon Welicki

Stephen Jared Maine

Elliot Lee Waingold

Robert Brian Schmidt

Karthik Raman

Michael James Coulson

Douglas M Purdy

Clark Roberts

David Wortendyke

Lance Olson

Stefan Harrington Pharies

Edmund S V Pinto

Tirunelveli R Vishwanath

Jeffrey C Schlimmer

Dmitry Robsman

Shanku Shivabrata Niyogi

Stephen T Swartz

Shy Cohen

Kevin Kaiwon Lam

Aaron Stern

Kavita K Kamani

Emily Kruglick

Alexander Martin DeJarnatt

Shai Kariv

Christopher Lloyd Gillum

David Robert Cliffe

Yaniv Pessach

Edmund Pinto

Christopher G Kaler

Giovanni Moises Della-Libera

Richard Douglas Hill

Craig Andrew Critchley

Uday Sooryakant Hegde

Michael Marucheck

Tomasz Janczuk

Martin James Gudgin

Jayteerth Narasingrao Katti

Haoran Andy Wu

Natasha Harish Jethanandani

Stefan H Pharies

Siddhartha Puri

HongMei Ge

Douglas A Walter

Jesus Ruiz-Scougall

Sumit Mohanty

Ryan Thomas Sturgell

Alberto Arias Maestro

Luis Felipe Cabrera

Bradford H Lovering

James Ernest Johnson

David E Langworthy

Chad Magendanz

Tao Xie

John Raymond Justice

Umesh Madan

Balasubramanian Shyamsundar

Ramrajprabu Balasubramanian

John David Doty

Igor Sedukhin

Vijay Gajjala

Krishnan Srinivasan

Amol Kulkarni

Matthew Thomas Tavis

Geary L Eppley

David Edwin Levin

Asad Jawahar

Max A Feingold

Richard Dievendorff

Eric Kenneth Zinda

David Owen Driver

David Leon Stucki

Saurab Nog

Gopal Kakivaya

Anastasios Kasiolas

John Robert Lambert

Kapil Gupta

Gilles C J A Zunino

Vipul A Modi

Sowmyanarayanan K Srinivasan

Scott Christopher Seely

Jonathan T Wheeler

Mohammad Makarechian

Jay Thaler

Evgeny Osovetsky

Mauro Ottaviani

Michael Thomas Dice

Chaitanya Dutt Upadhyay

Erin Honeycutt

Generally in a computing environment, executing work based on time (i.e. according to a predetermined schedule) is a common need. However, in cloud based systems, scheduled work may be expensive to customers as generally customers rent system resources. Thus, having a processor dedicated to performing actions that have been pre-scheduled can be expensive. This application describes using a continuation-based runtime for scheduling time-bound and/or periodic work in a distributed (i.e. cloud) system. A system architecture and computer-implemented method are described that deploy an environment-independent action to a remote-based system (such as a cloud computing system, for example). The action is limited to using a predetermined amount of resources and is limited to simple, non-cpu intensive orchestrations of network calls. A schedule is defined for the action, and the action is then called in a processor-independent fashion (for example, by using a continuation based runtime) such that state of the action is maintained independent of the processor on which the action is being executed.

Schedule based execution with extensible continuation based actions

Interfaces for a continuation-based runtime. Some embodiments described herein are directed to a framework using continuation based runtime interface that pertain to an infrastructure for enabling the creation of a wide variety of continuation-based programs that perform a wide-array of tasks. The infrastructure provides a foundation for building continuation-based, declarative applications of various scale and complexity.

Interface infrastructure for a continuation based runtime

The present invention extends to methods, systems, and computer program products for creating and manipulating custom compound data types in declarative programs. The present invention allows a developer to create and use custom compound data types without requiring the custom type to be specifically defined (e.g. via registering a custom assembly) in the underlying framework. This is accomplished by providing a data container that is configurable to represent virtually any combination of primitive or compound types defined within the framework. The present invention also provides a declarative model for interacting with data containers representing custom compound data types. This declarative model employs a path-based syntax (or other type of syntax) for accessing the elements of a custom compound data type. Multiple paths can be defined within a single unit of developer input so that multiple elements of a custom data type can be manipulated by the single unit of input.

Custom compound types in declarative programs

Embodiments are directed to presenting multiple projections of a declarative program and to presenting partial projections of a declarative program. In one scenario, a computer system establishes a declarative program that includes various artifacts. The computer system displays a first projection of the declarative program, which includes one or more elements of a workflow. The computer system then determines that an additional projection is to be displayed in addition to the first projection, and presents a second projection based on the artifacts of the declarative program. The second projection illustrates the artifacts in a form different than that shown in the first projection, and is presented in addition to the first projection. In some cases, the computer system further receives an input and edits the declarative program according to the received input. The edits to the declarative program are substantially lossless, and can be performed using partial or full projections.

Providing design time projections for a visual program

An episodic execution of program instances and a coordinated message exchange protocol are combined to achieve eventual consistency in the communication between nodes of a distributed system. Program instances run in episodic loops that are triggered by defined input events and that generate checkpoints. The checkpoints indicate when messages are to be sent from the one instance to another instance or other device. The coordinated message exchange protocol allows the instance to send a message to a receiver, to acknowledge that the message has been received, and to confirm the acknowledgement to the receiver.

Episodic coordination model for distributed applications

Sending or receiving messages in a host agnostic way in a continuation based runtime. A method includes defining a contract between a continuation based runtime and host for sending or receiving a message. The contract defines one or more of: details about what should be included in the messages, operations for sending the message; operations for receiving the message, parameters for cancellation of inflight operations, or notifications about correlation information lifetime. The method further includes identifying a correlation handle. The correlation handle uniquely identifies an executing instance of an activity. The method further comprises identifying a bookmark. The bookmark defines where the continuation based runtime should resume after sending or receiving the message. The method further comprises calling the contract using the correlation handle and the bookmark to allow the message to be correctly routed by the host and for the continuation based runtime to be correctly resumed.

Host agnostic messaging in a continuation based runtime

Namespace for continuation-based runtime. Some embodiments described herein are directed to a framework using continuation based runtime namespaces that pertain to an infrastructure for enabling the creation of a wide variety of continuation-based programs that perform a wide-array of tasks. The infrastructure provides a foundation for building continuation-based, declarative applications of various scale and complexity. In some embodiments, the associated application programming interfaces (APIs) are factored into a hierarchy of namespaces in a manner that balances utility, usability, extensibility, and versionability.

Scheduling and dispatching jobs for a plurality of different entities. A method includes receiving at a work coordinator, one or more actions associated with a job. The method further includes storing in a log at the work coordinator, keyed on a job key, state for the one or more actions and a list of the one or more actions. The method further includes making calls to one or more worker processes to cause the worker process to perform actions associated with the job. As a result of making calls to one or more worker processes, the method further includes receiving at least one of a change to the list of remaining actions or the state.

Dynamic execution log in a distributed system

Embodiments are directed to executing a workflow using a virtualized clock and to ensuring idempotency and correctness among workflow processes. In one scenario, a computer system a computer system determines that a workflow session has been initialized. The workflow session runs as a set of episodes, where each episode includes one or more pulses of work that are performed when triggered by an event. Each workflow session is processed according to a virtualized clock that keeps a virtual session time for the workflow session. The computer system receives an event that includes an indication of the time the event was generated, and then accesses the received event to determine which pulses of work are to be performed as part of a workflow session episode. The computer system then executes the determined pulses of work according to the virtual session time indicated by the virtualized clock.

Consistent modeling and execution of time constructs in business processes

Instance properties are defined for instances of an application. During episodes of the instances, the values of the instance properties are populated. Other instances read the values of the instance properties without requiring the instance to run. If the value of an instance property is not populated, then a new episode of the instance is executed to populate the missing values. Instance properties may be grouped into property bags. An instance may populate the values of instance properties in a property bag atomically during one episode using a multi-set message. Other instances may read the values of the property bag instance properties using a multi-get request.

System for scalable configuration and context

Partitioning continuation based runtime programs. Embodiments may include differentiating activities of a continuation based runtime program between public children activities and implementation children activities. The continuation based runtime program is partitioned into visibility spaces. The visibility spaces have boundaries based on implementation children activities. The continuation based runtime program is partially processes at a visibility space granularity.

Method and system for iteratively partitioning and validating program trees into environments at visibility space granularity

A hosted resource management system is described herein that provides systems and methods whereby a cloud-based tenant can define a logical model that allows the tenant to work with cloud-based entities in a manner that aligns with the tenant's own purpose and thinking. The system then reflects this model in a set of management tools and access paradigms that are provided to the cloud-based tenant. Each division in the logical model is termed a scope, and can include various types of cloud-based entities. Each of these scopes may contain similar cloud-based entity types, but because of the organization provided by scopes the tenant can manage these cloud-based entities according to the view and model that the tenant defines. Thus, the hosted resource management system provides a way of managing cloud-based entities that is intuitive for cloud-based tenants and facilities easier management of large-scale applications with many cloud-based entities.

Model for managing hosted resources using logical scopes

Embodiments described herein allow a service component author to write service components without having to handle incoming messages being received at any time. This may be facilitated by a message dispatch engine that dispatches messages from the incoming message queue only when the destination service component has indicated that it is ready to receive the message having that context. If the service component is not yet ready for the message, the message dispatch component may lock the message at least until the destination service component indicates that it is now ready to receive the message. Until that time, the message dispatch engine may ignore the locked message when finding messages to dispatch.

Queued message dispatch

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Seattle, WA, United States of America

Kenneth David Wolf