International Business Machines Corporation

Luis Garcés-Erice

John G Rooney

Daniel Nikolaus Bauer

Paolo Scotton

David Clerc

Jacques Fontignie

Kristijan Dragicevic

Urs Hunkeler

Hao Yang

Hui Lei

Claudio Marinelli

Minkyong Kim

Liangzhao Zeng

Peter Buhler

Thomas Gschwind

Han Chen

Gidon Gershinsky

Nicholas David Butler

Konstantin Shagin

Marc-Thomas H Schmidt

Marc Vuilleumier Stückelberg

David Rushall

Michael Baentsch

Frank Hoering

Andreas Schade

Sean G Rooney

Michael Kuyper

A server system includes a database for storing data, a memory device for storing data selected from the data in the database, and a processing device that selects data from the database, stores the selected data in the memory device, and transmits over a communication network an availability signal to a client, the availability signal including an identifier of the selected data and indicating that the selected data is stored in the memory device and is available to be accessed by the client.

Transmitting data including pieces of data

A computer implemented method includes storing data in a server, selecting a block of data from the stored data, storing the selected block of data in a cache memory of the server, and transmitting a block availability signal to a client, the block availability signal including an identifier of the selected block of data and indicating that the selected block of data is stored in the cache memory and is available to be accessed by the client.

A mechanism for declarative service domain federation uses a declarative approach to both the visibility aspect and the management aspect of service domain federation. Instead of manually exporting services, that is, selecting individual services from source domains to be visible in the target domain, using the present system, a federation architect uses a federation console to specify federation intent. The federation intent may include federation rule, query-based service group, and quality-of-service (QoS) policy. Based on the declared federation intent, a planning engine resolves the individual services based on the group query, generates the service visibility configuration, and creates the necessary service proxies and/or mediation objects to satisfy the goal. At runtime, a service monitor collects the performance metrics of federated services and dynamically adjusts the mediation/proxy configurations to maintain the QoS objectives specified by the federation architect.

Declarative service domain federation

A method, system and computer program product are disclosed for maintaining a membership view of a distributed computing system comprising a multitude of members, wherein each of said members sends out a message indicating that said each of the members is available in the system. In one embodiment, the method comprises maintaining a first list of at least some of the members in the distributed system; and over a period of time, when one of the members sends out the message indicating that said one of the members is available in the distributed system, adding said one of the members to a second list. At defined times, the first list is replaced with the second list. In an embodiment, the method further comprises at said defined times, starting a new, empty second list.

Efficient maintenance of a distributed system membership view

A method and system for transmitting data including pieces of data. The method includes the steps of: placing a piece of data on at least one cache memory; and sending a signal indicating a presence of the piece of data on the cache memory to at least one client, where at least one of the steps is carried out by a computer device.

Embodiments of the invention provide a method, system, and computer program product for selecting a server as a selected server for performing a specified function in a distributed computing system. In one embodiment, the method comprises identifying a group of servers in the system; and choosing as the selected server the server that has been in the system the longest. In one embodiment, each of the servers in the group has a respective contention period, during which the server sends a contention message, and the selected server is chosen using these contention messages. The servers in the group may have imperfect clock synchronization. In this case, the contention periods of the servers is kept greater than the maximum difference between the server clocks. The invention may be used to select a name server, or to select a server for another service.

Distributed server election with imperfect clock synchronization

Methods and apparatus are provided for provisioning an operating system image from a server () to an untrusted user terminal () via a data communications network (). A trusted device () such as a pocket USB device has tamper-resistant storage () containing bootloader logic, for controlling booting of a user terminal, and security data. On connection of the trusted device () to an untrusted user terminal (), the user terminal is booted via the bootloader logic on the trusted device. Under control of the bootloader logic, a connection is established to the server () via the network () and the server is authenticated using the security data on the trusted device (). An operating system boot image is received from the server () via this connection. The boot image is used to provision an operating system image from the server () to the user terminal () for execution of the operating system at the user terminal ().

Provisioning of operating systems to user terminals

Data comprising a plurality of data blocks is provisioned to a distributed computing system, via a network, from remote data storage at a data-provider site. At a node computer of the distributed computing system, a network access client is provided for obtaining data blocks from the remote data storage via the network, and adaptation layer logic is provided for generating metadata for the data blocks in a file system of the distributed computing system. Also at the node computer, a copy-on-read driver is provided for accessing the remote data storage via the network access client and for accessing local data storage of the node computer. In response to a first read request corresponding to a data block from the node computer, the copy-on-read driver copies that data block from the remote data storage to the local data storage for use in the distributed computing system.

Provisioning data to distributed computing systems

A system and method for executing software modules on a computer, the method comprising: executing (S) a bootloader (), at least partly () in the computer (); and upon execution of the bootloader: accessing (S) requirements as to an initial set (IS) of software modules (SMn); and hardware specifications of the computer; determining (S) within said initial set, one or more candidate sets (CS, CS) of software modules that are compatible (S) with said hardware specifications and can (S) be stored as a RAM disk; and storing (S) the software modules of a final set (FS) on a RAM disk (), the final set (FS) being one of the one or more candidate sets, and instructing to execute the software modules stored on the RAM disk, wherein each of the initial set and the final set of software modules comprises application components and operating system image components, and preferably further comprises hardware component drivers.

Secure execution of software modules on a computer

The present invention is notably directed to a user portable device (), preferably a secure tamper-proof device, comprising: a connection interface () enabling connection (S) with a computer (); a persistent memory (); and a bootloader () stored on said persistent memory (), preferably on a secure memory () of the device, wherein the bootloader (): is detectable (S) by a firmware () of the computer () upon connection (S) of the device () with said computer () via said connection interface; and comprises instructions for said firmware () to load (S) the bootloader () into a memory () of the computer () for subsequent execution (S); and to interact with the firmware, upon execution at the computer (), to: determine, in a physical storage medium () of said computer () storing a first host operating system (-) and a second host operating system (-) respectively on a first portion (-) and a second portion (-) thereof, said second portion (-), from partition information (-) of said physical storage medium, which partition information acknowledges the first host operating system but does not acknowledge the second host operating system; locate a part (BI) of the second host operating system (-) in the second portion (-); and execute said part (BI), whereby only the second one of the host operating systems can boot (S-S) from the user portable device (). The present invention is further directed to related systems and methods.

Growing community of inventors

Zurich, Switzerland

Luis Garcés-Erice