Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Vijay B Kurup

Tao Wang

Gustavo A Plancarte

Srikanth Avadhanam

Amar Nalla

Edvardas V Budrys

Gandhinath Swaminathan

A batch job processing architecture that dynamically creates runtime tasks for batch job execution and to optimize parallelism. The task creation can be based on the amount of processing power available locally or across batch servers. The work can be allocated across multiple threads in multiple batch server instances as there are available. A master task splits the items to be processed into smaller parts and creates a runtime task for each. The batch server picks up and executes as many runtime tasks as the server is configured to handle. The runtime tasks can be run in parallel to maximize hardware utilization. Scalability is provided by splitting runtime task execution across available batch server instances, and also across machines. During runtime task creation, all dependency and batch group information is propagated from the master task to all runtime tasks. Dependencies and batch group configuration are honored by the batch engine.

Runtime task with inherited dependencies for batch processing

Architecture that includes a batch framework engine incorporated into the server and that supports a rich set of dependencies between tasks in a single batch job. A bottom-up approach is employed where analysis is performed if a task can run based on the parent tasks. The framework runs batch jobs without the need of a client, and provides the ability to create dependencies between tasks, which allow the execution of tasks in parallel or in sequence. Using an AND/OR relationship engine, a task can require that all parent tasks (logical AND) meet requirements to run, or that only one parent (logical OR) is required to meet its requirements in order to run. Clean-up or non-important tasks can have the a flag set where even if such tasks fail when executing, the batch job will ignore these tasks when defining the final status of the job.

Complex dependency graph with bottom-up constraint matching for batch processing

A method and system for maintaining date and time information correctly across rule changes for time zones is provided. A time maintenance system provides rules for converting dates and times between various time zones and a common time zone. When the time maintenance system receives a date and time in a designated time zone, it converts the date and time to a date and time in the common time zone based on a provided rule. The time maintenance system then stores the converted date and time along with an identification of the rule used to convert the date and time to the common time zone. The time maintenance system may then receive an indication of an overriding rule that overrides an existing rule for converting a date and time between the designated time zone and the current time zone. The time maintenance system then updates the stored date and time when the rule has been overridden in such a way as to indicate that the original date and time is no longer correct and to indicate the new rule.

Maintaining date and time with time zone rule changes

A distributed, high availability scalable task execution framework that does not use a master. Each server periodically checks if there are new jobs that are scheduled to execute immediately and picks a task for execution. Multiple batch server configurations can be created and executed during a specific time period where each server can behave differently to provide improved response time to online users. Each server can be configured to execute a different number of parallel tasks during a time period, execute fewer tasks or no batch task at all, and then change server behavior to execute many tasks in parallel at a different time when there are no online users. Automatic transaction assists in task restart in the case of infrastructure failures. If infrastructure failure happens before the task completes, the transaction will be rolled back by the database automatically.

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Sammamish, WA, United States of America

Vijay B Kurup