Expiration informer
First Claim
1. A method for controlling expiration of a plurality of objects in a computing environment, each object having an expiration time and a reference, comprising:
- providing a sequence of time intervals;
providing one or more containers, each container having a corresponding container reference, a corresponding time interval in the sequence and containing all objects with expiration times that fall within the corresponding time interval of such container; and
removing the container reference of at least one of the plurality of containers and of the references of all the objects in said at least one container at or near the end of the corresponding time interval of said at least one container.
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Accused Products
Abstract
The invention uses expiration notification events and object references to indicate when a software object has expired. Expiration notification events are occurrences that indicate when corresponding object references and dependent references should be removed. Object references and dependent references are references to objects within the computer memory. Using the object management methods of the Expiration Informer, the object references are stored in a table according to the objects'"'"' expiration time. Upon expiration, the managed object is removed from the table and stored in an expiration event. The expiration event is sent to the requester at which time the Expiration Informer has removed any reference to the object. The invention is capable of managing objects is a distributed computing environment. The invention executes these capabilities in an extremely efficient manner adding minimal CPU overhead when managing thousands of time-based objects.
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Citations
30 Claims
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1. A method for controlling expiration of a plurality of objects in a computing environment, each object having an expiration time and a reference, comprising:
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providing a sequence of time intervals;
providing one or more containers, each container having a corresponding container reference, a corresponding time interval in the sequence and containing all objects with expiration times that fall within the corresponding time interval of such container; and
removing the container reference of at least one of the plurality of containers and of the references of all the objects in said at least one container at or near the end of the corresponding time interval of said at least one container. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 28, 29, 30)
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15. An apparatus for controlling expiration of a plurality of objects in a computing environment, each object having an expiration time, comprising:
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a resource repository storing one or more containers, each container having a corresponding reference, a corresponding time interval in a sequence of time intervals and containing all objects with expiration times that fall within the corresponding time interval of such container; and
a first component that removes the reference of at least one of the containers and all references of objects in the at least one container at or near the end of the corresponding time interval of such container.
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27. A system in an environment providing computing resources to users employing a plurality of objects, each object having an expiration time, comprising:
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a first application with access to a first resource repository storing one or more of said objects;
a first expiration informer that tracks the one or more objects in the first repository by means of a first set of containers, each of the containers in the first set having a corresponding reference, a corresponding time interval in a sequence of time intervals and containing all objects with expiration times that fall within the corresponding time interval of such container;
wherein said first expiration informer tracks time intervals of the first set of containers and causes to be removed the reference of at least one of the containers in the first set and the references to the objects in such container and located in such repository at or near the end of the corresponding time interval of such container;
at least one additional application with access to at least one additional resource repository storing one or more objects; and
at least one additional expiration informer that tracks the one or more objects in the at least one additional repository by means of at least one additional set of containers, each container in the at least one additional set having a corresponding reference, a corresponding time interval in a sequence of time intervals and containing all objects with expiration times that fall within the corresponding time interval of such container;
wherein said at least one additional expiration informer tracks time intervals of the containers in the at least one additional set and causes to be removed the reference of at least one of the containers in the at least one additional set and the references to the objects in such container and located in the at least one additional repository at or near the end of the corresponding time interval of such container.
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Specification