Database enabled messaging facility

• US 20040039742A1
• Filed: 08/22/2002
• Published: 02/26/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 08/22/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Dettinger, Richard D., Barsness, Eric L., Santosuosso, John M., Olson, Brian E.
• Granted Patent: US 7,085,758 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/10
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/252 between a Database Management System and a front-end application
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99934 Query formulation, input preparation, or translation

Abstract

The present invention provides methods and systems for accessing a database with a database-enabled messaging facility. An application on a front-end server may access a database located on a back-end server via the database-enabled messaging facility. In general, the database-enabled messaging facility receives a message containing a database request from the front-end server, parses the message to extract the database request, submits the database request to the database, receives results from the database request and sends a message containing results from the database request to the front-end server. For some embodiments, the messaging facility may optimize-accessing the database by changing database requests-prior to submitting them to the database. For example, the messaging facility may reorder database requests, delete redundant database requests, or combine database requests to minimize a total number of database accesses.

Claims

1. A method for accessing a database by a messaging facility, comprising:

receiving, by the messaging facility, a message containing a database request;

parsing, by the messaging facility, the message containing the database request to extract the database request;

submitting, by the messaging facility, the database request to the database;

receiving, by the messaging facility, results from the database request; and

sending, by the messaging facility, a message containing results from the database request to the front-end server.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein parsing the message containing the database request comprises extracting text.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein parsing the message containing the database request comprises decoding a portion of the message to extract the database request.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising establishing a connection with the database prior to submitting the database request to the database.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein establishing a connection with the database comprises submitting a user identification and a user password to the database.

6. A method for accessing a database by a messaging facility, comprising:

receiving, from a front-end server, a plurality of messages containing database requests in a first message queue of the messaging facility;

parsing, by the messaging facility, the messages containing the database requests to extract the database requests;

submitting, by the messaging facility, at least some of the database requests to the database;

receiving, by the messaging facility, results from the submitted database requests;

placing messages containing results from the submitted database requests in a second message queue of the messaging facility; and

sending, by the messaging facility, the messages containing results from the submitted database requests to the front-end server from the second message queue.

7. The method of claim 6, further comprising:

determining if the database requests include redundant database requests; and

if so, deleting the redundant database requests prior to submitting at least some of the database requests to the database.

8. The method of claim 6, further comprising:

determining if more than one of the database requests include requests to delete overlapping rows; and

if so, combining the requests to delete overlapping rows into a single operation prior to submitting at least some of the database requests to the database.

9. The method of claim 6, further comprising:

determining if a threshold number of the database requests access a common file in the database; and

if so, paging the common file into memory.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the threshold number is determined by an amount of available memory.

11. The method of claim 6, further comprising:

maintaining a number of database update requests; and

submitting the database update requests to the database in response to a commit request from the front-end server.

12. A computer readable medium containing a messaging facility program which, when executed, performs operations for accessing a database, the operations comprising:

receiving, from a front-end server, messages containing database requests in a first message queue;

parsing the messages to extract the database requests;

submitting the database requests to the database;

receiving results from the database requests;

placing messages containing the results of the database requests in a second message queue; and

sending the messages containing the results from the second queue to the front-end server.

13. The computer readable medium of claim 12, wherein the operation of parsing the messages to extract the database requests comprises extracting parameters for constructing the database request and constructing the database request using the extracted parameters.

14. The computer readable medium of claim 12, wherein the operation of parsing the messages to extract the database requests comprises decoding the database request.

15. The computer readable medium of claim 12, wherein the operations further comprise:

accessing a set of parameters comprising a named database parameter;

establishing a connection with the named database; and

wherein submitting the requests to the database comprises submitting the database requests to the named database.

16. The computer readable medium of claim 15, wherein the set of parameters further comprises a database user identification parameter and a database password parameter, and establishing a connection with the named database comprises establishing a connection with the named database using the database user identification parameter and the database password parameter.

17. The computer readable medium of claim 14, wherein the set of parameters further includes a named results queue parameter and wherein the second queue is the named results queue.

18. A database system, comprising:

a front-end server comprising a first messaging facility and an application configured to send messages containing database requests via the first messaging facility; and

a back-end server comprising a database and a second messaging facility configured to receive the messages containing database requests from the application, parse the messages to extract the database requests, submit the database requests to the database, and send messages containing the results from the database requests to the front-end server.

19. The database system of claim 18, wherein:

the first messaging facility is configured to receive the messages containing the results from the back-end server; and

the application is further configured to retrieve the messages containing the results from the first messaging facility and post the results to a user interface.

20. The database system of claim 19, wherein the user interface is a web browser.

21. The database system of claim 18, wherein the application is further configured to create the messages containing the database requests by encoding the database requests and embedding the encoded database requests in the messages.

22. The database system of claim 18, wherein the application is further configured to create the messages containing the database requests by embedding the database requests in the message as text.

23. The database system of claim 18, wherein:

the application is further configured to send commit requests to the second messaging facility via the first messaging facility; and

the second messaging facility is further configured to maintain a number of database update requests until a commit request is received from the application.

24. A method for processing database requests, comprising:

receiving a plurality of messages in a message queue, wherein the messages contain database requests;

analyzing the database requests;

changing the database requests; and

transmitting the database requests to a database.

25. The method of claim 24, wherein changing the database requests comprises changing an order in which the database requests are transmitted.

26. The method of claim 24, wherein changing the database requests comprises deleting at least one database request.

27. The method of claim 24, wherein changing the database requests comprises combining at least two database requests into a single database request.

28. The method of claim 24, further comprising extracting the database requests from the plurality of messages prior to analyzing the database requests.