Method and apparatus for facilitating fulfillment of web-service requests on a communication network

• US 20050198200A1
• Filed: 03/05/2004
• Published: 09/08/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 03/05/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: RPX Clearinghouse LLC (RPX Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Nortel Networks Limited (Nortel Networks Corporation)
• Inventors: Subramanian, Siva, Travostino, Franco
• Granted Patent: US 8,484,348 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/218
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/50 Network service management, e.g. ensuring proper service fulfilment according to agreements
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/02 based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1029 using data related to the state of servers by a load balancer

Abstract

Fulfillment of web-service requests may be facilitated by intelligently load balancing the web-service requests between servers or server clusters configured to perform the requested web-service. Load balancing may be based on the type of request, target class of server, whether the request is likely to spawn any subsequent requests, relevant historical information, other requests, current and anticipated work load on the servers, the current ability of the servers to handle additional requests, the numbers type and schedule of requests in a queue waiting to be allocated to one or more of the servers, and numerous other factors that may affect the servers'"'"' ability to process the request. Requests may be classified to enable historical correlation between how servers have handled previous requests and the present request. Additionally, requests may be scheduled for future execution and monitored during execution.

Claims

1. A method for facilitating fulfillment of web-service requests on a communication network, the method comprising the steps of:

receiving by a content switch a primary request for access to at least one web-service;

selecting one of a plurality of web-service servers to handle the request;

forwarding the request to the selected web-service server; and

monitoring traffic generated by the web-service server for a secondary web-service request related to the primary web-service request.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of selecting comprises determining the type of request, the target class of the server, and whether the request is likely to span any secondary requests.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of collecting information associated with how requests are handled by particular servers.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the step of collecting information comprises correlating request information and resource information at the time the request was forwarded to the web-service server.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the request information includes at least the type of request and request constraints.

6. The method of claim 4, wherein the resource information includes at least the current conditions, the resource conditions, and information about other requests.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of determining request information and resource information, and wherein the step of selecting comprises comparing the request information and the resource information with historical information to select the one of a plurality of web-service servers to handle the request.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein comparing the request information and the resource information with historical information comprises determining an anticipated processing time for the request.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of scheduling the request for submission to the web-service server at a scheduled time and wherein the step of forwarding takes place at the scheduled time.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of monitoring execution of the web-service request on the web-service server.

11. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of tracking the web-service requests on the communication network.

15. The network element of claim 2, wherein the web-service facilitator comprises a scheduling module configured to enable web-service requests to be scheduled for execution on the web-service servers.

12. A network element, comprising:

a web-service facilitator configured to collect information associated with execution of web-service requests on web-service servers, and use the collected information to perform load balancing of new requests to the web-service servers.

13. The network element of claim 12, further comprising network ports and a switch fabric configured to interconnect the network ports to enable data communications to take place between the network ports.

14. The network element of claim 12, wherein the web-service facilitator comprises load balancing software including a subroutine configured to ascertain data associated with the request, a subroutine configured to ascertain data associated with the resource, and a subroutine configured to ascertain relevant historical data, and wherein the load balancing software is configured to use the data associated with the request, data associated with the resource, and historical data to perform load balancing of new requests to the web-service servers.

16. The network element of claim 12, wherein the web-service facilitator comprises a classifier configured to classify the request into a category, said category being selected from one of a plurality of possible categories.

17. The network element of claim 16, wherein the classifier is further configured to classify the request into a sub-category within said category, said sub-category being selected from a plurality of possible sub-categories.

18. The network element of claim 12, further comprising a request monitor configured to monitor execution of the requests on the web-service servers.

19. The network element of claim 18, wherein the request monitor is further configured to monitor execution of sub-requests spawned by the requests.

20. The network element of claim 12, further comprising a resource health monitor configured to monitor the availability and current conditions of the web-service servers.

21. The network element of claim 12, wherein the request monitor is further configured to collect raw data about requests and generate statistical data from the raw data, said statistical data being associated with categories of requests.