Computing system and method for transparent, distributed communication between computing devices

• US 20050235290A1
• Filed: 04/20/2004
• Published: 10/20/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 04/20/2004
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Agilent Technologies, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Agilent Technologies, Inc.
• Inventors: Coverstone, Randy A., Jefferson, Stanley T., Greenbaum, Steven
• Application Number:
  US10/828,141
• Publication Number:
  US 20050235290A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 719/310
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5038 considering the execution order of a plurality of tasks, e.g. taking priority or time dependency constraints into consideration scheduling strategies G06F9/4881 and subgroups
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/54 Interprogram communication

Abstract

A distributed computing system and method is provided for executing block diagram software applications across multiple computing devices. A first computing device is configured to execute a first block of a block diagram software application to produce an output. The first computing device transparently communicates with a second computing device to provide the output of the first block to a second block of the block diagram software application resident on the second computing device.

Claims

1. A distributed computing system, comprising:

a first computing device configured to execute a first block of a block diagram software application to produce an output; and

means for transparently communicating with a second computing device to provide the output of the first block to a second block of the block diagram software application resident on the second computing device.

2. The computing system of claim 1, wherein said first computing device comprises:

a storage device having computer-executable instructions stored therein, said computer-executable instructions for executing the first block of the block diagram software application; and

a processor connected to run said computer-executable instructions and communicate with the second computing device.

3. The computing system of claim 1, wherein said means for transparently communicating comprises a communications protocol using a channel Application Programming Interface (API).

4. The computing system of claim 2, wherein the channel API is capable of establishing a connection between said first computing device and the second computing device using a channel representing a logical connection between said first computing device and the second computing device and transmitting data therebetween over the channel.

5. The computing system of claim 1, further comprising:

a table within said first computing device including a channel identifier of a queue channel dynamically linking said first computing device and the second computing device, an identity of the second computing device and a symbolic name associated with said channel identifier, said first computing device being configured to have access to the symbolic name and use the symbolic name to dynamically link to said table and determine said channel identifier.

6. The computing system of claim 5, further comprising:

a channel connection of the block diagram software application, said first computing device being further configured to execute a first portion of said channel connection to determine said channel identifier and communicate with the second computing device.

7. The computing system of claim 6, wherein the second computing device is configured to execute a second portion of said channel connection, the second portion of said channel connection providing the output to the second block of the block diagram software application to enable execution of the second block of the block diagram software application on the second computing device.

8. The computing system of claim 7, wherein the first portion of said channel connection is configured to receive data from the first block of the block diagram software application and transmit the data to the second portion of said channel connection, and the second portion of said channel connection is configured to queue the data on the queue channel and read the data from the queue channel to provide the data to the second block of the block diagram software application.

9. The computing system of claim 8, wherein the second computing device further comprises:

a channel queue array including the queue channel, said channel identifier being an address of the queue channel within said channel queue array.

10. The computing system of claim 9, wherein the second computing device further comprises:

a thread configured to receive a service request from said first computing device and establish a connection with said first computing device; and

a slave thread created by said thread and configured to receive the data from said first computing device and queue the data on the queue channel.

11. The computing system of claim 1, wherein said first computing device and the second computing device are further configured to control the flow of data therebetween.

12. The computing system of claim 9, further comprising:

control information sent by and between said first computing device and the second computing device to control the flow of data within and between said first computing device and the second computing device.

13. A method for executing a block diagram software application distributed across multiple computing devices, comprising:

executing a first block of the block diagram software application on a first computing device to produce an output;

transparently communicating with a second computing device to provide the output to a second block of the block diagram software application; and

executing the second block on the second computing device.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein said transparently communicating is performed by a communications protocol using a channel Application Programming Interface (API).

15. The method of claim 14, wherein said transparently communicating further comprises:

establishing a connection between said first computing device and the second computing device using a channel representing a logical connection between said first computing device and the second computing device; and

transmitting data between said first computing device and the second computing device over the channel.

16. The method of claim 13, wherein said transparently communicating further comprises:

storing within a table a channel identifier of a queue channel dynamically linking said first computing device and the second computing device, an identity of the second computing device and a symbolic name associated with the channel identifier; and

accessing said table using said symbolic name to determine the channel identifier.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein said transparently communicating further comprises:

executing a first portion of a channel connection on the first computing device to determine the queue channel; and

executing a second portion of the channel connection on the second computing device to enable execution of the second block of the block diagram software application.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein said executing the first portion of the channel connection further comprises:

receiving data from the first block of the block diagram software application; and

transmitting the data to the second portion of said channel connection.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein said executing the second portion of the channel connection further comprises:

queueing the data on the queue channel; and

reading the data from the queue channel to provide the data to the second block of the block diagram software application.

20. The method of claim 19, wherein said queueing further comprises:

queueing the data on the queue channel within a channel queue array on the second computing device, the channel identifier being an address of the queue channel within the channel queue array.

21. The method of claim 20, wherein said executing the second portion of the channel connection further comprises:

creating a thread to receive a service request from the first computing device to establish a connection with the first computing device; and

creating a slave thread to receive the data from the first computing device and queue the data on the queue channel.

22. The method of claim 21, wherein said executing the second portion of the channel connection further comprises:

using the slave thread to receive additional data from the first computing device and queue the additional data on the queue channel, the additional data being produced from the first block of the block diagram software application.

23. The method of claim 15, further comprising:

controlling the flow of data between the first and second computing devices.

24. The method of claim 23, wherein said controlling further comprises:

transmitting control information by and between the first and second computing devices to control the flow of data within and between the first and second computing devices.