Method and apparatus for executing event driven simulations

• US 20050266926A1
• Filed: 05/13/2005
• Published: 12/01/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 05/13/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Oracle America, Inc. (Oracle Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Sun Microsystems Incorporated (Oracle Corporation)
• Inventors: Kesselman, Jeffrey P., Twilleager, Doug
• Granted Patent: US 7,631,108 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 463/42
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/12 involving interaction between a plurality of game devices, e.g. transmisison or distribution systems protocols for networked virtual reality, networked games H04L29/06034
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/30 Interconnection arrangements between game servers and game devices; Interconnection arrangements between game devices; Interconnection arrangements between game servers
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/531 Server assignment
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 17/00 Digital computing or data processing equipment or methods, specially adapted for specific functions information retrieval, database structures or file system structures therefor G06F16/00
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2111/02 CAD in a network environment, e.g. collaborative CAD or distributed simulation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 30/20 Design optimisation, verification or simulation optimisation, verification or simulation of circuit designs G06F30/30
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/466 Transaction processing

Abstract

A system that includes an object store layer configured to store a plurality of objects, wherein each of the plurality of objects comprises a method, a communication layer configured to receive an event from a user and generate a task based on the event, and a simulation layer configured to retrieve one of the plurality of objects responsive to execution of the task and execute the method associated with the one of the plurality of objects.

Claims

1. A system comprising:

an object store layer configured to store a plurality of objects, wherein each of the plurality of objects comprises a method;

a communication layer configured to receive an event from a user and generate a task based on the event; and

a simulation layer configured to retrieve one of the plurality of objects responsive to execution of the task and execute the method associated with the one of the plurality of objects.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the system is partitioned into a plurality of stacks.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein each of the plurality of stacks includes a communication layer component, an object store layer component, and a simulation layer component, wherein the communication layer component is associated with the communication layer, wherein the object store layer component is associated with the object store layer, and the simulation layer component is associated with the simulation layer.

4. The system of claim 3, wherein the communications layer component of one of the plurality of stacks is operatively connected to the communications layer component of another of the plurality of stacks.

5. The system of claim 3, wherein the object store layer component of one of the plurality of stacks is operatively connected to the object store layer component of another of the plurality of stacks.

6. The system of claim 3, wherein the object store layer component comprises a cache.

7. The system of claim 3, wherein the object store layer component is configured to retrieve and send at least one of the objects to a master object store.

8. The system of claim 2, wherein each of the plurality of stacks is executed on a separate processor and each of the plurality of stacks resides in a separate memory space.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein each of the plurality of objects is a serializable object.

10. The system of claim 1, wherein the object store layer locks the one of plurality of objects retrieved from the object store layer.

11. The system of claim 1, wherein the simulation layer comprises a task queue to queue the task.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the simulation layer further comprises an execution engine configured to execute the task.

13. The system of claim 1, wherein the communication layer comprises functionality to allow one user to communicate with another user.

14. The system of claim 1, wherein the communication layer comprises functionality to load balance the system.

15. A method for executing a task comprising:

requesting an initial object corresponding to the task;

retrieving the initial object from an object store layer;

assigning a transactional context and execution thread to the task; and

executing an initial method from the initial object.

16. The method of claim 15, further comprising:

requesting a dependent object using the initial method;

retrieving the dependent object;

executing the dependent object;

returning the dependent object to the object store layer;

completing execution of the initial object; and

returning the initial object to the object store layer.

17. The method of claim 16, further comprising:

committing a transaction prior to returning the initial object and the dependent object to the object store.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein the dependent object and the initial object are associated with the transaction.

19. The method of claim 16, wherein retrieving the dependent object comprises at least one selected from the group consisting of a get command and a peek command.

20. The method of claim 16, wherein retrieving the dependent object comprises checking for a dead-lock condition.

21. The method of claim 20, wherein checking for the dead-lock condition comprises:

determining whether an interrupt flag of the task is set;

if the interrupt flag of the task is not set;

setting the interrupt flag for the task, if the dependent object is locked and a dependent object time stamp is greater than a task time stamp; and

waiting to retrieve the dependent object; and

if the interrupt flag of the task is set;

aborting a transaction associated with the task; and

re-queuing the tasking in the event queue.

22. The method of claim 21, wherein the dependent object time stamp corresponds to the time stamp of a task that has currently locked the dependent object.

23. The method of claim 22, wherein the interrupt flag is initially set to false when the task is created.

24. The method of claim 20, wherein checking for the dead-lock condition occurs whenever a time stamp is updated.

25. The method of claim 15, further comprising:

receiving an event from a user;

generating the task corresponding to the event; and

placing the task in a task queue.

26. The method of claim 15, wherein retrieving the initial object comprises:

retrieving the initial object from an object store layer component in a stack associated with a simulation layer component requesting the initial object, if the object store layer component in the stack associated with the simulation layer component requesting the initial object contains the initial object;

searching for the initial object from an object store layer component in a stack not associated with the simulation layer component requesting the initial object, if the object store layer component in the stack associated with the simulation layer component requesting the initial object does not contain the initial object; and

retrieving the initial object in the object store layer component in the stack not associated with the simulation layer component requesting the initial object, if the object store layer component in the stack associated with the simulation layer component requesting the initial object does not contain the initial object and the object store layer component in the stack not associated with the simulation layer component requesting the initial object contains the initial object.

27. The method of claim 26, wherein retrieving the initial object further comprises:

retrieving the initial object from a master object store, if the object store layer component in the stack associated with the simulation layer component requesting the initial object does not contain the initial object and the object store layer component in the stack not associated with the simulation layer component requesting the initial object does not contain the initial object.