System and method of intelligent queuing

• US 20060053425A1
• Filed: 07/25/2005
• Published: 03/09/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 11/01/1999
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Oracle America, Inc. (Oracle Corporation)
• Original Assignee: SeeBeyond Technology Corporation (Oracle Corporation)
• Inventors: Waldorf, Jerry A., Demetriades, Alexander, Srihari, Rangaswamy, Nalbandian, Gevik H., Inada, Nathan K., Berkman, Peter C.
• Granted Patent: US 7,363,630 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 719/313
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/546 Message passing systems or structures, e.g. queues

Abstract

An intelligent queue may be used to facilitate communication among a set business application programs. In one embodiment, the intelligent queue may interact with a variety of business application programs providing consistent service behaviors across a variety of data store products. The intelligent queue provides extended message storage, efficient journalling, interoperability with other intelligent queues, load balancing, once-only processing, as well as detailed message state information that tracks the status of each message from both the sender and the recipient'"'"'s perspective.

Claims

1. A computer program product for managing one or more queues, embodied on computer readable-material, that includes executable instructions for causing a computer system to:

determine that a message in a queue is available for several subscribers to process, wherein subscribers eligible to process the message are in a subscriber pool; and

allow only a first available subscriber from the subscriber pool to process the message.

2. The computer program product of claim 1, wherein the computer program product includes instructions to cause a computer system to:

determine that a subscriber is not in the subscriber pool; and

allow the subscriber not in the subscriber pool to subscribe to the message in parallel with the first available subscriber.

3. The computer program product of claim 1, wherein the computer program product includes instructions to cause a computer system to track the message, including instructions to designate a publisher state and a subscriber state.

4. The computer program product of claim 3, wherein the instructions to track the message include instructions to cause a computer system to:

designate the publisher state, including designating one or more of an indication of whether the message has been placed in a publisher queue, an indication of whether the message is available to the plurality of subscribers or an indication of whether all subscribers intended to retrieve the message have retrieved the message; and

designate the subscriber state, including designating one or more of an indication of whether the first subscriber has begun retrieval, an indication of whether the first subscriber has successfully retrieved the message, an indication of whether the first subscriber has processed the message, an indication of whether the first subscriber is processing the message or an indication of whether the message is expired.

5. The computer program product of claim 3, wherein the instructions to track the message include instructions to track a subscriber state for each subscriber available to process the message.

6. The computer program product of claim 1, wherein the computer program product includes instructions to retain the message in the queue until after all subscribers intended to retrieve the message have processed the message and a system administrator has had time to access the message.

7. The computer program product of claim 3, wherein the computer program product includes instructions to cause a computer system to:

determine when a component in a transaction system fails; and

in response to determining that the component has failed, perform data recovery on the queue, including determining whether the message has been successfully processed, and if the message has not been successfully processed, permitting a subscriber to process the message.

8. A computer program product for managing one or more queues, embodied on computer readable-material, that includes executable instructions for causing a computer system to:

track a message in a transaction system, including specifying a publisher state and a subscriber state for the message; and

perform data recovery when a component of the transaction system fails.

9. The computer program product of claim 8, wherein the instructions for causing a computer system to perform data recovery include instructions to prevent the message from being processed more than one time.

10. The computer program product of claim 8, wherein the instructions for causing a computer system to perform data recovery include instructions to prevent the message from being processed by more than one subscriber from a pool of subscribers.

11. The computer program product of claim 10, wherein the instructions for preventing the message from being processed by more than one subscriber include instructions to inspect the subscriber state to determine whether the message has been processed by one subscriber.

12. The computer program product of claim 10, wherein the instructions for preventing the message from being processed by more than one subscriber include instructions to inspect the publisher state to determine whether a publisher has made the message available to subscribers, and instructions to inspect the subscriber state to determine whether one subscriber has processed the message, if the message was made available before failure, but not processed, then the message is made available for retrieval, if the message was not made available before failure, the message is made available for retrieval, and if the message was processed before failure, the message is not made available for retrieval.

13. The computer program product of claim 8, wherein the computer program product includes instructions to determine a removal time when the message is to be removed from a queue, the removal time set to allow a system administrator to access the message for a duration after all subscribers intended to retrieve the message have processed the message.

14. A method for managing one or more queues, including:

determining that a message in a queue is available for several subscribers to process, wherein subscribers eligible to process the message are in a subscriber pool;

allowing only a first available subscriber from the subscriber pool to process the message;

determining that a subscriber is not in the subscriber pool; and

allowing the subscriber not in the subscriber pool to subscribe to the message in parallel with the first available subscriber.

15. The method of claim 14, further comprising tracking the message, including designating a publisher state and a subscriber state.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein tracking the message comprises:

designating the publisher state, including designating one or more of an indication of whether the message has been placed in a publisher queue, an indication of whether the message is available to the plurality of subscribers or an indication of whether all subscribers intended to retrieve the message have retrieved the message; and

designating the subscriber state, including designating one or more of an indication of whether the first subscriber has begun retrieval, an indication of whether the first subscriber has successfully retrieved the message, an indication of whether the first subscriber has processed the message, an indication of whether the first subscriber is processing the message or an indication of whether the message is expired.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein tracking the message includes tracking a subscriber state for each subscriber available to process the message.

18. The method of claim 15, further comprising retaining the message in the queue until after all subscribers intended to retrieve the message have processed the message and a system administrator has had time to access the message.

19. The method of claim 15, further comprising:

determining when a component in a transaction system fails; and

in response to determining that the component has failed, performing data recovery on the queue, including determining whether the message has been successfully processed, and if the message has not been successfully processed, permitting a subscriber to process the message.

20. The method of claim 19, further comprising preventing a subscriber from retrieving a message that has already been successfully processed.