System and method for concentration and load-balancing of requests

• US 20060069723A1
• Filed: 10/31/2005
• Published: 03/30/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 07/27/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Oracle International Corporation (Oracle Corporation)
• Original Assignee: BEA Systems Incorporated (Oracle Corporation)
• Inventors: Bower, Peter, Ferwerda, Paul
• Granted Patent: US 7,774,403 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/203
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/465 Distributed object oriented systems remote method invocation [RMI] G06F9/548
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/547 Remote procedure calls [RPC]; Web services
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/10 in which an application is distributed across nodes in the network software deployment G06F8/60; multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/46
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1001 for accessing one among a plurality of replicated servers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/10015 Access to distributed or replicated servers, e.g. using brokers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1008 based on parameters of servers, e.g. available memory or workload monitoring of computer activity G06F11/30
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1029 using data related to the state of servers by a load balancer
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1034 Reaction to server failures by a load balancer
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/59 Providing operational support to end devices by off-loading in the network or by emulation, e.g. when they are unavailable
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/329 in the application layer [OSI layer 7]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/40 Network security protocols

Abstract

A system and method for concentration and load-balancing of requests in a distributed computing environment. In accordance with an embodiment, a system and a method for reducing the number of connections in an Internet environment using one or a plurality of connection handlers which handle the connection from the client to the server, and a listener which determines which connection handler to use to handle the connection. Whereas prior solutions required a (n×m) number of connections to handle requests, the invention allows there to be only m connections which significantly reduces resource requirements and allows scalability.

Claims

1. A system for use in a distributed object environment that allows a client to invoke upon an object at a server, comprising:

a concentrator, which binds a request from the client to invoke upon the object, and creates a connection from the client to the server, said concentrator further comprising

a plurality of connection handlers that handle a connection from a client to a server,

a listener which determines which particular one of the plurality of connection handlers should handle a particular connection, and

a shared memory that includes a list of currently connected servers, and which of the plurality of connection handlers is handling which connection to a currently connected server over a particular port; and

wherein the listener upon receiving the request performs steps comprising

searching within the shared memory to determine if the port associated with the server is already in use, and

if the port is already in use and the corresponding connection handler can handle the connection, then assigning that connection handler to handle the request.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the listener further performs a step if no existing connection handler can handle the connection, then starting a new connection handler to handle the request.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein if the corresponding connection handler cannot handle the connection, then he listener further performs a step of connecting the remote server to another connection handler and updating the shared memory.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the listener further performs a step of calling an object binding routine to bind the object reference, together with host, port, and client identifier parameters;

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the object is a service at the server.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the client is any one of a native C++ client a Java client, a notification service, or a native server acting as a client.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the server is any one of a native server, a native client registered for events, or a non-native CORBA-compliant ORB server.

8. The system of claim 1 wherein the request is received via a message queue

9. The system of claim 1 wherein the request is an IIOP request, and wherein the connection handler performs steps of

replacing an original IIOP request id for the IIOP request with a unique id;

placing the request on a list of requests for this context;

sending the IIOP request to the server; and

when a response is received from the server, searching the list of requests for the corresponding request, replacing the unique id with the original IIOP request id, and sending the response to the client.

10. A method for use in a distributed object environment that allows a client to invoke upon an object at a server, comprising the steps of:

binding, at a concentrator, a request from the client to invoke upon the object, and creating a connection from the client to the server, said concentrator further comprising

a plurality of connection handlers that handle a connection from a client to a server,

a listener which determines which particular one of the plurality of connection handlers should handle a particular connection, and

a shared memory that includes a list of currently connected servers, and which of the plurality of connection handlers is handling which connection to a currently connected server over a particular port; and

upon receiving the request at the listener, performing the steps comprising

searching within the shared memory to determine if the port associated with the server is already in use, and

if the port is already in use and the corresponding connection handler can handle the connection, then assigning that connection handler to handle the request.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the listener further performs a step if no existing connection handler can handle the connection, then starting a new connection handler to handle the request.

12. The method of claim 10, wherein if the corresponding connection handler cannot handle the connection, then he listener further performs a step of connecting the remote server to another connection handler and updating the shared memory.

13. The method of claim 10, wherein the listener further performs a step of calling an object binding routine to bind the object reference, together with host, port, and client identifier parameters;

14. The method of claim 10, wherein the object is a service at the server.

15. The method of claim 10, wherein the client is any one of a native C++ client a Java client, a notification service, or a native server acting as a client.

16. The method of claim 10, wherein the server is any one of a native server, a native client registered for events, or a non-native CORBA-compliant ORB server.

17. The method of claim 10 wherein the request is received via a message queue

18. The method of claim 10 wherein the request is an IIOP request, and wherein the connection handler further performs the steps comprising:

replacing an original IIOP request id for the IIOP request with a unique id;

placing the request on a list of requests for this context;

sending the IIOP request to the server; and

when a response is received from the server, searching the list of requests for the corresponding request, replacing the unique id with the original IIOP request id, and sending the response to the client.