System and method of caching inventory information in a network

• US 20060095434A1
• Filed: 05/17/2005
• Published: 05/04/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 10/29/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: OpenTable, Inc. (Booking Holdings, Inc., fka Priceline Group Inc.)
• Original Assignee: OpenTable, Inc. (Booking Holdings, Inc., fka Priceline Group Inc.)
• Inventors: McCullough, Charles, Davis, John, Catlin, Bryce
• Granted Patent: US 8,856,117 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/2282 Tablespace storage structures; Management thereof
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/24552 Database cache management
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9574 of access to content, e.g. by caching
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/087 Inventory or stock management, e.g. order filling, procurement or balancing against orders

Abstract

A method and system for distributing access to inventory items available at vendor locations includes user stations transmitting user inquiries on a communications network. Network-connected location servers access a set of inventory availability information associated with inventory items available at their respective location, for example, tables at a restaurant. The host server receives user inquiries regarding availability of items associated with at least some of the location servers and queries a cache server that locally stores a binary subset of the information from the location servers to determine if the requested item is available without having to separately query the database at each location. Particularly, a web server receives and stores information regarding only whether a requested item is available or not available from a particular location rather than how many items are available at the location. A user, therefore, can access availability of inventory items with less communications traffic.

Claims

1. A system for distributing access to inventory items available at a plurality of vendor locations, the system comprising:

a communications network;

a plurality of user stations selectively connected to said communications network for transmitting user inquiries on said communications network;

location servers operatively connected to said communications network, each of said location servers accessing a set of inventory availability information associated with a set of inventory items available at a respective location;

a host server communicating with said location servers through said communications network, said host server being configured to receive the user inquiries regarding availability of the inventory items associated with a subset of said location servers; and

a cache server;

communicating with said location servers through said communications network;

locally storing a subset of the set of inventory availability information for a plurality of said location servers, said subset being less than an entirety of said set; and

being operatively connected with said host server to provide said host server with access to said subset of inventory availability information.

2. The system according to claim 1, wherein each of said location servers stores a complete set of inventory availability information associated with the inventory items available at the respective location.

3. The system according to claim 1, wherein said cache server is configured to provide at least a part of said subset to a given one of said user stations based upon a respective user inquiry sent from said one user station.

4. The system according to claim 1, wherein said cache server is configured to keep track of available ones of said location servers.

5. The system according to claim 1, wherein said cache server is configured to keep track of a last time contact with each of said location servers.

6. The system according to claim 1, wherein said cache server is a part of said host device.

7. The system according to claim 1, wherein said cache server is co-located with said host device.

8. The system according to claim 1, wherein said cache server is separate from said host device and communicates with said host device over said data communications network.

9. The system according to claim 8, wherein said cache server is physically separate from said host device.

10. The system according to claim 1, wherein said location servers automatically monitor changes to the set of inventory items available and, upon detection of at least one of said changes, dynamically communicate said changes to said cache server.

11. The system according to claim 1, wherein:

said communications network is the Internet; and

each of said user stations is associated with a respective display configured to display at least one of information and an Internet web page.

12. The system according to claim 1, wherein said cache server locally stores said subset of inventory availability information for all of said location servers.

13. The system according to claim 1, wherein each item of inventory availability information in said subset is formed from a binary representation corresponding to an inventory status.

14. The system according to claim 1, wherein:

said location servers are restaurant reservation availability servers; and

the inventory availability information is restaurant table availability information.

15. The system according to claim 14, wherein each item of inventory availability information in said subset is formed from a binary representation corresponding to an inventory status of a table for a specified capacity at a specified time.

16. The system according to claim 15, wherein said subset includes only tables of a specified subset of capacities and only for a given look-ahead period of time.

17. The system according to claim 1, wherein said location servers send the subset of the set of inventory availability information to said cache server upon changes in available item inventory.

18. The system according to claim 1, wherein, after said location servers have sent an initializing subset of the set of inventory availability information to said cache server, said location servers send updates of the subset of the set of inventory availability information to said cache server only upon changes in available item inventory.

19. The system according to claim 1, wherein said location servers send the subset information to said cache server upon a change in available item inventory across a given threshold.

20. The system according to claim 1, wherein said location servers send the subset information to said cache server upon changes in available item inventory from one of:

at least one available item to less than one available item; and

no available items to at least one available item.

21. The system according to claim 1, wherein said location servers each have memories storing an entirety of the set of the inventory availability information.

22. In combination with a communications network selectively connected to a plurality of user stations, each of the user stations being associated with a respective display configured to display a page of information, a system for distributing access to inventory items available at a plurality of vendor locations, the system comprising:

location servers operatively connected to the communications network, each of said location servers accessing a set of inventory availability information associated with a set of inventory items available at a respective location;

a host server communicating with said location servers through the communications network, said host server being configured to receive the user inquiries regarding availability of the inventory items associated with a subset of said location servers; and

a cache server;

communicating with said location servers through the communications network;

locally storing a subset of the set of inventory availability information for a plurality of said location servers, said subset being less than an entirety of said set; and

being operatively connected with said host server to provide said host server with access to said subset of inventory availability information.

23. An online restaurant table availability system for communication with one or more restaurant database servers over a communications network, each of the restaurant database servers storing a complete set of table inventory information for at least one respective restaurant location, the system comprising:

a website receiving user inquiries from the communications network regarding table availability for a user-specified table capacity and a user-specified time, said website communicating with the restaurant database servers through the communications network; and

a cache server maintaining less than the complete set of each set of table inventory information located at the one or more restaurant database servers, the information in the less than complete set representing a status of table availability for table capacities at specified times, said cache server being in communication with the one or more restaurant database servers through the communications network, and said cache server communicating with said website for providing said website with access to the less than complete set.

24. In combination with a website for processing online restaurant table availability inquiries, the website being in communication with one or more restaurant database servers through a communications network, each of the restaurant database servers being adapted to store complete table inventory information for at least one respective restaurant location, an inventory system comprising:

a server configured to receive user inquiries from the communication network regarding table availability for a specified table capacity and a specified time; and

a cache server connected to the communications network and configured to receive and store messages from the restaurant database servers, each of said messages being a summary of the complete table inventory information and corresponding to a status of available tables of a given size at a given time, said cache server configured to provide to a user information indicating whether a table of a user-requested size and for a user-requested time one of;

is available; and

is not available.