System for change notification and persistent caching of dynamically computed membership of rules-based lists in LDAP

• US 20060218147A1
• Filed: 03/25/2005
• Published: 09/28/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 03/25/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Oracle International Corporation (Oracle Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Oracle International Corporation (Oracle Corporation)
• Inventors: Shrivastava, Saurabh, Sharma, Jason
• Granted Patent: US 7,792,860 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/107 Computer-aided management of electronic mailing [e-mailing]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/185 with management of multicast group membership
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/48 Message addressing, e.g. address format or anonymous messages, aliases
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/4523 using lightweight directory access protocol [LDAP]

Abstract

A system, method, computer program and article of manufacture for membership list management is described. A rules-based membership list is built and cached. Any modifications to the member objects are incrementally added to the cache, and are submitted to a change log. Queries access the membership in the cache instead of having to execute the rules to build the list. The change log entries allow membership modification notifications to be sent to any subscribing application.

Claims

1. A computer implemented method of membership list management, comprising:

executing a set of rules to create a computed membership list;

caching the computed membership list; and

modifying the cached membership list.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein modifying the cached membership list comprises:

receiving a member object change request;

determining which cached membership lists are affected by the change request; and

modifying the effected cached membership list;

3. The method of claim 2, wherein modifying the cached membership list further comprises:

setting a cache state to being updated while the modification is in progress;

setting the cache state to valid when the modification is complete; and

updating a change log based on the modification.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein updating comprises:

sending a change notification based on the change log.

5. The method of claim 1 further comprising accessing the cached membership list based on a request, wherein accessing the membership list comprises:

locating the membership list cache based on the request;

determining the cache state of the membership cache; and

accessing the cache based on the cache state.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein accessing further comprises:

accessing the cached list if the cache state is valid;

computing the membership list if the cache state is being updated; and

purging the cache, computing the membership list, and storing the computed list in the cache if the cache state is invalid.

7. The method of claim 2 wherein determining which cached membership lists are affected comprises comparing a set of hierarchical information from the request to a set of hierarchical attributes of the membership lists.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the hierarchical information comprises:

a base, the base identifying a node in a hierarchy to which the membership list belongs;

a level, the level identifying a depth of the membership list in the node hierarchy;

a filter, the filter identifying one or more specific membership list attributes.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

modifying one of the set of rules based on a rule change request;

10. The method of claim 9, wherein modifying one of the set of rules comprises:

setting a cache state to invalid;

modifying one or more hierarchical attributes of membership lists based on the rule change request.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein modifying the one or more hierarchical attributes further comprises:

moving a membership list ID from a link list of a base node to the link list of a new base node if the base of the rule changed;

adding the membership list ID to the link list of the new base node if the rule was added;

removing the membership list ID from the link list of the base node if the rule was deleted; and

modifying the membership list ID information if the rule was modified.

12. A computer program product embodied on computer readable medium, the computer readable medium having stored thereon a sequence of instructions which, when executed by a processor, causes the processor to execute a method for membership list management, the method comprising:

executing a set of rules to create a computed membership list;

caching the computed membership list; and

modifying the cached membership list.

13. The computer program product of claim 12, wherein modifying the cached membership list comprises:

receiving a member object change request;

determining which cached membership lists are affected by the change request; and

modifying the effected cached membership list;

14. The computer program of claim 13, wherein modifying the cached membership list further comprises:

updating a change log based on the modification; and

sending a change notification based on the change log.

15. The computer program product of claim 13 further comprising accessing the cached membership list based on a request, wherein accessing the membership list comprises:

locating the membership list cache based on the request;

determining the cache state of the membership cache; and

accessing the cache based on the cache state.

16. The computer program product of claim 14 wherein determining which cached membership lists are affected comprises comparing a set of hierarchical information from the request to a set of hierarchical attributes of the membership lists.

17. The computer program product of claim 16, wherein the hierarchical information comprises:

a base, the base identifying a node in a hierarchy to which the membership list belongs;

a level, the level identifying a depth of the membership list in the node hierarchy;

a filter, the filter identifying one or more specific membership list attributes.

18. The computer program product of claim 12, further comprising:

modifying one of the set of rules based on a rule change request;

modifying one or more hierarchical attributes of membership lists based on the rule change request.

19. A system for membership list management, the system comprising:

means for executing a set of rules to create a computed membership list;

means for caching the computed membership list; and

means for modifying the cached membership list.

20. The system of claim 19, wherein modifying the cached membership list comprises:

means for receiving a member object change request;

means for determining which cached membership lists are affected by the change request; and

means for modifying the effected cached membership list.

21. The system of claim 19, wherein modifying the cached membership list further comprises:

means for updating a change log based on the modification; and

means for sending a change notification based on the change log.

22. The system of claim 20 further comprising means for accessing the cached membership list based on a request, wherein accessing the membership list comprises:

means for locating the membership list cache based on the request;

means for determining the cache state of the membership cache; and

means for accessing the cache based on the cache state.

23. The system of claim 22 wherein the means for determining which cached membership lists are affected comprises means for comparing a set of hierarchical information from the request to a set of hierarchical attributes of the membership lists.

24. The system of claim 23, wherein the hierarchical information comprises:

a base, the base identifying a node in a hierarchy to which the membership list belongs;

a level, the level identifying a depth of the membership list in the node hierarchy;

a filter, the filter identifying one or more specific membership list attributes.

25. The system of claim 19, further comprising:

means for modifying one of the set of rules based on a rule change request;

means for modifying one or more hierarchical attributes of membership lists based on the rule change request.

26. A membership list management system comprising:

a set of rules which when executed produces one or more computed membership lists;

a storage device in which to cache the computed membership lists; and

a cache accessing module that can retrieve data from the cached membership lists.

27. The system of claim 26, further comprising:

a cache updating module which can modify the cached membership lists;

a rule modification module which can modify the set of rules and update hierarchical information; and

a change notification module which can transmit change notices.

28. The system of claim 26, wherein each membership list is represented by an entry in a link list of a base node, the entry including a list ID, a level, and filter information.

29. The system of claim 28 wherein the entry in the link list is utilized to locate the membership list.