Managing message queues

• US 20060294333A1
• Filed: 06/27/2005
• Published: 12/28/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 06/27/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Ab Initio Technology LLC (Ab Initio Software Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Ab Initio Technology LLC (Ab Initio Software Corporation)
• Inventors: Stanfill, Craig W., Michaylov, Spiro, Banerji, Sanjeev
• Granted Patent: US 7,865,684 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 711/168
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2209/5016 Session
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2209/508 Monitor
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/466 Transaction processing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5016 the resource being the memory
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/526 Mutual exclusion algorithms
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/546 Message passing systems or structures, e.g. queues

Abstract

A method, and corresponding system and software, is described for writing data to a plurality of queues, each portion of the data being written to a corresponding one of the queues. The method includes, without requiring concurrent locking of more than one queue, determining if a space is available in each queue for writing a corresponding portion of the data, and if available, reserving the spaces in the queues. The method includes writing each portion of the data to a corresponding one of the queues.

Claims

1. A method for writing data to a plurality of queues, each portion of the data being written to a corresponding one of the queues, the method including:

without requiring concurrent locking of more than one queue, determining if a space is available in each queue for writing a corresponding portion of the data, and if available, reserving the spaces in the queues; and

writing each portion of the data to a corresponding one of the queues.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein writing each portion of the data to a corresponding one of the queues occurs after reserving all of the spaces in the queues.

3. The method of claim 1, further including:

after writing a portion of the data in the corresponding queue, releasing the reservation of the space for the portion of the data written in that queue.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein determining if the space is available in each queue and if available reserving the spaces includes, for each of multiple of the queues:

locking the queue;

determining if the space is available in the queue;

if available reserving the space; and

unlocking the queue.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein each portion of the data written to a corresponding one of the queues includes a record.

6. The method of claim 5, further including writing a journal record before writing the records to any of the queues.

7. The method of claim 6, further including synchronizing each of the queues to non-volatile memory before writing the journal record.

8. The method of claim 5, further including, before writing data other than one of the records to a first of the queues, if a space has been reserved in the first queue, locking the first queue while determining whether additional space is available in the first queue for the other data before writing the other data to the first queue.

9. The method of claim 5, further including, before writing data other than one of the records to a first of the queues, if a space has not yet been reserved in the first queue, write the data to the first queue without necessarily requiring locking of the first queue.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein determining if the space is available in each queue for writing a corresponding portion of the data includes ensuring that enough space in each queue is available for writing a commit record for any outstanding transactions with the queue.

11. The method of claim 10, further including:

aborting the writing of the corresponding commit records to each of the plurality of queues after determining that enough space would not be reserved in at least one of the queues for writing a commit record for any outstanding transactions with the queue.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein reserving the spaces in the queues includes incrementing a corresponding counter for each queue.

13. Software stored on a computer-readable medium, for writing data to a plurality of queues, each portion of the data being written to a corresponding one of the queues, the software including instructions for causing a computer system to:

without requiring concurrent locking of more than one queue, determine if a space is available in each queue for writing a corresponding portion of the data, and if available, reserving the spaces in the queues; and

write each portion of the data to a corresponding one of the queues.

14. A system for writing data to a plurality of queues, each portion of the data being written to a corresponding one of the queues, the system including:

means for determining, without requiring concurrent locking of more than one queue, if a space is available in each queue for writing a corresponding portion of the data, and if available, reserving the spaces in the queues; and

means for writing each portion of the data to a corresponding one of the queues.

15. A method including:

storing a plurality of messages for a queue in a first data structure that is separate from a second data structure for the queue;

committing a transaction associated with the messages; and

reading at least some of the messages from contiguous memory locations.

16. The method of claim 15, further including storing a pointer to the first data structure in the second data structure.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein reading at least some of the messages from contiguous memory locations includes reading at least some of the messages from the first data structure.

18. The method of claim 15, wherein committing the transaction includes moving the messages from the first data structure to the second data structure.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein reading at least some of the messages from contiguous memory locations includes reading at least some of the messages from the second data structure.

20. The method of claim 18, wherein the first data structure is stored in volatile memory and the second data structure is stored in non-volatile memory.

21. The method of claim 15, further including:

moving the messages from the first data structure to a third data structure; and

storing a pointer to the third data structure in the second data structure.

22. The method of claim 21, wherein reading at least some of the messages from contiguous memory locations includes reading at least some of the messages from the third data structure.

23. Software stored on a computer-readable medium including instructions for causing a computer system to:

store a plurality of messages for a queue in a first data structure that is separate from a second data structure for the queue;

commit a transaction associated with the messages; and

read at least some of the messages from contiguous memory locations.

24. A system including:

means for storing a plurality of messages for a queue in a first data structure that is separate from a second data structure for the queue;

means for committing a transaction associated with the messages; and

means for reading at least some of the messages from contiguous memory locations