INTELLIGENT SYSTEM CONTROL AGENT FOR MANAGING JOBS ON A NETWORK BY MANAGING A PLURALITY OF QUEUES ON A CLIENT

• US 20070050490A1
• Filed: 07/31/2006
• Published: 03/01/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 01/16/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Larkin, Michael
• Granted Patent: US 7,996,507 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/223
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/4862 the task being a mobile agent, i.e. specifically designed to migrate

Abstract

Disclosed is a robust intelligent system control agent configured to receive user job requests, submit the user job requests to selected qualified clients for servicing, and monitor the progress of the requests. The system is also configured with the capability of relocating a system control agent from one location within a network to another location within the network and for relocating a job request from one client to another. This ability to relocate agents and jobs provides robustness and reliability to the system, allowing the agent to move to a different machine when, for example, its current host system requires maintenance or other downtime. In order to facilitate the relocation of a job request, the state of the request is temporarily stored by the agent or by other means while the job request is relocated to another client.

Claims

1. An intelligent system control agent for coordinating user requested jobs among a:

plurality of clients, comprising;

a user interface module configured to receive a user request;

a client selection module configured to select one of a plurality of clients to service the user request according to a predetermined criterion, each client comprising a plurality of queue types, each queue type having an individual scheme for prioritizing jobs; and

a communication module configured to submit the user request to the selected client.

2. The intelligent system control agent of claim 1, wherein each client comprises at least three queue types.

3. The intelligent system control agent of claim 1, further comprising a system health check module configured to maintain an awareness of the state of the selected client.

4. The intelligent system control agent of claim 1, further comprising an agent endpoint module configured to enable the relocation of the system control agent.

5. The intelligent system control agent of claim 1, further comprising a federation module configured to allow cross-communication and interaction between a plurality of system control agents.

6. The intelligent system control agent of claim 1, further comprising a job relocation module configured to relocate a user requested job from one client to another.

7. The intelligent system control agent of claim 1, further comprising a state storage module configured to store the state of jobs being relocated from one client to another.

8. A system for remotely controlling clients from a central location, the system comprising:

a plurality of clients;

an agent configured to receive a user request from a user and determine based upon a predetermined criterion which of the plurality of the clients to submit the user request to, each client comprising a plurality of queue types, each queue type having an individual scheme for prioritizing jobs; and

a communication channel configured to send the user request to the specified client.

9. The system of claim 8, wherein each client comprises at least three queue types.

10. The system of claim 8, further comprising a job execution module configured to determine a suitable queue for the user request sent to the client.

11. The system of claim 10, wherein the job execution module comprises an asynchronous queue configured to run requests simultaneously within the specified client.

12. The system of claim 10, wherein the job execution module comprises a synchronous queue configured to run requests in the order the requests are received by the specified client.

13. The system of claim 10, wherein the job execution module comprises an exclusive queue configured to run requests exclusive of any other requests in any other queue on the system.

14. A method of operating a software control agent, comprising:

receiving a user request;

automatically selecting based upon a predetermined criterion one of a plurality of clients to submit the user request to for service of the request, each client comprising a plurality of queue types, each queue type having an individual scheme for prioritizing jobs; and

sending the user request over a communication channel to the selected client.

15. The method of claim 14, further comprising automatically relocating a software control agent from one computer station within a network to another computer station within the network.

16. The method of claim 14, further comprising maintaining an awareness of the state of the selected client.

17. The method of claim 14, further comprising providing an agent endpoint module configured to allow the mobility of an agent from one system to another.

18. The method of claim 14, further comprising relocating a user requested job from one client to another.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein automatically relocating the agent from one computer system within the network to another computer system within the network further comprises:

instructing the agent to relocate to a known agent endpoint by a system administrator;

stopping to accept new job requests by the agent;

waiting for pending/current request relocations to finish by the agent;

flushing in-process requests to a state storage system by the agent;

requesting the new endpoint to instantiate a new agent by the agent;

waiting while the new agent populates its database with the data from the state storage system by the agent;

sending a message to all federated agents that the agent for a domain is relocated to the new agent by a first agent;

sending a message to all clients in the domain that the agent is relocated to the new agent by the first agent; and

sending a request to the first agent'"'"'s endpoint to close the first agent by the new agent.

20. The method of claim 14, further comprising automatically relocating the user request from the selected client within the network to another client within the network.

21. The method of claim 20, wherein automatically relocating the user request from the selected client within the network to another client within the network further comprises:

instructing the selected client to relocate the user request by a system administrator or agent;

sending the user request to a state storage system by the selected client;

sending instructions to the new client to access the user request from the state storage system by the agent;

accessing the user request from the state storage system by the new client; and

relocating the user request to the new client.

22. An article for manufacture comprising a storage medium readable by a processor and to perform a method of operating a software control agent, comprising:

receiving a user request;

automatically selecting based upon a predetermined criterion one of a plurality of clients to submit the request to for service of user request, each client comprising a plurality of queue types, each queue type having an individual scheme for prioritizing jobs; and

sending the user request over a communication channel to the selected client.

23. The article of manufacture of claim 22, further comprising automatically relocating a software control agent from one computer station within a network to another computer station within the network.

24. The article of manufacture of claim 22, further comprising providing an agent endpoint module configured to allow the mobility of an agent from one system to another.

25. The article of manufacture of claim 22, further comprising automatically relocating a user requested job from one client within a network to another client within the network.