MANAGING INTENDED GROUP MEMBERSHIP USING DOMAINS

• US 20080133668A1
• Filed: 01/17/2008
• Published: 06/05/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 07/31/2001
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: WILLIAMS, LAURIE ANN, MOREY, VICKI LYNN, MILLER, ROBERT, LASCHKEWITSCH, CLINTON GENE
• Application Number:
  US12/015,856
• Publication Number:
  US 20080133668A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/205
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2209/505 Clust
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5061 Partitioning or combining of resources

Abstract

System and method for managing membership of a group of jobs in a computing environment is provided. In one embodiment, a domain group, a set of interfaces to manage the domain group, and cluster-assigned member names to identify the members in a group is provided. The interfaces allow a group to be created and allow members to be added, removed and joined. A copy of the domain group is associated with each member job and indicates each job that is a member of a particular group. Management of a group is made by configuring each of the jobs of the group to assess its respective copy of the domain group in order to service requests, such as a request to join the group.

Claims

1. A method of managing membership of members in a cluster, comprising:

providing a domain for each member of a group, wherein the domain indicates all members of the cluster with a membership to the group; and

providing a set of interfaces configured to be invoked to manage the membership to the group, wherein at least one interface, when invoked by a request of a requestor, causes each member of the group to access its respective copy of the domain to determine whether the requestor is indicated in its respective copy of the domain.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the request is to join the requestor to the group.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein providing the set of interfaces comprises providing a Join_Member interface which is invoked when an inactive member requests to join the group, and wherein the Join_Member interface, when invoked, causes an active member currently in the group to access its copy of the domain to determine whether the inactive member has membership with the group.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein providing the set of interfaces comprises providing a first interface invoked by a request to add a potential member to the group, a second interface invoked by a request to join an inactive member to the group, and a third interface invoked by a request to remove a member from the group.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the domain is a unique persistent object in the cluster.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the members are jobs running on nodes of the cluster.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the members are differentiated by unique names of a respective node on which they are running.