Requester-Side Autonomic Governor Method

• US 20090307353A1
• Filed: 06/10/2008
• Published: 12/10/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 06/10/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Hulu LLC (The Walt Disney Company)
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Roberson, Kenneth W., Felton, Mitchell D., Morgan, Robert A.
• Granted Patent: US 8,032,633 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/226
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/60 Scheduling or organising the servicing of application requests, e.g. requests for application data transmissions using the analysis and optimisation of the required network resources admission control or resource allocation H04L47/70
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/40 for recovering from a failure of a protocol instance or entity, e.g. service redundancy protocols, protocol state redundancy or protocol service redirection management of faults, events, alarms or notifications in data switching networks H04L41/06

Abstract

A requester-side autonomic governor is provided for a requester configured to send service requests to a service provider. For example, the requester and service provider may be disposed in a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) architected system. A feedback loop, preferably a monitor portion of a Monitor, Analyze, Plan, and Execute (MAPE) loop, is configured to monitor responses to service requests. An autonomic governor mechanism limits the type and/or number of concurrent service requests according to a resource pool scheme, and dynamically adjusts a resource threshold of the resource pool scheme based on information provided by the feedback loop. In one embodiment, the resource threshold is reduced if more than a predetermined number of service requests generated time-outs, and is increased if more than a predetermined number of service requests are being held awaiting available pool resources and less than a predetermined number of service requests generated time-outs.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method for implementing a requester-side autonomic governor, the computer-implemented method comprising the steps of:

providing feedback loop information by monitoring responses received by a requester system in response to service requests sent by the requester system to a service provider system;

limiting at least one of the type and number of concurrent service requests active at any time according to a resource pool scheme;

dynamically adjusting a resource threshold of the resource pool scheme based on the feedback loop information.

2. The computer-implemented method as recited in claim 1, wherein the requester system and the service provider system are disposed in a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) architected system.

3. The computer-implemented method as recited in claim 1, wherein the step of providing feedback loop information comprises the step of utilizing a monitor portion of a Monitor, Analyze, Plan, and Execute (MAPE) loop.

4. The computer-implemented method as recited in claim 1, wherein the step of providing feedback loop information comprises the steps of:

receiving log information from one or more logs available to the requester system;

translating the log information into a common log format.

5. The computer-implemented method as recited in claim 1, wherein the step of dynamically adjusting the resource threshold comprises the step of dynamically adjusting the resource threshold based on a response time, wherein the response time is a duration of time between when a given service request is sent to the service provider system by the requester system and when a response to the given service request is received by the requester system.

6. The computer-implemented method as recited in claim 1, wherein the step of dynamically adjusting the resource threshold comprises the step of dynamically adjusting the resource threshold based on a combination of a response time and a service request characteristic parameter, wherein the response time is a duration if time between when a given service request is sent to the service provider system by the requester system and when a response to the given service request is received by the requester system, and wherein the service request characteristic parameter is based on at least one of complexity and size of a given service request.

7. The computer-implemented method as recited in claim 1, wherein the step of dynamically adjusting the resource threshold comprises the step of dynamically adjusting the resource threshold based on at least one of a timed-out status and a hold status, wherein the timed-out status occurs when a response time is more than a predetermined amount of time, the response time being a duration of time between when a given service request is sent to the service provider system by the requester system and when a response to the given service request is received by the requester system, and wherein a hold status occurs if a given service request is put on hold awaiting available pool resources.

8. The computer-implemented method as recited in claim 7, wherein the step of dynamically adjusting the resource threshold based on at least one of a time-out status and a hold status comprises the steps of:

reducing the resource threshold if the timed-out status occurs with respect to more than a predetermined number of service requests;

increasing the resource threshold if the hold status occurs with respect to more than a predetermined number of service requests and the timed-out status occurs with respect to less than a predetermined number of service requests.

9. The computer-implemented method as recited in claim 8, wherein the step of reducing the resource threshold includes the step of sending a notification if the resource threshold is reduced below a minimum size.

10. The computer-implemented method as recited in claim 1, wherein the feedback loop information comprises one or more measures indicative of a constrained resource, wherein the step of providing the feedback loop information comprises the step of logging the one or more measures over time to provide a peak history of the one or more measures, and wherein the step of dynamically adjusting the resource threshold based on the feedback loop information comprises the step of dynamically adjusting the resource threshold based on the peak history.

11. A computer-implemented method for implementing a requester-side autonomic governor, the computer-implemented method comprising the steps of:

limiting at least one of the type and number of concurrent service requests active at any time according to a resource pool scheme;

providing feedback loop information by monitoring responses received by a requester system in response to service requests sent by the requester system to a service provider system, wherein the feedback loop information comprises at least one of;

a response time, wherein the response time is a duration of time between when a given service request is sent to the service provider system by the requester system and when a response to the given service request is received by the requester system;

a timed-out status, wherein the timed-out status occurs when the response time is more than a predetermined amount of time;

a hold status, wherein the hold status occurs if a given service request is put on hold awaiting available pool resources;

a service request characteristic parameter, wherein the service request characteristic parameter is based on at least one of complexity and size of a given service request;

dynamically adjusting a resource threshold of the resource pool scheme based on the feedback loop information.

12. The computer-implemented method as recited in claim 11, wherein the step of dynamically adjusting the resource threshold based on the feedback loop information comprises the steps of:

reducing the resource threshold if the timed-out status occurs with respect to more than a predetermined number of service requests;

increasing the resource threshold if the hold status occurs with respect to more than a predetermined number of service requests and the timed-out status occurs with respect to less than a predetermined number of service requests.

13. A computer-implemented method for implementing a requester-side autonomic governor, the computer-implemented method comprising the steps of:

limiting at least one of the type and number of concurrent service requests active at any time according to a resource pool scheme;

providing feedback loop information including a peak history of one or more measures indicative of a constrained resource by monitoring responses received by a requester system in response to service requests sent by the requester system to a service provider system and logging the one or more measures over time;

dynamically adjusting a resource threshold of the resource pool scheme based on the peak history.

14. The computer-implemented method as recited in claim 13, wherein the peak history of the one or more measures includes at least one of a time-of-day, day-of-week, and a day-of-month, and wherein the step of dynamically adjusting the resource threshold based on the peak history includes the step of dynamically adjusting the resource threshold based on at least one of the time-of-day, day-of-week, and day-of-month.