ORGANIZING RESOURCES INTO COLLECTIONS TO FACILITATE MORE EFFICIENT AND RELIABLE RESOURCE ACCESS

• US 20100005071A1
• Filed: 09/09/2009
• Published: 01/07/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 09/30/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Hasha, Richard L., Kakivaya, Gopala Krishna R.
• Granted Patent: US 8,307,028 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/3
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/10 File systems; File servers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/30 Managing network names, e.g. use of aliases or nicknames name-to-address mapping H04L61/45
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/3015 Name registration, generation or assignment
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/4552 Lookup mechanisms between a plurality of directories; Synchronisation of directories, e.g. metadirectories
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99931 Database or file accessing
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99942 Manipulating data structure, e.g. compression, compaction, compilation
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99943 Generating database or data structure, e.g. via user interface
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99944 Object-oriented database structure
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99945 Object-oriented database structure processing
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99948 Application of database or data structure, e.g. distributed, multimedia, or image

Abstract

The present invention extends to methods, systems, and computer program products for organizing resources into collections to facilitate more efficient and reliable resource access. Namespace managers communicate with one another to form a federation namespace infrastructure. The infrastructure can efficiently route, migrate, and process namespace requests, such as, for example, namespace registration requests from providers requesting to manage portions of namespaces and lookup requests from consumers requesting access to managed resources. Resources can be registered in and made accessible from multiple different namespaces. Resources can be identified using nested queries that filter results at multiple levels of a hierarchical namespace.

Claims

1. In a namespace federation infrastructure, a method for routing a namespace:

registration request, the method comprising;

an act of receiving a namespace registration request to register a namespace branch, the namespace registration request including a namespace identifier that identifies the namespace branch;

an act of generating an at least one-way equivalent identification value based on the scheme portion of the namespace identifier along with at least part of the path portion of the namespace identifier;

an act of sending the namespace registration request to a namespace manager having an identifier that is numerically closer to the at least one-way equivalent numeric identification value than the identifiers of other namespace managers; and

an act of associating the namespace manager with the namespace branch.

2. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the namespace manager that receives the sent namespace registration request floods the namespace registration request among a plurality of namespace managers within the namespace manager'"'"'s neighborhood set, the neighborhood set being the set of namespace managers having IDs within a predefined range on either side of the ID of the specified namespace manager within a finite modulo ID-address-space.

3. The method as recited in claim 1, further comprising an act of canonicalizing the namespace identifier per rules identified by the scheme portion of the namespace identifier before transferring the registration request over the namespace federation infrastructure.

4. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the at least one-way equivalent identification value based on the scheme portion of the namespace identifier along with at least part of the path portion of the namespace identifier comprises a hash.

5. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the generated hash value for the namespace identifier varies based on the configuration of the namespace federation infrastructure.

6. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein at least a portion of the namespace identifier uses a non-hierarchical namespace scheme.

7. The method as recited in claim 6, further comprising generating a hash over the entire namespace.

8. The method as recited in claim 4, wherein, for authoritative namespaces, the hash is generated over the scheme part, a first character sequence, an authority component and a first path component of the namespace identifier.

9. The method as recited in claim 4, wherein, for non-authoritative namespaces, the hash is generated over the scheme part, a second, different character sequence, and a second path component of the namespace identifier.

10. The method as recited in claim 4, further comprising utilizing one or more federation protocols to forward the hash along with the namespace registration request to the appropriate namespace manager.

11. The method of claim 10, further comprising:

an act of receiving an indication that the namespace manager that received the forwarded hash and namespace registration request has migrated responsibility for the namespace branch to another namespace manager, wherein the indication includes a referral to the namespace manager that has responsibility for the namespace branch; and

an act of forwarding the hash and namespace registration request to the appropriate namespace manager based on the referral.

12. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

an act of determining that the association between the namespace manager and the namespace branch is broken due to at least one of a namespace manager failure and the receiving of a referral to a different namespace manager; and

an act of routing subsequent requests until a new association is formed.

13. In a namespace federation infrastructure, a method for migrating a namespace registration request, the method comprising:

an act of determining that a namespace manager has satisfied a policy constraint;

an act of identifying a namespace branch that can be migrated to meet a policy action associated with the policy constraint; and

an act of an act of migrating existing registrations for the namespace branch to a partner namespace manager in response to the policy action.

14. The method as recited in claim 13, wherein the act of determining that a namespace manager has satisfied a policy constraint comprises determining that the amount of namespace information being processed at the namespace manager has exceeded a configured threshold.

15. The method as recited in claim 14, wherein the configured threshold comprises a total number of registrations maintained at the namespace manager.

16. The method as recited in claim 13, wherein the namespace branch is migrated to reduce the namespace information processed at the namespace manager below a configured threshold.

17. The method as recited in claim 16, wherein the namespace manager identifies a more heavily-populated or heavily-serviced namespace branch for migration.

18. The method as recited in claim 13, further comprising an act of receiving a namespace request corresponding to the namespace branch represented by a namespace identifier.

19. The method as recited in claim 18, further comprising an act of redirecting the namespace request to a partner namespace manager.

20. The method as recited in claim 18, further comprising an act of forwarding at least a portion of the namespace registrations encountered along the spine of the migrated namespace branch to the partner namespace manager hosting the branch such that the partner namespace manager branch is configured to service the lookup requests that specify the namespace branch without the requests having to go through the migrating namespace manager, either directly or indirectly.

21. The method as recited in claim 13, wherein the namespace manager leaves behind a stub indicating that the namespace manager has migrated registration information under the specified namespace branch.

22. The method as recited in claim 13, wherein the namespace manager revokes one or more subscriptions for liveness notifications, tracking, provider information, subscriber information or other information specified in the migrated registrations.

23. In a namespace federation infrastructure, a method for migrating a namespace lookup request, the method comprising:

an act of receiving a namespace registration request to register a namespace branch, the namespace registration request including a namespace URI string that identifies the namespace branch and a unique reference or identifier for the provider requesting registration in the namespace branch;

an act of determining that a namespace manager is interested in the namespace branch; and

an act of saving the namespace identifier in an appropriately indexed namespace registration database.

24. The method as recited in claim 23, wherein the act of determining that a namespace manager is interested in the namespace branch comprises determining if the namespace manager is responsible for the namespace branch represented by the unique identifier.

25. The method as recited in claim 24, further comprising, when the namespace manager is determined not to be responsible, an act of forwarding the namespace registration request to a responsible namespace manager for the specified namespace branch.

26. The method as recited in claim 24, further comprising, when the namespace manager is determined not to be responsible, an act of sending a referral message to the namespace manager that initiated the registration request indicating that the namespace manger is to contact the responsible namespace manager.

27. The method as recited in claim 24, further comprising, when the namespace manager is determined to be responsible, an act of retaining the namespace registration request.