METHOD OF DISPATCHING APPLICATION MESSAGES

• US 20100082817A1
• Filed: 09/24/2009
• Published: 04/01/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 09/26/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Siemens AG
• Original Assignee: Siemens AG
• Inventors: Roncagliolo, Isabella, Bortoloso, Luca Antonio, Giuffrida, Guido
• Granted Patent: US 9,628,386 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/226
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/546 Message passing systems or structures, e.g. queues
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/10 Flow control; Congestion control
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/19 at layers above the network layer network arrangements for networked applications for scheduling or organising the servicing of application requests H04L67/60
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/20 Traffic policing
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/263 Rate modification at the source after receiving feedback
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/32 by discarding or delaying data units, e.g. packets or frames
• CPC Class Codes: Y02D 30/50 in wire-line communication networks, e.g. low power modes or reduced link rate

Abstract

A method for dispatching a plurality of messages incoming into a dispatching server, each incoming message being issued by a source application and targeted to at least a destination application, the source application, the destination application and the dispatching server residing within a server-client network. The method includes the steps of defining a maximum rate of incoming messages per second, choosing an appropriate message rate reduction policy out of a first and of a second message rate reduction policy, starting a process which periodically determines a current rate of incoming messages per second, dispatching the message in case the current rate is smaller than the maximum rate, activating the appropriate message rate reduction policy in case the current rate of incoming messages is higher than the maximum rate, monitoring a result of the process and adapting a totality of parameters for the appropriate message rate reduction in case the current rate of incoming messages has dropped below the maximum rate.

Claims

1. A method of dispatching a plurality of messages incoming into a dispatching server, each incoming message being issued by a source application and targeted to at least a destination application, the source application, the destination application, and the dispatching server residing within a server-client network, the method which comprises the following steps:

a) defining a maximum rate of incoming messages per unit time;

b) choosing an appropriate message rate reduction policy out of a plurality of message rate reduction policies, including a first message rate reduction policy and of a second message rate reduction policy;

c) starting a process to periodically determine a current rate of incoming messages per unit time;

d) dispatching the message if the current rate is smaller than a maximum rate;

e) activating the appropriate message rate reduction policy if the current rate of incoming messages is higher than the maximum rate; and

f) monitoring a result of the process and adapting a totality of parameters for the appropriate message rate reduction in case the current rate of incoming messages has dropped below the maximum rate.

2. The method according to claim 1, wherein the first message rate reduction policy applies a hysteresis mechanism by carrying out the following steps:

i. discarding the incoming message if a priority of the incoming message is lower than a default threshold priority;

ii. notifying the source application about the discarding of the incoming message and providing to the source application a current message discarding filter;

iii. determining a new current incoming message rate;

iv. checking if the new current rate has decreased below the maximum rate;

v. increasing the default threshold priority to a new threshold priority in case the new current rate is higher than the maximum rate;

vi. decreasing the new threshold priority in case the new current rate is lower than the maximum rate;

vii. sending an updated message discarding filter to the source application and restarting at step i.

3. The method according to claim 1, wherein the second message rate reduction policy periodically requests a message number reduction from the source application by broadcasting an event to the source application, the event containing a number of messages to be discarded by said source application, the request being broadcasted until the current rate of incoming messages has decreased below the maximum rate.

4. The method according to claim 1, wherein the step of dispatching the incoming message is carried out after the message has been backed up and after an availability of a connection to the destination application has been acknowledged.

5. The method according to claim 4, which comprises, if the connection is unavailable, labelling the message as pending and dispatching the message as soon as the connection has been re-established.

6. The method according to claim 1, which comprises allowing a temporary overshoot of the current rate over the maximum rate without activating the appropriate message rate reduction policy.

7. The method according to claim 6, wherein the temporary overshoot is activated at run-time of the dispatching server based on a user setting of one of the following parameters:

period of overshoot time, maximum overload rate, the period of overshoot time in combination with the maximum overload rate.

8. The method according to claim 7, wherein a security checking entity compares a sum of an actual network load and an additional network load generated by the user setting with a total network capacity and issues a warning message, in case the user setting overloads the total network capacity, the warning being issued before the temporary exceeding with the parameter is activated.

9. The method according to claim 1, wherein the maximum rate of incoming messages and the appropriate message rate reduction policy is altered at run-time of the dispatching server.

10. A module for implementing the method according to claim 1, comprising a user interface, a data communication interface, a network protocol manager, and a message storage entity commonly configured for implementing the method according to claim 1.

11. The module according to claim 10, further comprising a deployable library containing routines to be embedded in the source application in order to define a required application-side message discarding policy.