RELIABLE PROCESSING OF HTTP REQUESTS

• US 20100161714A1
• Filed: 12/19/2008
• Published: 06/24/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 12/19/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Oracle International Corporation (Oracle Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Oracle International Corporation (Oracle Corporation)
• Inventors: DONGRE, M. KEERTHIDHARA
• Granted Patent: US 7,975,047 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/203
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/02 based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/563 Data redirection of data network streams
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/566 Grouping or aggregating service requests, e.g. for unified processing
• 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 monitoring tool provided according to an aspect of the present invention causes an HTTP request to be resubmitted to another server system if a server system, to which the same HTTP request has been earlier submitted, is detected to have failed without completing processing of the request. In one embodiment, the server system is deemed to have failed upon absence of completion of requests for a pre-specified duration. As an alternative or in addition, the operational status of the server system is checked periodically and the server system is deemed to have failed if it is non-operational.

Claims

1. A computing system comprising:

a set of server systems to process hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) requests;

a client system to send a HTTP request; and

a front end server to receive said HTTP request and to submit said HTTP request to a first server system,

said front end server to resubmit said HTTP request to a second server system upon detecting that said first server system failed without completing processing of said HTTP request,

wherein said first server system and said second server system are contained in said set of server systems.

2. The computing system of claim 1, wherein said front end server stores a portion of said HTTP request, said portion including data of said HTTP request that is required to be sent to said second server system to process said HTTP request,

wherein said front end system resubmits said HTTP request to said second server system based on said portion.

3. The computing system of claim 2, wherein said front end server stores a status information indicating whether processing of said HTTP request is completed or not,

wherein said front end server comprises a monitoring tool which inspects said status information prior to resubmitting said HTTP request.

4. The computing system of claim 3, wherein said front end server checks periodically whether each of said set of server systems is operational or not,

wherein said monitoring tool is designed to inspect said status information if said first server system is determined not to be operational and to resubmit said HTTP request to said second server system.

5. The computing system of claim 4, wherein said HTTP request is a one way request not requiring a response to be sent to said client system,

wherein said set of server systems are designed to indicate completion of processing of requests,

said front end server updating said status information to indicate completed status upon receiving indication of completion from said second server system.

6. The computing system of claim 4, wherein said HTTP request is a two way request requiring a response to be sent to said client system,

said second server system generating a response data by completing processing of said HTTP request,

said front end server to receive said response data and to generate a response to said HTP request and to update said status information to indicate completion of processing of said HTTP request.

7. The computing system of claim 4, wherein each of said server systems is an application server, each of said set of server systems implementing a corresponding set of enterprise applications,

wherein said front end server inspects said HTTP request to determine an enterprise application designed to process said HTTP request,

said front end server to further select one of said server systems executing said enterprise application to submit said HTTP request.

8. A front end server comprising:

a request handler to receive a hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) request; and

a submitter block to submit said HTTP request to a first server system, and then to resubmit said HTTP request to a second server system upon detecting that said first server system failed without completing processing of said HTTP request.

9. The front end server of claim 8, wherein said front end server further comprises a memory,

said request handler to store a portion of said HTTP request in said memory, said portion including data of said HTTP request that is required to be sent to said second server system to process said HTTP request,

wherein said submitter block resubmits said HTTP request to said second server system based on said portion.

10. The front end server of claim 9, wherein said request handler first examines said HTTP request to determine whether required information is present in said HTTP request,

said request handler to further stores said portion in said memory and forward said HTTP request to said submitter block only if said HTTP request contains the required information.

11. The front end server of claim 9, wherein memory stores a status information indicating whether processing of said HTTP request is completed or not, said front end server further comprising a monitoring tool which inspects said status information prior to resubmitting said HTTP request.

12. The front end server of claim 11, wherein said submitter block checks periodically whether each of said set of server systems is operational or not,

wherein said monitoring tool is designed to inspect said status information if said first server system is determined not to be operational and to interface with said submitter block to resubmit said HTTP request to said second server system.

13. The front end server of claim 12, wherein said HTTP request is a one way request not requiring a response to be sent to said client system,

wherein each of said first server system and said second server system is designed to indicate completion of processing of requests,

said monitoring tool to update said status information to indicate completed status upon receiving indication of completion of processing of said HTTP request from said second server system.

14. The front end server of claim 12, wherein said HTTP request is a two way request requiring a response to be sent to said client system,

said second server system generating a response data by completing processing of said HTTP request,

said front end server further comprising a response handler to receive said response data and to generate and send a response to said HTP request.

15. The front end server of claim 12, wherein each of said first server system and said second server system is an application server implementing a corresponding set of enterprise applications,

wherein said submitter block inspects said HTTP request to determine an enterprise application designed to process said HTTP request,

said submitter block to further select one of said server systems executing said enterprise application to submit said HTTP request.

16. A method of ensuring reliable processing of HTTP requests, said method comprising:

receiving a hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) request from a client system;

submitting said HTTP request to a first server system;

detecting that said first server system has failed without processing of said HTTP request;

resubmitting said HTTP request to a second server system upon said detecting.

17. The method of claim 16, further comprising:

storing said HTTP request in a memory,

wherein said resubmitting comprises retrieving said HTTP request from said memory and forwarding said HTTP request to said second server system.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein said detecting comprises checking whether said first server system has not indicated completion of any requests in a pre-specified duration.

19. The method of claim 17, wherein said detecting comprises checking whether said first server system is operational or not, wherein said resubmitting is performed if said first server system is found not to be operational.

20. The method of claim 17, further comprising:

storing a status information indicating whether processing of said HTTP request is completed or not; and

updating said status information to indicate that processing of said HTTP request is complete if a response data is received for said HTTP request,

wherein said resubmitting is performed only if said status information indicates that processing of said HTTP request is not completed.