SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR CONTEXT-BASED SERIALIZATION OF MESSAGES IN A PARALLEL EXECUTION ENVIRONMENT

• US 20110173252A1
• Filed: 01/18/2011
• Published: 07/14/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 12/13/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Eibach, Wolfgang, Kuebler, Dietmar
• Granted Patent: US 8,489,693 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/203
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/546 Message passing systems or structures, e.g. queues

Abstract

A messaging system and method which allows parallel execution of related requests according their context-based sequence. A serialization processor receives each incoming message request from a messaging client, extracts a transaction identifier (TI), searches a state table for the TI, and, if the TI is found active in the state table, stores the request in a serialization queue and makes an entry for that TI with the state “queued” in the state table. After execution of the active request, its entry in the state table is cleared, and the queued request with the same TI is executed, whereupon its entry is changed from queued to active.

Claims

1. A messaging system for context-based serialization of messages in a parallel execution environment, comprising a serialization processor for receiving an incoming message from a message client, extracting a transaction identifier from the message, checking a state table for the transaction identifier, putting the message into a serialization queue if the transaction identifier is found with an active status in the state table, and putting the message into an execution queue once the transaction identifier has been cleared in the state table.

2. The messaging system according to claim 1, wherein, if the transaction identifier with the state active is found in the state table, the serialization processor makes an entry in the state table with a status of queued and puts the message into the serialization queue.

3. The messaging system according to claim 1, wherein the serialization processor creates time stamp entries in the state table, wherein a time stamp entry defines an arrival time of a message, and the serialization processor puts messages into the execution queue in a sequence according to the time stamps.

4. The messaging system according to claim 1, wherein the serialization processor creates a message ID entry in the state table for use by the serialization processor to retrieve messages from the serialization queue.

5. A server system, comprising:

a messaging server communicating with a messaging client;

a queue manager for managing a message queue; and

an execution system for parallel processing of messages;

wherein the server system includes;

a serialization queue for storing messages to be queued;

an execution queue for storing messages to be executed;

a state table providing state information; and

a serialization processor for taking messages from the message queue responsive to the state information and updating the state table accordingly.

6. The server system according to claim 5, wherein the state table comprises a transaction identifier and present state of a message, wherein the present state may be active or queued.

7. The server system according to claim 6, wherein the state table further comprises a time stamp which records the arrival time of the message.

8. The server system according to claim 7, wherein the state table further comprises a message identifier for a message for retrieval of the message from the serialization queue.

9. The server system according to claim 5, wherein the serialization processor receives an incoming message from the messaging client via the message queue, reads a transaction identifier included in the message, checks the state table for the transaction identifier, puts the message into a serialization queue if the transaction identifier is already stored in the state table with the state active, and puts the message into an execution queue if the entry in the state table with the transaction identifier has been cleared.

10. The server system according to claim 9, wherein the serialization processor makes an entry in the state table with a status of queued if the transaction identifier is already stored in the state table with the state active.

11. A method for context-based serialization of messages in a server system having a message queue and an execution system which performs parallel processing of messages, comprising the steps of:

retrieving a message from the message queue;

determining a transaction identifier of the message;

searching a state table for the transaction identifier;

creating an entry for the message in the state table with the transaction identifier and a state of active if the state table does not contain the transaction identifier found in the step of determining; and

putting the message into an execution queue.

12. A method for automatic context-based serialization of messages in a server system having an execution system for parallel processing of messages, comprising the steps of:

retrieving a message from a message queue;

analyzing the message to find a transaction identifier;

searching a state table for the transaction identifier of the message; and

putting the message into a serialization queue if the state table includes the transaction identifier with an active state.

13. The method according to claim 12, further comprising the steps of:

checking states of messages in the state table at predetermined times; and

if a message with the transaction identifier has been cleared in the state table, putting a message from the serialization queue having the transaction identifier into the execution queue.

14. The method according to claim 13, further comprising the steps of:

recording, in the state table, a time stamp of a message arriving in the message queue; and

putting the message into the execution queue in a sequence according the time stamp.

15. The method according to claim 12, further comprising the steps of:

assigning a message ID to the transaction identifier in the state table; and

retrieving the message from the serialization queue using the message ID.