SUBSCRIBING TO MULTIPLE RESOURCES THROUGH A COMMON CONNECTION

• US 20120317170A1
• Filed: 06/07/2011
• Published: 12/13/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 06/07/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: BURKHARDT, JOHN R., RICHARDSON, RANSOM, SCHLEIFER, JASON, LEES, STEVEN
• Granted Patent: US 9,110,739 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/203
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2209/544 Remote
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/542 Event management; Broadcasting; Multicasting; Notifications
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/125 by balancing the load, e.g. traffic engineering
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/01 Protocols
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/02 based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/12 specially adapted for proprietary or special-purpose networking environments, e.g. medical networks, sensor networks, networks in vehicles or remote metering networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/165 Combined use of TCP and UDP protocols; selection criteria therefor

Abstract

Methods, systems, and computer-readable media are provided to allow multiple server resources to share a single connection to a client device. The single connection may be maintained between a notification queue on the server side and the client device. Multiple server resources share the notification queue. When a resource changes or a service wants to communicate information to a client, corresponding messages are sent to the notification queue over a connection within the data center. Once in the notification queue, the updates are communicated to the client device.

Claims

1. One or more computer-readable media having computer-executable instructions embodied thereon that when executed by a computing device perform a method for aggregating notifications from multiple server resources addressed to a common client, the method comprising:

initializing, at a computing device, a notification queue for a client that processes notification messages generated from multiple server resources;

receiving, at the notification queue, a first notification from a first server resource;

communicating the first notification from the notification queue to the client;

receiving, at the notification queue, a second notification from a second server resource; and

communicating the second notification from the notification queue to the client.

2. The media of claim 1, wherein the first server resource and the second server resource chat room content.

3. The media of claim 1, wherein the notification queue is located within a data center and on a different computing device than the first server resource and the second server resource.

4. The media of claim 1, wherein the method further comprises:

receiving a first subscription request from the client for the first server resource; and

receiving a second subscription request from the client for the second server resource.

5. The media of claim 1, wherein the second notification is received from the second server resource through a data-center intermediary server that aggregates notifications from multiple server resources within a first data center that are addressed to multiple clients that have notification queues in a second data center, thereby allowing a single connection between the first data center and the second data center to carry the notification messages.

6. The media of claim 1, wherein the first notification and the second notification are communicated between the notification queue and the client using one or more of a comet-style hypertext transfer protocol (“

HTTP”

) connection and a transmission control protocol (“

TCP”

) connection.

7. The media of claim 1, wherein the first notification and the second notification are communicated between the notification queue and the client through a stateless front-end machine that performs a load balancing function.

8. A method of communicating with resources in a remote data center, the method comprising:

subscribing to a first server resource and a second server resource associated with a service operating in the remote data center;

receiving a first notification from the first server resource through an aggregation component established by the remote data center; and

receiving a second notification from the second server resource through the aggregation component.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the method further comprises:

communicating a first subscription request from a first client for the first server resource; and

communicating a second subscription request from the first client for the second server resource.

10. The method of claim 8, wherein the method further comprises communicating an HTTP Get request to a notification queue operating on the aggregation component.

11. The method of claim 8, wherein the first and second resources are chat room instances.

12. The method of claim 8, wherein the method further comprises maintaining a connection to the service over which notifications are received.

13. One or more computer-readable media having computer-executable instructions embodied thereon that when executed by a computing device perform a method of communicating updates from multiple sever resources to a client device over a single connection, the method comprising:

assigning a client to a notification queue, wherein the client is subscribed to a service that is associated with multiple resources that individual clients subscribe to, and wherein the client is subscribed to a first resource and a second resource that are both provided by the service;

routing a first event notification from the first resource to the notification queue; and

routing a second event notification from the second resource to the notification queue.

14. The media of claim 13, wherein the service operates in a data center comprising multiple computing devices, and wherein the notification queue is assigned to a different computing device than the service.

15. The media of claim 13, wherein the first event notification describe a change in state within the first resource.

16. The media of claim 13, wherein the first resource and the second resource are chat room instances.

17. The media of claim 13, wherein the client is a media playback device and the service synchronizes a media play state.

18. The media of claim 13, wherein the method further comprises polling the notification queue to determine whether the client is still connected and generating a presence notification that communicates the client'"'"'s connection status.

19. The media of claim 13, wherein the first resource operates in a first data center and the second resource operates in a second data center, wherein the notification queue operates in the first data center, and wherein the second event notification from the second resource is aggregated with multiple event notifications from the second data center and communicated to the first data center.

20. The media of claim 13, wherein the first resource is a shared data resource.