Visibility Parameters for an In-Memory Cache

• US 20170116130A1
• Filed: 10/26/2015
• Published: 04/27/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 10/26/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Salesforce.com, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Salesforce.com, Inc.
• Inventors: Sundaravaradan, Barathkumar, Wall, Christopher James, Lopez, Lawrence Thomas, Sydell, Paul, Duvur, Sreeram, Devadhar, Vijayanth
• Granted Patent: US 9,984,002 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 12/084 with a shared cache
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 12/0846 Cache with multiple tag or data arrays being simultaneously accessible
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 12/0848 Partitioned cache, e.g. separate instruction and operand caches
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 12/0871 Allocation or management of cache space
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 12/0888 using selective caching, e.g. bypass
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 12/123 with age lists, e.g. queue, most recently used [MRU] list or least recently used [LRU] list
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/2453 Query optimisation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2212/1016 Performance improvement
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2212/1052 Security improvement
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2212/282 Partitioned cache
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2212/45 Caching of specific data in cache memory
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2212/6042 Allocation of cache space to multiple users or processors

Abstract

Techniques are disclosed relating to an in-memory, software-managed cache configured to store web application data. In some embodiments, operations to cache data specify a visibility parameter for the data, among a plurality of namespaces. In some embodiments, requests to access cached data are checked, based on a request'"'"'s namespace and the visibility parameter for the cached data, to determine whether they are allowed to proceed. In some embodiments, this may facilitate caching data using shared computing systems and data structures while maintaining configurable privacy for cached data.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

storing, on a computing system, application data in an in-memory cache for a plurality of namespaces, wherein the cache is configured to store data for a plurality of entries, including a particular entry associated with a particular one of the plurality of namespaces, wherein the particular entry is associated with a visibility parameter defining which of the plurality of namespaces have access to the particular entry;

receiving, by the computing system, a request to access the particular entry in the in-memory cache, wherein the request is associated with a specified one of the plurality of namespaces; and

determining, based on the visibility parameter for the particular entry and the specified namespace, whether to provide access to the particular entry in response to the request.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein ones of the plurality of namespaces are sharded across multiple servers in the computing system.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the request includes a key corresponding to the entry.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving a request to store data in the in-memory cache, wherein the request specifies the visibility parameter; and

storing the data in the particular entry in response to the request to store data in the in-memory cache.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the visibility parameter is a binary parameter that indicates whether the entry is visible within only a single namespace or is visible to multiple namespaces for an entity.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the visibility parameter specifies a list of namespaces for which the entry is visible.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising storing the visibility parameter in the entry.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the in-memory cache is a session cache corresponding to a user session and wherein the namespace corresponds to a particular web application.

9. A non-transitory computer-readable medium having computer instructions stored thereon that are capable of causing operations comprising:

storing application data in an in-memory cache for a plurality of namespaces, wherein the cache includes a plurality of entries, including a particular entry associated with a particular one of the plurality of namespaces, wherein the particular entry also includes a visibility parameter defining which of the plurality of namespaces have access to the particular entry;

receiving a request to access the particular entry in the in-memory cache, wherein the request is associated with a specified one of the plurality of namespaces; and

determining, based on the visibility parameter for the particular entry and the specified namespace, whether to provide access to the particular entry in response to the request.

10. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 9, wherein ones of the plurality of namespaces are sharded across multiple servers.

11. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 9, wherein the request to access the particular entry is initiated by program code executed by an application server or program code executed by a client device.

12. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 9, wherein the visibility parameter indicates that the entry is visible to multiple namespaces for an entity.

13. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 9, wherein the operations further comprise storing the visibility parameter in the entry.

14. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 9, wherein the in-memory cache is used to store data for multiple different user sessions associated with one of the plurality of namespaces.

15. A non-transitory computer-readable medium having computer instructions stored thereon that are capable of causing operations comprising:

transmitting a first request to a computing system to cache data in an in-memory cache, wherein the first request specifies a visibility parameter for the data that specifies which of a plurality of namespaces maintained by the computing system should have access to the data;

transmitting a second request to the computing system to retrieve the cached data, wherein the second request is associated with one of the plurality of namespaces; and

receiving a grant or denial of the second request that is based on the visibility parameter for the cached data.

16. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 15, wherein ones of the plurality of namespaces are sharded across multiple servers in the computing system.

17. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 15, wherein the first request and the second request each specify a key that is paired with the data.

18. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 15, wherein the visibility parameter is a binary parameter.

19. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 15, wherein the visibility parameter specifies a list of namespaces for which the data is visible.

20. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 15, wherein the in-memory cache is a session cache corresponding to a user web application session associated with the first request.