ASYNCHRONOUS DATA STORE OPERATIONS

• US 20180322056A1
• Filed: 05/02/2017
• Published: 11/08/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 05/02/2017
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: IYENGAR, Arun
• Granted Patent: US 10,437,724 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 12/0813 with a network or matrix configuration
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 12/0868 Data transfer between cache memory and other subsystems, e.g. storage devices or host systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 12/0893 Caches characterised by their organisation or structure
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2212/1024 Latency reduction
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2212/154 Networked environment
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2212/163 Server or database system

Abstract

A processing system server, computer program product, and methods with the server to provide data values. The server maintains a cache of objects. The server executes an asynchronous computation to determine the value of an object. In response to a request for the object before the asynchronous computation has determined the value of the object, returning a value of the object from the cache. In response to a request for the object after the asynchronous computation has determined the value of the object, returning a value of the object determined by the asynchronous computation.

Claims

1. A computer program product for a processing system comprised of a server to provide data values, the computer program product comprising a computer readable storage medium having computer readable program code embodied therewith, the computer readable program code including computer instructions, where a processor, responsive to executing the computer instructions, performs operations comprising:

in a processing system comprised of a server,

the server maintaining a cache of objects;

the server executing an asynchronous computation to determine the value of an object;

in response to a request for the object occurring before the asynchronous computation has determined the value of the object, returning a value of the object from the cache of objects; and

in response to a request for the object occurring after the asynchronous computation has determined the value of the object, returning a value of the object determined by the asynchronous computation.

2. The computer program product of claim 1 in which the asynchronous computation comprises at least one future.

3. The computer program product of claim 1 in which the asynchronous computation comprises at least one process or thread.

4. The computer program product of claim 1, in which the operations further comprising:

in response to the asynchronous computation determining the value of the object, updating the cache of objects with the value of the object determined by the asynchronous computation.

5. The computer program product of claim 1 in which said server executing an asynchronous computation occurs in response to a request for the object.

6. The computer program product of claim 1 in which said server executing an asynchronous computation occurs periodically.

7. The computer program product of claim 1 in which said server executing an asynchronous computation occurs after a time interval has elapsed.

8. The computer program product of claim 1 in which said server executing an asynchronous computation occurs with a frequency correlated with how frequently the object changes.

9. The computer program product of claim 1 in which said server executing an asynchronous computation occurs with a frequency correlated with how important it is to have a current value of the object.

10. The computer program product of claim 1 in which the asynchronous computation determines the value of the object by querying at least one additional server.

11. The computer program product of claim 10 in which the operations further comprising:

the server storing an object o2 in the cache of objects;

the server executing an asynchronous computation c2 to store object o2 on the at least one additional server; and

in response to receiving a request for object o2 before asynchronous computation c2 has finished executing, satisfying the request from the cache of objects.

12. The computer program product of claim 10 in which said at least one additional server comprises a plurality of servers and the asynchronous computation receives different values from at least two servers of the plurality of servers.

13. The computer program product of claim 12 in which the asynchronous computation determines the value of the object from a value which is returned most frequently by the at least one additional server.

14. The computer program product of claim 12 in which said different values have time stamps associated with them, and in which the asynchronous computation determines the value of the object based on the time stamps.

15. The computer program product of claim 10 in which the operations further comprising

the server executing an asynchronous computation c2 to store an object o2 on the at least one additional server.

16. The computer program product of claim 15 in which the operations further comprising:

in response to asynchronous computation c2 storing object o2 on the at least one additional server, updating the cache of objects with the value of object o2.

17. The computer program product of claim 15 in which asynchronous computation c2 includes an error handling method, and in which the operations further comprising:

in response to asynchronous computation c2 failing to store object o2, using the error handling method to retry storing object o2 on the at least one additional server.

18. A processing system comprising:

a server;

memory;

a network interface device for communicating with one or more networks; and

at least one processor, communicatively coupled with the server, the memory, and the network interface device, the at least one processor, responsive to executing computer instructions, for performing operations comprising;

the server maintaining a cache of objects in the memory;

the server executing an asynchronous computation to determine the value of an object;

in response to a request for the object occurring before the asynchronous computation has determined the value of the object, returning a value of the object from the cache of objects; and

in response to a request for the object occurring after the asynchronous computation has determined the value of the object, returning a value of the object determined by the asynchronous computation.

19. The processing system of claim 18, in which the server executing the asynchronous computation occurs with a frequency correlated with how important it is to have a current value of the object.

20. The processing system of claim 18, in which the asynchronous computation determines the value of the object by querying at least one additional server.

21. The processing system of claim 20, in which the operations further comprising:

the server storing an object o2 in the cache of objects;

the server executing an asynchronous computation c2 to store object o2 on the at least one additional server; and

in response to receiving a request for object o2 before c2 has finished executing, satisfying the request from the cache of objects.

22. The processing system of claim 20, in which said at least one additional server comprises a plurality of servers and the asynchronous computation receives different values from at least two servers of the plurality of servers.

23. The processing system of claim 22, in which said asynchronous computation determines the value of the object from a value which is returned most frequently by the at least one additional server.

24. The processing system of claim 22, in which said different values have time stamps associated with them in which the asynchronous computation determines the value of the object based on the time stamps.

25. The processing system of claim 20, in which the operations further comprising:

the server executing an asynchronous computation c2 to store an object o2 on the at least one additional server.