Web service

• US 6,279,001 B1
• Filed: 05/29/1998
• Issued: 08/21/2001
• Est. Priority Date: 05/29/1998
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: R2 Solutions LLC (Acacia Research Corporation)
• Original Assignee: WebSpective Software, Inc.
• Inventors: DeBettencourt, Jason, Lara, Marco, Yamane, Stanley, Abbott, Freeland
• Primary Examiner(s): Black, Thomas
• Assistant Examiner(s): Coby, Frantz
• Application Number:
  US09/086,874
• Time in Patent Office: 1,180 Days
• Field of Search: 707/10, 707/103, 709/221, 709/217, 709/218, 395/200.33
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0709 in a distributed system consisting of a plurality of standalone computer nodes, e.g. clusters, client-server systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0793 Remedial or corrective actions recovery from an exception in an instruction pipeline G06F9/3861; by retry G06F11/1402; for recovering from a failure of a protocol instance or entity H04L69/40
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3419 by assessing time
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3433 for load management allocation of a server based on load conditions G06F9/505; load rebalancing G06F9/5083; redistributing the load in a network by a load balancer H04L67/1029
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3495 for systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/958 Organisation or management of web site content, e.g. publishing, maintaining pages or automatic linking
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/81 Threshold
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/86 Event-based monitoring
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/87 Monitoring of transactions
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/875 Monitoring of systems including the internet
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/88 Monitoring involving counting
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/046 comprising network management agents or mobile agents therefor
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0654 using network fault recovery ring fault isolation or reconfiguration in loop networks without recovery actions by a network management system H04L12/437
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0896 Bandwidth or capacity management, i.e. automatically increasing or decreasing capacities flow or congestion control using dynamic resource allocation, e.g. in-call renegotiation, H04L47/76
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5083 wherein the managed service relates to web hosting
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/02 based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1001 for accessing one among a plurality of replicated servers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1008 based on parameters of servers, e.g. available memory or workload monitoring of computer activity G06F11/30
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1012 based on compliance of requirements or conditions with available server resources
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1019 Random or heuristic server selection
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1029 : using data related to the state of servers by a load balancer
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1031 : Controlling of the operation of servers by a load balancer, e.g. adding or removing servers that serve requests
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1034 : Reaction to server failures by a load balancer
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1095 : Replication or mirroring of data, e.g. scheduling or transport for data synchronisation between network nodes
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/142 : Managing session states for stateless protocols; Signalling session states; State transitions; Keeping-state mechanisms
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99944 : Object-oriented database structure
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99945 : Object-oriented database structure processing

Abstract

A system for serving web pages manages a plurality of web servers. The system provides an operator with features and tools to coordinate the operation of the multiple web servers. The system can manage traffic by directing web page requests to available web servers and balancing the web page request service load among the multiple servers. The system can collect data on web page requests and web server responses to those web page requests, and provide reporting of the data as well as automatic and manual analysis tools. The system can monitor for specific events, and can act automatically upon the occurrence of such events. The events can include predictions or thresholds that indicate impending system crises. The system can include crisis management capability to provide automatic error recovery, and to guide a system operator through the possible actions that can be taken to recover from events such as component failure or network environment problems. The system can present current information about the system operation to a system operator. The system can manage content replication.

Claims

1. A system for managing one or more web servers, comprising:

a traffic management subsystem for referring a browser'"'"'s web page request received by a first one of the web servers to a second one of the web servers, the referring comprising transmitting a redirect instruction and a network identifier of the second one of the web servers from the first one of the web servers to the browser thereby causing the browser to send the web page request directly to the second one of the web servers;

a monitor for collecting and storing information related to the web page request, the information comprising performance and network information associated with the web page request; and

an identifier for identifying problems with the web servers and providing automatic notification to a system operator of events indicating problems with one or more of the web servers.

2. The system of claim 1 wherein the traffic management subsystem comprises an interceptor receiving web page requests and distributing the web page requests to the web servers based on the load on the web servers.

3. The system of claim 2 wherein the web servers are capable of referring web page requests based on the load on the web servers.

4. The system of claim 3 wherein the traffic management subsystem further comprises a manager for receiving web server load information and communicating the web server load information to an interceptor.

5. The system of claim 4 wherein the traffic management subsystem further comprises an agent for directing the web servers.

6. The system of claim 5 wherein the manager directs the agent to direct one of the web servers to refer web page requests.

7. The system of claim 6 wherein the web servers run on hosts;

and wherein each host comprises an agent in communication with at least one of the web servers on the host and wherein each agent is also in communication with the manager.

8. The system of claim 1 wherein the monitor comprises a manager receiving web page request information and storing the web page request information in a database.

9. The system of claim 8 wherein the manager receives web page request information from the one or more of the web servers.

10. The system of claim 8 wherein the manager receives web page request information from one or more agents each in communication with at least one of the web servers.

11. The system of claim 8 wherein the web page request information is stored in a relational database.

12. The system of claim 8 further comprising a console for displaying information to a system operator.

13. The system of claim 12 wherein the console is capable of alerting the system operator to events.

14. The system of claim 12 wherein the console is capable of retrieving the web page request information from the database and displaying the web page request information to the system operator.

15. The system of claim 1 wherein the identifier comprises a manager receiving web page request information and storing the request information in a database.

16. The system of claim 15 wherein the events received by the manager are sent by an agent.

18. The system of claim 16 where the manager notifies a system operator upon the occurrence of an event.

17. A system for managing one or more web servers, comprising

a traffic management subsystem for referring a browser web page request received by a first one of the web servers to a second one of the web servers such that the web page request is made by the browser directly to the second one of the web servers;

a monitor for collecting and storing information related to the web page request; and

an identifier for identifying problems with the web servers and providing notification of events indicating problems with one or more of the web servers, said identifier comprising a manager capable of taking corrective action in response to notification of events indicating problems with one of the web servers.

19. The system of claim 17 wherein the manager notifies a system operator when automatic corrective action taken in response to an event caused by a problem does not resolve the problem.

20. A system for managing one or more web servers, comprising:

a traffic management subsystem for referring a browser web page request received by a first one of the web servers to a second one of the web servers such that the web page request is made by the browser directly to the second one of the web servers;

a monitor for collecting and storing information related to the web page request;

an identifier for identifying problems with the web servers and providing notification of events indicating problems with one or more of the web servers; and

a version controller for updating web pages on the web servers.