Web service

• US 6,317,786 B1
• Filed: 05/29/1998
• Issued: 11/13/2001
• Est. Priority Date: 05/29/1998
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: R2 Solutions LLC (Acacia Research Corporation), Mannesmann Sachs AG (Zeppelin - Stiftung der Stadt Friedrichshafen)
• Original Assignee: WebSpective Software, Inc. (Altaba Inc. (f/k/a Yahoo! Inc.))
• Inventors: DeBettencourt, Jason, Lara, Marco, Yamane, Stanley, Abbott, Freeland
• Primary Examiner(s): Meky, Moustafa M.
• Application Number:
  US09/086,836
• Time in Patent Office: 1,264 Days
• Field of Search: 709/201, 709/203, 709/217, 709/218, 709/219, 709/224, 709/225, 709/226
• US Class Current: 709/224
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2209/5019 Workload prediction
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2209/5022 Workload threshold
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/505 considering the load
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5083 Techniques for rebalancing the load in a distributed system
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0661 by reconfiguring faulty entities
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0681 Configuration of triggering conditions
• 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 41/5064 Customer relationship management
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5083 wherein the managed service relates to web hosting
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/535 Tracking the activity of the user network monitoring arrangements H04L43/00; recording of computer activity G06F11/34
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/329 in the application layer [OSI layer 7]

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 may 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 may 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 may monitor for specific events, and may act automatically upon the occurrence of such events. The events may include predictions or thresholds that indicate impending system crises. The system may 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 may present current information about the system operation to a system operator. The system may manage content replication with version control and data updates.

Claims

1. A web service system for managing and monitoring a first web server, comprising:

a first web server interface in communication with the first web server and at least one other component of the web service system, the first web server interface comprising software associated with the first web server for providing information related to requests for web pages to said at least one other component of the web service system, and for directing the first web server to redirect web page requests;

an agent, in communication with the first web server interface, for receiving the information from the first web server interface and for providing at least some of the information to at least one other component of the web service system; and

a manager, in communication with the agent, for receiving the at least some of the information provided by the agent and using said information to manage and monitor said first web server via said agent and said first web server interface.

2. The system of claim 1 wherein the system is also for monitoring a plurality of web servers comprising at least the first web server and a second web server, and wherein the system further comprises:

a second web server interface in communication with the second web server and at least one other component of the web service system, the second web server interface comprising software associated with the second web server for providing information related to requests for web pages to said at least one other component of the web service system, and for directing the second web server to redirect web page requests.

3. The system of claim 2 wherein the agent receives information from the first web server interface and the second web server interface.

4. The system of claim 2 further comprising an interceptor for receiving a request for a web page and for forwarding the request to one of the plurality of web servers.

5. The system of claim 4 wherein the interceptor forwards the request to one of the plurality of web servers so that the request load is distributed among the plurality of web servers.

6. The system of claim 5 wherein the interceptor forwards the request to one of the plurality of web servers so that the request load is balanced among the plurality of web servers.

7. The system of claim 4 wherein the interceptor is a child process of a watcher.

8. The system of claim 7 wherein the manager receives and processes the information and provides at least some of the processed information to the interceptor, and wherein at least some of the processed information is used by the interceptor to determine which of the plurality of web servers to forward the request to.

9. The system of claim 1 wherein the first web server, the first web server interface, and the agent are resident on the same computer.

10. The system of claim 1 wherein the first web server interface comprises a dynamically loaded library of functions for execution by the first web server.

11. The system of claim 1 wherein the manager receives the information and the received information is stored on one or more storage devices.

12. The system of claim 1 wherein the information related to requests for web pages includes the request received by the first web server, the time that the request was received by the first web server, and the time that a response was processed by the first web server.

13. The system of claim 1 wherein the manager is a child process of a watcher.

14. The system of claim 1 wherein the agent is a child process of a watcher.

15. The system of claim 1 further comprising:

a console for displaying system status information; and

wherein the manager receives and processes the information and provides at least some of the processed information to the console.

16. The system of claim 1, further comprising:

a second web server for providing web pages in response to web page requests; and

an interceptor for receiving web page requests, for choosing, for each of the web page requests, one of the first web server and the second web server to be a chosen web server for that web page request, and for referring each of the page requests to the chosen web server for that page request such that a user'"'"'s web browser requests the web page directly from the chosen web server for the page request.

17. A method for managing and monitoring a web server, comprising:

receiving a first web page request by a web server;

responding to the first web page request at least in part by communicating with a web server interface and thereby providing information about the first web page request to the web server interface;

providing by the web server interface at least some of the information about the first web page request to an agent;

providing by the agent at least some of the information about the first web page request to a manager;

directing, by the manager, in response to the at least some of the information, that web page requests made to the first web server be referred to a second web server;

directing, by the agent to the web server interface, in response to direction from the manager, that web page requests made to the first web server be referred to the second web server; and

directing, by the web server interface to the web server, in response to direction from the agent, that web page requests made to the first web server be referred to the second web server.

18. The method of claim 17, further comprising:

providing by the agent at least some of the information about the request to a manager.

19. The method of claim 18, further comprising:

processing the information about the request by the manager to form processed information; and

transmitting the processed information to an interceptor.

20. The method of claim 19, further comprising:

receiving the processed information at the interceptor; and

choosing a web server to refer a request to based at least in part on the processed information.