Interaction monitor and interaction history for service applications

• US 6,401,111 B1
• Filed: 09/11/1998
• Issued: 06/04/2002
• Est. Priority Date: 09/11/1998
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Parr, Francis Nicholas, Goyal, Ambuj, Dan, Asit
• Primary Examiner(s): Maung, Zarni
• Assistant Examiner(s): Cardone, Jason D.
• Application Number:
  US09/151,833
• Time in Patent Office: 1,362 Days
• Field of Search: 709/224, 709/202, 709/203, 709/101, 709/229, 709/227, 709/228, 709/204, 709/205, 709/103, 707/103, 705/1, 705/8, 705/59
• US Class Current: 709/204
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/00 Arrangements for monitoring or testing data switching networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/106 using time related information in packets, e.g. by adding timestamps

Abstract

A conversation monitoring system includes a communication network, two or more parties coupled to the communication network, each party having a computer application, and a conversation monitor located at at least one of the parties and adapted to provide an interaction history of long running conversations accessible to each computer application.

Claims

1. A conversation monitoring system comprising:

a communication network;

a plurality of nodes coupled to the communication network, one or more of the nodes having a computer application program; and

a conversation monitor located at at least one of the nodes and adapted to provide an unchangeable interaction history of long running conversations that is independently accessible by each computer application program irrespective of whether the unchangeable interaction history has been accessed by the computer application program at another one of the one or more of the nodes having the computer application program, wherein the unchangeable interaction history comprises messages unrelated to data committal and application creation that are exchanged between at least two of the plurality of nodes, the messages comprising requests and responses.

2. The system of claim 1 wherein the plurality of nodes comprises a client and a server and wherein the conversation monitor is located on the server.

3. The system of claim 2 wherein the interaction history comprises a record of all incoming requests to the server and all outgoing messages from the server to system resources or other parties.

4. The system of claim 3 wherein a relationship between a set of outgoing messages and incoming requests is maintained where the set of outgoing messages is transmitted in response to the incoming requests.

5. The system of claim 1 wherein the conversation monitor is adapted to automatically record each conversational interaction between two or more of the plurality of nodes.

6. The system of claim 5 wherein the conversation monitor is adapted to record each interaction without any explicit request to the conversation monitor to do so.

7. The system of claim 1 wherein the interaction history is adapted to permit at least one computer application program to read a record of interactions.

8. The system of claim 7 wherein the record of interactions is indexed by a context of a complete business service instance, a complete conversation or a set of business service application actions.

9. The system of claim 1 wherein the interaction history is structured to facilitate automated compensation of natural groupings of interactions.

10. The system of claim 9 wherein the natural groupings comprise a complete business service instance, a complete conversation or a set of business service application actions grouped together with the requirement that all should succeed or all should be compensated.

11. The system of claim 1, wherein the unchangeable interaction history corresponds to multiple conversations between three or more parties.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein relationships across actions of the multiple conversations are maintained.

13. The system of claim 10 wherein incoming messages are processed in a context of a complete business service instance, a complete conversation or a set of business service application actions.

14. The system of claim 1 wherein the interaction history is structured to facilitate automated compensation of all or part of the conversations.

15. The system of claim 1 wherein the interaction history is saved persistently to allow recovery of conversation states.

16. The system of claim 1 wherein the communication network is a Internet network.

17. The system of claim 1, wherein the interaction history also comprises messages related to data committal and application creation that are exchanged between the at least two of the plurality of nodes.

18. The system of claim 1, wherein multiple conversations are associated with a single application instance of at least one computer application program.

19. The system of claim 1, wherein at least one computer program includes more than one transaction.

20. The system of claim 1, wherein the conversation monitor comprises at least two conversation monitors, each of the at least two conversation monitors respectively located at at least two of the plurality of nodes and recording a corresponding interaction history used to detect duplicated or lost interaction messages over an unreliable communication link.

21. The system of claim 1, wherein the plurality of nodes comprise a plurality of servers and the communication network is a parallel networked environment such that a plurality of subcontracted requests are made in parallel to at least two of the plurality of servers in response to a particular request from another one of the plurality of servers.

22. The system of claim 1, wherein the interaction history comprises information relating to enforcement of agreements and contracts between at least two business parties respectively associated with at least of the plurality of nodes.

23. The system of claim 1, wherein the conversation monitor is capable of receiving queries directed to the conversation monitor regarding the unchangeable interaction history and returning query results in response thereto.

24. A method of monitoring a long running service application conversation between a plurality of nodes coupled to a communication network, the method comprising the steps of:

receiving a message from one of the nodes;

building, responsive to the receiving step, an unchangeable interaction history of the conversation; and

independently providing, to any of the plurality of nodes, application access to the unchangeable interaction history irrespective of whether the unchangeable interaction history has been accessed by any other of the plurality of nodes, wherein the unchangeable interaction history comprises messages unrelated to data committal and application creation that are exchanged between at least two of the plurality of nodes, the messages comprising requests and responses.

25. The method of claim 24 wherein the message is a request or a response.

26. The method of claim 24 wherein the receiving step comprises the step of receiving, at a server party, a request or response from a client party.

27. The method of claim 24 wherein the plurality of nodes comprises a server and a client and wherein the receiving step comprises the step of receiving, at the server, a request or a response from the client.

28. The method of claim 24 further comprising the steps of:

scheduling processing of an instance of an application;

determining whether resources are available to satisfy the message;

allocating, responsive to the determining step, resources for the message;

processing the message;

recording the message in the interaction history; and

providing the interaction history to one or more applications.

29. The method of claim 24 wherein the message is a request or a response.

30. The method of claim 24 wherein the message is a request and wherein the method further comprises the step of checking the validity of the request.

31. A conversation monitoring system comprising:

a communication network;

a plurality of nodes coupled to the communication network, the plurality of nodes including a client node and at least two server nodes, the client node and the at least two server nodes each respectively having a computer application program; and

a conversation monitor located at at least one of the nodes and adapted to provide an unchangeable interaction history of long running conversations that is independently accessible by each of the computer application programs irrespective of whether the unchangeable interaction history has been accessed by any other of the computer application programs, wherein the unchangeable interaction history comprises interactions between the client node and at least one of the at least two server nodes and interactions between the at least two server nodes, the interactions comprising messages unrelated to data committal that are exchanged between the client and the at least one server and between the at least two server nodes.