Location of objects/services in a distributed objects/services system

• US 7,203,705 B2
• Filed: 03/20/2003
• Issued: 04/10/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 12/18/2002
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Todd, Stephen J
• Primary Examiner(s): Alam; Hosain
• Assistant Examiner(s): Saeed; Usmaan
• Application Number:
  US10/394,324
• Publication Number:
  US 20040122862A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,482 Days
• Field of Search: 707/104.1, 707 1- 10, 707100-102, 709/201
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/546 Message passing systems or structures, e.g. queues
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99945 Object-oriented database structure processing
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99948 Application of database or data structure, e.g. distributed, multimedia, or image

Abstract

The invention provides a system whereby both queues and objects/services in a messaging system can be located via the same mechanism (message clustering).

Claims

1. A method, in a data processing system, for sending a request for a target service to perform an operation, the method comprising the steps of:

receiving a request for a target service to perform an operation;

creating a message for a message queue, the message being representative of the request, the message including an indication of the message queue and the operation to perform, wherein the message queue represents and is associated with the target service;

determining a location of said message queue, said message queue being a cluster queue in a messaging cluster; and

sending the message to the message queue, wherein;

the message queue is published to the messaging cluster such that the location of the message queue is stored in full repositories of the messaging cluster,

determining the location of the message queue comprises requesting the location of the message queue from a full repository of the messaging cluster,

sending the message to the message queue comprises using the location of the message queue retrieved from the full repository to direct the message to a data processing device in which the message queue is present,

the queue is an alias queue that maps to a real queue and corresponds to a class object maintained in a server data processing device, and

the server data processing device maintains a plurality of class objects having associated alias queues.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

redirecting the message from the alias queue to the real queue associated with the alias queue.

8. The method of claim 7, further comprising:

reading the message from the real queue; and

processing the message in a data processing system associated with the real queue using a class object corresponding to the message queue.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein a plurality of the alias queues associated with the plurality of class objects maintained in the server data processing device map to a same real queue of the server data processing device.

2. A data processing system for requesting a target service to perform an operation, the system comprising:

a target service;

means for receiving a request for the target service to perform an operation;

means for creating a message representative of the request, said message including an indication of the target service and the operation to perform;

a queue representing the target service, said queue being a cluster queue in a messaging cluster;

means for determining a location of said queue;

means, responsive to determining the location of said queue, for sending the message to said queue;

an agent for reading the message from said queue; and

means for performing the operation against the target service, wherein;

the queue is published to the messaging cluster such that the location of the queue is stored in full repositories of the messaging cluster,

the means for determining the location of the queue comprises means for requesting the location of the queue from a full repository of the messaging cluster, and

the means for sending the message to the queue comprises means for using the location of the queue retrieved from the full repository to direct the message to a data processing device in which the queue is present, wherein said queue is an alias queue that maps to a real queue, said alias queue corresponding to a class object maintained in a server data processing device, and wherein the server data processing device maintains a plurality of class objects having associated alias queues.

3. The system of claim 2 comprising a plurality of alias queues, each queue representing a target service and mapping to the same real queue.

4. The system of claim 2 wherein the agent reads messages from the real queue.

10. The data processing system of claim 2, further comprising:

means for redirecting the message from the alias queue to the real queue associated with the alias queue;

means for reading the message from the real queue; and

means for processing the message in a data processing system associated with the real queue using a class object corresponding to the alias queue.

11. The data processing system of claim 2, wherein a plurality of the alias queues associated with the plurality of class objects maintained in the server data processing device map to a same real queue of the server data processing device.

5. A computer program product, in a computer readable medium, comprising program code which, when executed on a computer, causes the computer to:

receive a request for a target service to perform an operation;

create a message for a message queue, the message being representative of the request, the message including an indication of the message queue and the operation to perform, wherein the message queue represents and is associated with the target service;

determine a location of said message queue, the message queue being a cluster queue in a messaging cluster; and

send the message to the message queue, wherein;

the message queue is published to the messaging cluster such that the location of the message queue is stored in full repositories of the messaging cluster,

determining the location of the message queue comprises requesting the location of the message queue from a full repository of the messaging cluster,

sending the message to the message queue comprises using the location of the message queue retrieved from the full repository to direct the message to a data processing device in which the message queue is present,

the queue is an alias queue that maps to a real queue and corresponds to a class object maintained in a server data processing device, and

the server data processing device maintains a plurality of class objects having associated alias queues.

6. An apparatus for sending a request for a target service to perform an operation, the apparatus comprising:

means for receiving a request for a target service to perform an operation;

means for creating a message for a message queue, the message being representative of the request, the message including an indication of the message queue and the operation to perform, wherein the message queue represents and is associated with the target service;

means for determining the location of said message queue, said message queue being a cluster queue in a messaging cluster; and

means for sending the message to the message queue, wherein;

the message queue is published to the messaging cluster such that the location of the message queue is stored in full repositories of the messaging cluster,

means for determining the location of the message queue comprises requesting the location of the message queue from a full repository of the messaging cluster, and

means for sending the message to the message queue comprises using the location of the message queue retrieved from the full repository to direct the message to a data processing device in which the message queue is present, wherein said queue is an alias queue that maps to a real queue, said alias queue corresponding to a class object maintained in a server data processing device, and wherein the server data processing device maintains a plurality of class objects having associated alias queues.

12. The apparatus of claim 6, further comprising:

means for redirecting the message from the alias queue to the real queue associated with the alias queue;

means for reading the message from the real queue; and

means for processing the message in a data processing system associated with the real queue using a class object corresponding to the alias queue.

13. The apparatus of claim 6, wherein a plurality of the alias queues associated with the plurality of class objects maintained in the server data processing device map to a same real queue of the server data processing device.