Server queuing system and method

• US 7,502,843 B2
• Filed: 12/30/2004
• Issued: 03/10/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 12/30/2004
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Claypool, Sharry, Kirstein, Jack Michael, Huang, Chih-Jen, GanapathyRaj, Pradeep
• Primary Examiner(s): Jacobs; Lashonda T
• Application Number:
  US11/026,501
• Publication Number:
  US 20060146848A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,531 Days
• Field of Search: 709/203, 709/202, 709/213, 709/224, 709/206, 709/223, 707/1, 707/10, 707/13, 707/102, 707/8, 707/104.1
• US Class Current: 709/223
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/50 Queue scheduling
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/40 for recovering from a failure of a protocol instance or entity, e.g. service redundancy protocols, protocol state redundancy or protocol service redirection management of faults, events, alarms or notifications in data switching networks H04L41/06
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99938 Concurrency, e.g. lock management in shared database
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99943 Generating database or data structure, e.g. via user interface
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99945 Object-oriented database structure processing

Abstract

A queuing server is used for reliable message transport, where one subsystem desires to execute one or more ordered operations asynchronously. Messages are sent to the queue in groups, which may have one or more messages. Messages within a particular group are processed in a predetermined order. Optionally, groups of messages can marked as correlated such that all groups within a particular correlation can be processed in a predetermined order. A message can be stored in a SQL database table until processing of that message is complete. The receiving side of the message system can be scaled across multiple machines and/or across available resources of any given machine. The system can handle “disaster” scenarios on both the sending side (i.e. the sending machine crashes in the middle of sending a group), and the receiving side (i.e., a power failure causes a reboot in at least one of the receiving machines).

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method for queuing messages, comprising:

receiving a message group in a queuing system that is sent from a sender subsystem, wherein the message group comprises a group of messages;

wherein each message within the group of messages is identified as belonging to the message group;

storing each message of the group of messages within an entry of a message queue;

in response to receiving the message group adding a new record to the group queue;

wherein the record in the group queue identifies each of the messages in the message queue that comprise the received message group;

wherein each record in the group queue is associated with a different message group;

storing the received message group in a predetermined order within the group queue using the queuing system;

receiving in the queuing system a correlation identifier for the message group, wherein the correlation identifier is used to associate the messages in the message group;

storing the received correlation identifier using the queuing system; and

sending the stored message groups in accordance with the predetermined order and the correlation identifiers.

2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the received message group is stored in an SQL table.

3. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the stored message groups is sent to multiple machines.

4. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein a priority value is associated with the received message group.

5. The computer-implemented method of claim 4, wherein the message group is sent in accordance with the associated priority values.

6. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein a GUID is used as the correlation identifier.

7. The computer-implemented method of claim 6, wherein the GUID is client-supplied.

8. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the predetermined order is the order in which the message groups are received.

9. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein a final message of a group is received before sending any stored message groups of the group.

10. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising locking-for-sending received message groups that are associated by the correlation identifier and unlocking-for-sending the received message groups once a final message that is associated by the correlation identifier is received.

11. A system for queuing messages, comprising:

means for sending a message group in a queuing system that are sent from a sender subsystem, wherein the message group comprises a group of messages;

wherein each message within the group of messages is identified as belonging to the message group;

means for storing each of the messages within the message group within a separate entry in a message queue;

means for storing the received message group in a predetermined order within a group queue using the queuing system;

wherein the group queue comprises a record for each received message groups;

means for receiving in the queuing system a correlation identifier for the message group, wherein the correlation identifier is used to associate the messages comprising the message group;

means for storing the received correlation identifier using the queuing system; and

means for sending the stored message groups in accordance with the predetermined order and the correlation identifiers.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the received message groups are stored in an SQL table.

13. The system of claim 11, wherein the stored message groups are sent to multiple machines.

14. The system of claim 11, wherein a priority value is associated with each received message group.

15. The system of claim 14, wherein the message groups are sent in accordance with the associated priority values.

16. A computer-readable storage medium having computer-executable instructions for managing a queuing system for messages, comprising:

instructions for receiving message groups in a queuing system that are sent from a sender subsystem, wherein each message group comprises messages;

instructions for storing each of the messages within an entry of a message queue such that different messages from different message groups are contained within the message queue;

instructions for adding a new record to a group queue in response to receiving each of the message groups;

wherein each record in the group queue identifies one of the received message groups;

instructions for storing the received message groups in a predetermined order within the group queue using the queuing system;

instructions for receiving in the queuing system a correlation identifier for each message within a message group, wherein the correlation identifier is used to associate message groups;

instructions for storing the received correlation identifier using the queuing system; and

instructions for sending the stored message groups in accordance with the predetermined order and the correlation identifiers.

17. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 16, wherein a GUID is used as the correlation identifier.

18. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 16, wherein the predetermined order is the order in which the message groups are received.

19. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 16, wherein a final message group of an associated group is received before sending any stored message groups of the associated group.

20. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 16, further comprising locking-for-sending received message groups that are associated by the correlation identifier and unlocking-for-sending the received message groups once a final message group that is associated by the correlation identifier is received.