Using URI's to identify multiple instances with a common schema

• US 7,676,560 B2
• Filed: 10/24/2003
• Issued: 03/09/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 10/24/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: ServiceNow Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: McCollum, Raymond W.
• Primary Examiner(s): Bruckart; Benjamin R
• Application Number:
  US10/693,588
• Publication Number:
  US 20050114485A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,328 Days
• Field of Search: 709/223, 717/127, 717/130, 714/47
• US Class Current: 709/223
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0233 Object-oriented techniques, for representation of network management data, e.g. common object request broker architecture [CORBA]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/145 involving simulating, designing, planning or modelling of a network

Abstract

A system that uses a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) to uniquely identify a class of resources. The schema uses a URI with a placeholder substituted for the resource name, effectively creating a URI template. Processing of the URI template facilitates retrieval of resource class information. If specificity is required, the URI template can be converted to a specific URI by replacing the placeholder with the name of a given resource or instance to get information about that particular instance. URI templates allow probes to be identified and the probe characteristics to be understood without actually retrieving the probe for a particular instance.

Claims

1. A system comprising executable components embodied on a computer-readable storage medium that when executed on a processor facilitates representing a class of resources, comprising:

a running application table indicating instrumented applications running on a host system;

a probe member configured to define instrumentation information for a class of threads of the instrumented applications running on the host system, the probe member including;

an instrumentation catalog storing schema information for a complex return type of the class of threads, the schema information describing instrumentation information to be provided for a specific thread in response to a probe of the specific thread; and

a class identifier that uniquely represents the class of threads, the class identifier is a uniform resource identifier (URI) template that uses a single-character placeholder in place of a name of a specific thread of the class and is used to retrieve the schema information for the class of threads without retrieving instrumentation information for specific instances of the class of threads; and

a instrumentation module configured to;

convert the class identifier to a specific thread identifier in which the placeholder is replaced with a name of a specific instance of the class of threads;

use the running application table and the specific thread identifier to retrieve instrumentation information consistent with the schema for the specific instance of the class of threads; and

add the retrieved instrumentation information to a log file.

2. The system of claim 1, the class identifier is included as an entry in the instrumentation catalog, which entry associates information about the class identifier, including each of purpose, usage, values to use for placeholders, and a returned value.

3. The system of claim 1, the class identifier passes values to a method associated with instances.

4. The system of claim 1, the class identifier is configured and executed to return a list of all running instances of an associated application.

5. A system comprising executable components embodied on a computer-readable storage medium that when executed on a processor facilitates representing a class of resources, comprising:

a running application table indicating instrumented applications running on a host system;

a probe member configured to define instrumentation information for a class of threads of the instrumented applications running on the host system, the probe member including;

a schema for the class of threads describing probe information that will be returned in response to a probe of a specific thread of the class of threads;

a URI template that uniquely represents the class of threads and includes at least one single-character placeholder in place of a name of a specific thread within the class of threads, the URI template facilitating retrieval of information about the schema without retrieving any specific instances of threads within the class; and

a instrumentation module configured to;

convert the URI template representing the class of threads to a specific thread identifier in which the at least one placeholder is replaced with the name of a specific instance of the class of threads,

use the running application table and the specific resource identifier to retrieve probe information consistent with the schema for the specific instance of the class of threads; and

add the retrieved instrumentation information to a log file.

6. A computer system operating in accordance with claim 5.

7. A method of representing a class of resources, comprising:

employing a processor executing computer-executable instructions stored on a computer-readablestorage medium to implement the following acts;

building a running application table indicating instrumented applications running on a host system, each instrumented application having registered with running application table when the instrumented application started;

representing a class of threads of the instrumented applications running on the host system with a URI template that includes at least one placeholder in place of a name of a specific thread;

creating an entry for the URI template in an instrumentation catalog, the entry associating the URI template with a schema that describes management information that will be provided in response to a probe on a specific thread of the class of threads;

processing the URI template to identify the schema without retrieving an instance of a specific thread associated with the class of threads;

converting the URI template to a URI for a specific thread of the class of threads by replacing the at least one placeholder with a name of the specific thread;

processing the URI for the specific resource to retrieve management information for the specific resource, the management information consistent with the schema; and

adding the retrieved management information to a log file.

8. The method of claim 7, the URI template uniquely represents the class of threads.

9. The method of claim 7, further comprising employing at least two single-character placeholders in the URI template to access an instance within at least another instance.

10. The method of claim 7, further comprising employing at least two placeholders in the URI template to pass values to a method associated with an instance, at least a first one of the at least two placeholders represents an instance name and at least a second of the at least two placeholders represents a new value for a parameter associated with the instance.

11. A method of accessing data representative of a class of resources, comprising:

employing a processor executing computer-executable instructions stored on a computer-readable storage medium to implement the following acts;

building a running application table indicating instrumented applications running on a host system, each instrumented application having registered with running application table when the instrumented application started;

uniquely associating a URI template with a class of threads of the instrumented applications running on the host system, the URI template uses at least one single-character placeholder in place of a name of a specific thread;

associating the URI template with a schema representative of the class of threads, the schema specifying instrumentation information to be provided for an instance of the thread class in response to a probe of the instance;

processing the URI template to return information about the schema without returning instrumentation information for a specific thread;

substituting the at least one single-character placeholder with the name of a specific thread to yield a URI for the specific thread;

processing the URI for the specific thread to return instrumentation information for the specific thread in accordance with the schema; and

adding the retrieved instrumentation information to a log file.

12. The method of claim 11, the URI template is processed on a local system and accesses an associated thread class of a remote system.

13. The method of claim 11, further comprising employing at least two single-character placeholders in the URI template to pass values to a method associated with an instance of the thread class.

14. A computer-readable medium having computer-executable instructions for performing a method for representing a class of resources, the method comprising:

building a running application table indicating instrumented applications running on a host system, each instrumented application having registered with running application table when the instrumented application started;

uniquely associating a URI template with a class of threads of the instrumented applications running on the host system, the URI template uses at least one single-character placeholder in place of a name of a specific thread;

creating an association between the URI template and a schema for the thread class, the schema describing management information to be provided for a specific thread in the thread class in response to a probe of the specific thread;

processing the URI template to return data representative of the thread class without returning management information for a specific thread;

modifying the URI template to replace the at least one placeholder with a name of a specific thread in the thread class;

processing the modified URI template to return management data representative of the named specific thread, the management data consistent with the schema;

employing at least two placeholders in the URI template to pass values to a method associated with an instance of a specific thread in the thread class, a first of the at least two placeholders represents the name of the specific thread and a second of the at least two placeholders represents a new value for a parameter associated with the specific thread; and

adding the results of the method to a log file.

15. The method of claim 14, further comprising:

processing the URI template on a local system; and

accessing an associated resource class of a remote system.

16. A computer-readable medium having computer-executable instructions that facilitate representing a class of resources, the system comprising:

a running application table indicating instrumented applications running on a host system;

a probe member configured to define instrumentation information for a class of threads of the instrumented applications running on the host system, the probe member including;

an instrumentation catalog storing a schema for a complex return type of the class of threads, the schema defining management data to be provided for a specific instance of the class of threads in response to a probe of the specific instance; and

a class identifier that uniquely represents the class of threads, the class identifier includes a single-character placeholder in place of a specific thread name and facilitates identification of the management information for the class of threads without retrieving management information for a specific instance of a thread within the class; and

a instrumentation module configured to;

convert the class identifier to a specific thread identifier in which the placeholder is replaced with a name of a specific thread;

use the running application table and the specific thread identifier to retrieve management information for the named specific thread in accordance with the schema; and

add the retrieved management information to a log file.