System and method for providing notification(s) in accordance with middleware technologies

• US 7,797,306 B1
• Filed: 02/26/2003
• Issued: 09/14/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 06/26/2002
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Dievendorff, Richard, Mensa-Annan, Charles Tete, Garrett, Philip, Blanch, Robert F., Fisher, Lon Eugene, Curley, Vincent H., Knight, Holly, Pather, Shyamalan, Seshadri, Praveen
• Primary Examiner(s): Vy; Hung T
• Assistant Examiner(s): Le; Michael
• Application Number:
  US10/375,628
• Time in Patent Office: 2,757 Days
• Field of Search: 707/1, 707/4, 707/714, 707/732, 719/318
• US Class Current: 707/714
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9535 Search customisation based on user profiles and personalisation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/958 Organisation or management of web site content, e.g. publishing, maintaining pages or automatic linking
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1859 adapted to provide push services, e.g. data channels
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/224 providing notification on incoming messages, e.g. pushed notifications of received messages
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99933 Query processing, i.e. searching

Abstract

The present invention relates to a system and methodology to facilitate subscription, delivery, processing, and reception of notification services. A global service framework is provided that operates in conjunction with a notification platform architecture to deliver information from one or more event sources to one or more notification sinks that receive information from the services. The global framework includes discovery and description components that provide information relating to available notification services. Subscriptions can be obtained via subscription events, whereby notifications can be delivered via notification events, wherein such events can be modeled as part of the global service framework. Various communications protocols can also be provided to facilitate communications with the notification services and global services framework. Furthermore, various notification delivery protocols can be provided that operate with structured database technologies to facilitate bulk message delivery and service in a reliable manner while mitigating network problems such as delivering notifications under power-interrupting conditions.

Claims

1. A notification system comprising a computer processor executing software components stored on a computer-readable medium, the software components comprising:

a database engine component that processes received events and subscription information, the database engine component modeling the events and subscriptions as data prior to processing so as to facilitate event and subscription processing;

a notification server component that delivers notifications to subscribers in accordance with the processed events and subscription information, at least one of the database engine component and the notification server component operative in a global web services environment, wherein the notification server determines to which subscribers to send notifications of a received event by performing a join between the received event and the subscriptions that are modeled as data by the database engine; and

a context analyzer component that analyzes information regarding variables and parameters of a user, wherein the notification server component distributes notifications based on the variables and parameters stored by the context analyzer component, and wherein the parameters comprise contextual information discerned based on observations made autonomously via one or more sensors and statistical models, additional parameters conditioned on the contextual information, observations dynamically inferred via automated inference, a user'"'"'s state specified in real-time and default notification preference parameters;

wherein the notification server component performs a decision-theoretic analysis for pending notifications to determine whether to convey the pending notifications and in what manner to convey the pending notifications, by accessing variables and parameters stored in the context analyzer that indicate user preference.

2. The system of claim 1, the global web services environment includes a global XML web services architecture (GXA) to facilitate event, subscription, and notification processing.

3. The system of claim 2, the GXA includes at least one of a discovery component, a description component, a protocol component, an asynchronous messaging component, a reliable messaging component, a transactions component, and a security component.

4. The system of claim 2, the GXA includes a protocol component, the protocol component includes at least one of Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) that is employed as a communications protocol for XML Web services, an HTTP protocol, an SMTP protocol, a TCP/IP protocol, a Direct Internet Message Encapsulation (DIME) protocol utilized for binary message exchanges, and a transaction or routing delivery protocol to facilitate notification processing.

5. The system of claim 2, the GXA includes a discovery component, the discovery component includes at least one of an inspection schema, a Web Services Description Language (WSDL) component, and a Universal Discovery Description and Integration (UDDI) component.

6. The system of claim 2, the GXA includes a description component, the description component includes a meta-data component that describes one or more aspects of a notification service.

7. The system of claim 6, the description component facilitates negotiations between nodes about available communications mechanisms and protocols for negotiating characteristics of message exchange.

8. The system of claim 7, the description component facilitates at least one of security negotiations, security authentications, and security authorizations, the security negotiations including at least one of WS-Policy, WS-Policy Assertions, and WS-Policy Bindings.

9. The system of claim 2, the GXA includes a discovery component and a description component, the discovery component and the description component employ an Application Definition File (ADF) to facilitate discovery and description of notification services.

10. The system of claim 2, the GXA includes an asynchronous messaging component, the asynchronous messaging component includes at least one of an asynchronous protocol, an eventing protocol, and a routing protocol.

11. The system of claim 10, the asynchronous protocol includes a web service AsyncMSG (WS-AsyncMSG) protocol that is defined by an XML SOAP extension, and includes at least one of end-to-end message information, hop-by-hop message information, and correlation information between messages.

12. The system of claim 10, the asynchronous messaging component includes a routing protocol, the routing protocol includes a web services routing protocol (WS-Routing) for exchanging one-way SOAP messages and a subscription submission/notification delivery protocol that includes a web services eventing protocol (WS-Eventing).

13. The system of claim 1, the notification server component further comprising at least one of an event provider, an event collector, a message queue component, and a Distributed Transaction Coordinator (DTC) to process notifications.

14. The system of claim 13, further comprising a Transaction Server (MTS) having at least one resource manager to process the notifications.

15. The system of claim 13, the notification server component employs an “

exactly once”

protocol to deliver notifications.

16. The system of claim 1, the notification server component further comprising a message queue component, the message queue utilizes at least one of a commit and an abort function when processing notifications.

17. The system of claim 1, the database engine component employing an SQL database application.

18. The system of claim 1, further comprising a priorities component to determine a notification ordering for one or more received notifications.

19. A computer implemented notification method, comprising the following computer executable acts:

abstracting subscription and event information as data;

storing the subscription and event data in respective tables, the tables being propagated with the subscription and event information;

upon a notification event occurring, processing the subscription and event data to generate notification data in accordance with a messaging protocol, wherein processing the subscription and event data comprises performing a join between the event data and the subscription data to determine for which subscribers notification data regarding the notification event should be generated;

employing an event protocol processed in accordance with a web services protocol to facilitate processing subscriptions and notification events;

analyzing information regarding variables and parameters of a user that influence notification decision-making, wherein the parameters comprise contextual information discerned based on observations made autonomously via one or more sensors and statistical models, additional parameters conditioned on the contextual information, observations dynamically inferred via automated inference, a user'"'"'s state specified in real-time and default notification preference parameters;

delivering notifications to subscribers in accordance with the variables and parameters; and

performing a decision-theoretic analysis for pending notifications to determine whether to convey the pending notifications and in what manner to convey the pending notifications, by accessing variables and parameters that indicate user preference.

20. The method of claim 19, further comprising employing at least one of an event provider process, an event collector process, an event flush process, and a message delivery process.

21. The method of claim 19, further comprising employing an event provider process, the event provider process further comprising at least one of:

initiating a Distributed Transaction Coordinator (DTC) transaction;

de-queuing a message;

committing the DTC transaction; and

aborting the DTC transaction.

22. The method of claim 19, further comprising employing an event collector process, the event collector process further comprising at least one of:

determining if a DTC transaction has started;

starting a database transaction;

inserting a row into an event batch table; and

inserting a new event row in another event table.

23. The method of claim 19, further comprising employing an event flush process, the event flush process further comprising at least one of:

updating a batch header;

committing a DTC transaction; and

aborting the DTC transaction depending on a flush parameter.

24. The method of claim 19, further comprising employing a message delivery process, the message delivery process further comprising at least one of:

initiating a DTC transaction;

calling a delivery protocol handler;

marking a row in a database to indicate a message has been delivered; and

committing the DTC transaction.

25. One or more computer readable media storing computer executable instructions which when executed by a processor perform the following method:

abstracting subscription and event information as data;

storing the subscription and event data in respective tables, the tables being propagated with the subscription and event information;

upon a notification event occurring, processing the subscription and event data to generate notification data in accordance with a messaging protocol, wherein processing the subscription and event data comprises performing a join between the event data and the subscription data to determine for which subscribers notification data regarding the notification event should be generated;

employing an event protocol processed in accordance with a web services protocol to facilitate processing subscriptions and notification events;

analyzing information regarding variables and parameters of a user that influence notification decision-making, wherein the parameters comprise contextual information discerned based on observations made autonomously via one or more sensors and statistical models, additional parameters conditioned on the contextual information, observations dynamically inferred via automated inference, a user'"'"'s state specified in real-time and default notification preference parameters;

delivering notifications to subscribers in accordance with the variables and parameters; and

performing a decision-theoretic analysis for pending notifications to determine whether to convey the pending notifications and in what manner to convey the pending notifications, by accessing variables and parameters that indicate user preference.

26. The computer readable media of claim 25, wherein the method performed by the execution of the computer executable instructions further comprises:

employing at least one of an event provider process, an event collector process, an event flush process, and a message delivery process.

27. The computer media of claim 25, wherein the method performed by the execution of the computer executable instructions further comprises:

employing an event provider process, the event provider process further comprising at least one of;

initiating a Distributed Transaction Coordinator (DTC) transaction;

de-queuing a message;

committing the DTC transaction; and

aborting the DTC transaction.

28. The computer storage readable media of claim 25, wherein the method performed by the execution of the computer executable instructions further comprises:

employing an event collector process, the event collector process further comprising at least one of;

determining if a DTC transaction has started;

starting a database transaction;

inserting a row into an event batch table; and

inserting a new event row in another event table.

29. The computer readable media of claim 25, wherein the method performed by the execution of the computer executable instructions further comprises:

employing an event flush process, the event flush process further comprising at least one of;

updating a batch header;

committing a DTC transaction; and

aborting the DTC transaction depending on a flush parameter.

30. The computer readable media of claim 25, wherein the method performed by the execution of the computer executable instructions further comprises:

employing a message delivery process, the message delivery process further comprising at least one of;

initiating a DTC transaction;

calling a delivery protocol handler;

marking a row in a database to indicate a message has been delivered; and

committing the DTC transaction.