Tier splitting support for distributed execution environments

• US 8,209,674 B2
• Filed: 02/12/2007
• Issued: 06/26/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 02/12/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Meijer, Henricus Johannes Maria, Beckman, Brian C., Brumme, Christopher W., Shields, Mark B., Zhu, Wei
• Primary Examiner(s): Tecklu, Isaac
• Application Number:
  US11/674,041
• Publication Number:
  US 20080196025A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,961 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 717/151
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/45 Exploiting coarse grain parallelism in compilation, i.e. parallelism between groups of instructions

Abstract

A spectrum of tier-splitting mechanisms facilitates distributed programming. A rich application model and associated tools enable programmers to write rich distributed applications that can run anywhere. A program can be developed simply as a single tier or tier agnostic application. Subsequently or concurrently, the program can be sliced into multiple tiers in different ways to reflect, for instance, capabilities and/or constraints of a server, client and/or network.

Claims

1. A computer programming system, comprising:

at least one processor;

a component that acquires a tier independent computer application;

a splitting component, at least partially executed by the at least one processor, that links the application to one or more pre-split libraries to split the application into a plurality of tiers to facilitate distributed execution across the tiers and preservation of sequential semantics, and that replaces synchronous code of the tier independent computer application with asynchronous code; and

a test component that enables at least one of testing or debugging of the split application in a simulated distributed environment.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the one or more pre-split libraries include at least one of one or more asynchronous calls or one or more co-routines.

3. The system of claim 1, the splitting component is included within a compiler.

4. The system of claim 1, further comprising a compiler component that transforms virtual machine code into browser executable code.

5. The system of claim 1, further comprising a context component that identifies execution context to the splitting component to facilitate optimal tier splitting.

6. The system of claim 5, the context component identifies runtime execution context to facilitate runtime adaptive splitting.

7. The system of claim 1, the splitting component injects one or more co-routines into the application to facilitate distributed computation across the tiers.

8. The system of claim 1, the splitting component injects asynchronous method calls with respect to computationally intense operations.

9. The system of claim 1, a protocol is utilized across the tiers to ensure proper state is maintained.

10. The system of claim 1, wherein the test component injects at least one of a fault or latency to test code that contains asynchronous calls.

11. A computer application development method, comprising:

acquiring a tier agnostic computer application;

transforming the application into a multiple tier application, using at least one processor, to facilitate distributed processing, the transforming including replacing synchronous code of the tier agnostic computer application with asynchronous code, the transforming further including linking the application to one or more pre-split libraries; and

testing the multiple tier application in at least one of a protected or simulated distributed environment.

12. The method of claim 11, transforming comprising injecting at least one of one or more co-routines or one or more asynchronous calls to facilitate interaction across tiers.

13. The method of claim 11, transforming further comprising preserving state across tiers.

14. The method of claim 11, wherein transforming the application comprises:

automatically transforming the application as a function of at least one of program analysis or execution context.

15. The method of claim 11, further comprising compiling the multiple tier application into an intermediate language representation.

16. The method of claim 11, wherein testing the multiple tier application comprises:

injecting at least one of a fault or latency to test code that contains asynchronous calls.

17. The method of claim 11, wherein the multiple tier application is runtime adaptive to facilitate dynamic adjustment of distributed computation based on resource availability.

18. A dynamic programming system, comprising:

at least one processor;

means for obtaining execution context;

means for automatically transforming a single tier application into a multiple tier application as a function of the execution context, the means for automatically transforming replacing synchronous code of the single tier application with asynchronous code, the means for automatically transforming linking the single tier application to one or more pre-split libraries; and

means, at least partially executed by the at least one processor, for testing the multiple tier application in at least one of a protected or simulated distributed environment.

19. The system of claim 18, the multiple tier application is runtime adaptive to facilitate dynamic adjustment of distributed computation based on resource availability.

20. The system of claim 18, wherein the means for automatically transforming injects one or more co-routines into the single tier application to facilitate distributed computation across the tiers.