Method and system for automatic load balancing of advertised services by service information propagation based on user on-demand requests

• US 8,402,124 B1
• Filed: 11/16/2000
• Issued: 03/19/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 11/16/2000
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: AirBNB Incorporated
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Barillaud, Franck, Chen, Xiaoping, Morrissey, Christopher Michael
• Primary Examiner(s): Swearingen, Jeffrey R
• Application Number:
  US09/714,724
• Time in Patent Office: 4,506 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 709/223
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5055 considering software capabilities, i.e. software resources associated or available to the machine
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1014 based on the content of a request
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/02 Services making use of location information

Abstract

A methodology for balancing demand for networked services in a distributed data processing system is presented. Each client is uniquely associated with a local service manager; one or more local service managers are located throughout a distributed data processing system, and each local service manager provides access to networked services for associated clients. Each local service manager is uniquely associated with a distributed service manager; one or more distributed service managers are located throughout the distributed data processing system, and each distributed service manager provides access to networked services for associated local service managers. A client sends a service request to its local service manager, which returns information about a matching service to the client after finding a matching service that has characteristics that match parameters in the request. If the local service manager does not have information about a matching service, then the request is forwarded to its associated distributed service manager. If the distributed service manager does not have information about a matching service, then the request is broadcast to all distributed service managers. If the distributed service manager has two or more matching services, then it performs a load balancing operation to select a best service to be returned.

Claims

1. A method of balancing demand for networked services in a distributed data processing system, the method comprising the steps of:

initializing one or more local service managers within the distributed data processing system, wherein each local service manager has information about and provides access to networked services defined within a respective local region of the distributed data processing system for clients within the distributed data processing system, and wherein each client is uniquely associated with a local service manager;

initializing one or more distributed service managers within the distributed data processing system, wherein each distributed service manager provides access to the networked services to the local service managers within the distributed data processing system, and wherein each local service manager is uniquely associated with a distributed service manager;

receiving, at a distributed service manager, a request for a networked service from a local service manager for which the local service manager lacks information;

determining whether the distributed service manager has information about a networked service with one or more characteristics that match one or more parameters in the request for a networked service, wherein the determining step is accomplished by reference to a cache maintained by the distributed service manager which contains information resulting from prior requests for networked services; and

returning information for referencing a matched networked service.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

sending a request for a networked service from a requesting client to a local service manager associated with the requesting client; and

returning information for referencing a matching networked service from the local service manager to the requesting client, wherein the matching networked service has characteristics that match parameters in the request for a networked service.

3. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

receiving a request for a networked service at a local service manager; and

determining whether the local service manager has information for referencing a networked service with characteristics that match parameters in the request for a networked service.

4. The method of claim 3 further comprising:

responsive to a determination that the local service manager has information about a matching networked service, returning the information for referencing the matching networked service to the requesting client;

responsive to a determination that the local service manager does not have information about a matching networked service, forwarding the request for a networked service from the local service manager to a distributed service manager associated with the local service manager.

5. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

responsive to a determination that the distributed service manager does not have information about one or more matching networked services, broadcasting the request for a networked service from the distributed service manager to all distributed service managers in the distributed data processing system;

receiving information for referencing one or more matching networked services at the distributed service manager in response to the broadcast request; and

caching the received information for referencing one or more matching networked services at the distributed service manager.

6. The method of claim 5 wherein each of the distributed service managers caches information resulting from requests of supported clients, and wherein the information which respective distributed service manager differs according to the requests of supported clients.

7. The method of claim 5 wherein each of the distributed service managers includes a localization module, wherein the parameters within respective localization modules are tailored to provide different load balancing for corresponding distributed service managers.

8. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

in response to a determination that the distributed service manager has information about two or more matching networked services, selecting a single networked service at the distributed service manager.

9. The method of claim 8 further comprising:

performing a load balancing operation at the distributed service manager to select the single networked service.

10. The method of claim 9 further comprising:

comparing network-related metrics during the load balancing operation.

11. The method of claim 10 further comprising:

comparing one or more of network-related metrics associated with an entire network path between a requesting client and a providing server.

12. The method of claim 11 wherein the network-related metrics are realtime network-related metrics and are selected from a group comprising:

bottleneck-link speed, round-trip time, and hop count.

13. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

determining whether the distributed service manager has information about a plurality of networked services with characteristics that match parameters in the request for a networked service and forming a set of matched network services;

determining, based on the request, whether to return a single matched network service of the set of matched network services or the set of matched network services;

responsive to a determination to return a single matched network service, returning information for referencing the single matched networked service from the distributed service manager to the local service manager; and

responsive to a determination to return the set of matched network services, returning information for referencing the set of matched network services from the distributed service manager to the local service manager.

14. The method of claim 1 wherein a plurality of types of networked services are available in the distributed data processing system, and wherein one of the characteristics of a matching service is a type of service.

15. A method of balancing demand for networked services in a distributed data processing system, the method comprising the steps of:

initializing one or more local service managers within the distributed data processing system, wherein each local service manager has information about and provides access to networked services defined within a respective local region of the distributed data processing system for clients within the distributed data processing system, and wherein each client is uniquely associated with a local service manager;

initializing one or more distributed service managers within the distributed data processing system, wherein each distributed service manager provides access to the networked services to the local service managers within the distributed data processing system, and wherein each local service manager is uniquely associated with a distributed service manager;

receiving, at a distributed service manager, a request for a networked service from a local service manager for which the local service manager lacks information;

determining whether the distributed service manager has information about a networked service with one or more characteristics that match one or more parameters in the request for a networked service, wherein the determining step is accomplished by reference to a cache maintained by the distributed service manager which contains information resulting from prior requests for networked services;

returning information for referencing a matched networked service;

configuring the local service manager to not provide access to object request broker (ORB) services that provide internal service and which are valid only in a scope of a local ORB;

configuring the local service manager to provide access to ORB services that are instantiated on each ORB only through requests based on an ORB identifier; and

configuring the local service manager to provide access to ORB services that may be accessed from outside the scope of the local ORB through requests based on both a service specification string and an ORB identifier.