Efficient multi-node system for providing event information to event handling components

• US 8,763,015 B1
• Filed: 09/30/2008
• Issued: 06/24/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 09/30/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Emc IP Holding Company LLC (Dell Technologies Inc.)
• Original Assignee: EMC Corporation (Dell Technologies Inc.)
• Inventors: Caccavale, Frank S., Villapakkam, Sridhar, Bhagwat, Ajit, Van Brabant, Luc, Corniquet, Frederic
• Primary Examiner(s): Dao, Tuan
• Assistant Examiner(s): Kraft, Shih-Wei
• Application Number:
  US12/241,939
• Time in Patent Office: 2,093 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 719/318
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3034 where the computing system component is a storage system, e.g. DASD based or network based digital input from or digital output to record carriers G06F3/06; digital recording or reproducing G11B20/18; for distributed storage of data in networks, e.g. transport arrangements for network file system [NFS], storage area networks [SAN] or network attached storage [NAS], H04L67/1097
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/542 Event management; Broadcasting; Multicasting; Notifications

Abstract

Event management techniques for use in a computer system comprising an event generating component generating at least one event and an event handling component to apply one or more business process rules in response to the event. In one embodiment of the invention, an event generation component provides to an event handling component not only notification of an event but also context information about the event, in the same communication. The context information may provide all the information necessary for the event handling component to apply one or more business policy rules to determine how to handle the event. In some implementations having multiple event handling components of different types, the event generating component may be configured to provide notification of events to the event handling components in a specified order. In some implementations, multiple event handling components may be joined in a logical pool, sharing responsibility for handling events.

Claims

1. A method for use in a computer system comprising an event generating component that monitors activity in the computer system and generates one or more events in response to activity in the computer system and a plurality of event handling components that each applies at least one business process rule to determine at least one aspect of how the computer system should respond to an event, the method comprising:

for at least one first event, creating a first logical pool of event handling components from among the plurality of event handling components, the first logical pool of event handling components comprising at least two event handling components capable of handling the at least one first event by applying at least one business process rule to determine at least one aspect of how the computer system should respond to the at least one first event;

determining that a first of the event handling components of the first logical pool has failed, wherein the first event handling component that failed handles events in connection with client requests to perform operations on a data store;

responsive to determining that the first event handling component has failed, determining whether to continue to process subsequent events that perform operations to access the data store without the subsequent events being handled by event handling components, wherein if the first event handling component that failed handles events to determine whether an event violates content policies, it is determined to disallow continued processing of the subsequent events without the subsequent events being handled by event handling components; and

wherein the method further comprises;

in response to occurrence of the at least one first event, selecting one of the at least two event handling components in the first logical pool to handle the at least one first event;

creating the first logical pool of event handling components to handle a first type of event; and

forming a second logical pool of event handling components to handle a second type of event.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising sending notification of the at least one first event to the one of the at least two event handling components selected in said selecting.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein said sending comprises sending notification of the at least one first event only to the one of the at least two event handling components selected in said selecting so that notification of the at least one first event is not sent to any of the at least two event handling components not selected in said selecting.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein each of the event handling components comprises an event enabler and at least one event consumer, wherein the event enabler is a framework configured to receive events from the event generating component and to provide at least some of the received events to the at least one event consumer.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the at least two event handling components of the logical pool each comprise an event enabler and each are in communication with a common event consumer.

6. The method of claim 4, wherein the event enabler is configured to notify a first event consumer of the at least one event consumer of a first event and configured to notify a second event consumer of the at least one event consumer of a second event.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein subsequent client requests to access the data store are disallowed if the one event handling component that failed performs processing to determine whether events violate content policies of the data store.

8. At least one computer-readable storage medium having encoded thereon computer-executable instructions that, when executed, cause a computer to perform a method for use in a computer system comprising an event generating component that monitors activity in the computer system and generates one or more events in response to activity in the computer system and a plurality of event handling components that each applies at least one business process rule to determine at least one aspect of how the computer system should respond to an event, the method comprising:

for at least one first event, creating a first logical pool of event handling components from among the plurality of event handling components, the first logical pool of event handling components comprising at least two event handling components capable of handling the at least one first event by applying at least one business process rule to determine at least one aspect of how the computer system should respond to the at least one first event;

determining that a first of the event handling components of the first logical pool has failed, wherein the first event handling component that failed handles events in connection with client requests to perform operations on a data store;

responsive to determining that the first event handling component has failed, determining whether to continue to process subsequent events that perform operations to access the data store without the subsequent events being handled by event handling components, wherein if the first event handling component that failed handles events to determine whether an event violates content policies, it is determined to disallow continued processing of the subsequent, events without the subsequent events being handled by event handling components; and

wherein the method further comprises;

in response to occurrence of the at least one first event, selecting one of the at least two event handling components in the first logical pool to handle the at least one first event;

creating the first logical pool of event handling components to handle a first type of event; and

forming a second logical pool of event handling components to handle a second type of event.

9. The at least one computer-readable storage medium of claim 8, wherein the method further comprises:

sending notification of the at least one first event to the one of the at least two event handling components selected in said selecting.

10. The at least one computer-readable storage medium of claim 9, wherein said sending comprises sending notification of the at least one first event only to the one of the at least two event handling components selected in said selecting so that notification of the at least one first event is not sent to any of the at least two event handling components not selected in said selecting.

11. The at least one computer-readable storage medium of claim 8, wherein selecting one of the at least two event handling components in said selecting comprises determining which of the at least two event handling components is a least-recently-used event handling component, and selecting the least-recently-used event handling component to handle the event.

12. A computer system comprising a computer readable medium having code stored thereon, the computer readable medium including code for:

an event generating component that monitors activity in the computer system and generates one or more events of at least a first event type in response to activity in the computer system;

a first logical pool of two or more event handling components that each applies at least one business process rule to determine at least one aspect of how the computer system should respond to events of the first event type, wherein for each event of the first event type an event handling component of the first logical pool is notified of the event by the event generating component;

determining that a first of the event handling components of the first logical pool has failed, wherein the first event handling component that failed handles events in connection with client requests to perform operations on a data store;

responsive to determining that the first event handling component has failed, determining whether to continue to process subsequent events that perform operations to access the data store without the subsequent events being handled by event handling components, wherein if the first event handling component that failed handles events to determine whether an event violates content policies, it is determined to disallow continued processing of the subsequent events without the subsequent events being handled by event handling components; and

wherein the computer readable medium further comprises code for;

in response to occurrence of the one or more events, selecting one of the two or more event handling components in the first logical pool to handle the one or more events;

creating the first logical pool of two or more event handling components to handle the first event type; and

forming a second logical pool of two or more event handling components to handle a second event type.

13. The computer system of claim 12, wherein the event generating component is adapted to select one event handling component of the first logical pool to notify of an event based on a least-recently-used selection technique.

14. The computer system of claim 12, wherein the event generating component is adapted to select one event handling component of the first logical pool based on a load balancing technique.

15. The computer system of claim 12, where the computer readable medium further comprises code for:

the second logical pool of two or more event handling components that each applies at least one business process rule to determine at least one aspect of how the computer system should respond to events of the second event type, wherein for each event of the second event type only one event handling component of the second logical pool is notified of the event by the event generating component, and wherein the first event type is different from the second event type.

16. The computer system of claim 15, wherein no event handling component that is a member of the first logical pool is a member of the second logical pool.

17. The computer system of claim 12, wherein each of the event handling components comprises an event enabler and at least one event consumer, wherein the event enabler is a framework configured to receive events from the event generating component and to provide at least some of the received events to the at least one event consumer.