Two-layer data architecture for reservation management systems

• US 8,805,711 B2
• Filed: 12/22/2009
• Issued: 08/12/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 12/22/2009
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Dantzig, Paul M., Duri, Sastry S., Iyengar, Arun, Parr, Francis
• Primary Examiner(s): Erb, Nathan
• Application Number:
  US12/644,875
• Publication Number:
  US 20110153373A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,694 Days
• Field of Search: 705/5
• US Class Current: 705/5
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/20 of structured data, e.g. relational data
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/02 Reservations, e.g. for tickets, services or events
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/30 Transportation; Communications
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/40 Business processes related to the transportation industry shipping G06Q10/083

Abstract

A reservation management system includes at least one processing node that includes a memory and a processor. The at least one processing node further includes a set of reservation processing and transaction modules that manage and process reservation requests and inquiries. At least one general purpose database is communicatively coupled to the at least one processing node. The at least one general purpose database includes a set of pre-allocated tables of fixed length records. At least one persistent storage device is communicatively coupled to the at least one processing node. The general purpose database persistently stores the set of pre-allocated tables of fixed length records on the at least one persistent storage device.

Claims

1. A reservation management information processing system, comprising:

at least one processing node comprising a memory and a processor, wherein the at least one processing node further comprises a set of reservation processing and transaction modules that manage and process reservation requests and inquiries;

at least one general purpose database communicatively coupled to the at least one processing node, wherein the at least one general purpose database comprises a set of pre-allocated tables of fixed length records, wherein the set of pre-allocated tables are pre-populated with fixed length records prior to being populated with data, wherein the fixed length records are independently accessible by the set of reservation processing and transaction modules and are independently lockable by the general purpose database, wherein the general purpose database is configured to store reservation related information within one or more of the fixed length records based on receiving a record update operation from the set of reservation processing and transaction modules, and wherein the set of reservation processing and transaction modules are configured to track which of the fixed length records are being utilized to store reservation related information; and

at least one persistent storage device communicatively coupled to the at least one processing node, wherein the general purpose database persistently stores the set of pre-allocated tables of fixed length records on the at least one persistent storage device,

wherein the at least one processing node is configured to perform a method comprising

determining that at least one user is interacting with at least one reservation inventory resource stored in a first fixed length record of at least a first of the set of pre-allocated tables;

identifying at least a second fixed length record in at least a second of the set of pre-allocated tables that is available for use, wherein the second fixed length record is absent reservation related information; and

temporarily moving, via an update record transaction, the at least one reservation inventory resource from the first fixed length record to the second fixed length record for a given amount of time, wherein at least one of a set of reservation processing and transaction modules prevents the second fixed length record from being associated with another user.

2. The reservation management information processing system of claim 1, wherein the general purpose database is a relational database.

3. The reservation management information processing system of claim 1, wherein the set of pre-allocated tables of fixed length records comprises at least one pool of uniquely identified fixed size records.

4. The reservation management information processing system of claim 3, wherein the set of reservation processing and transaction modules comprises a record pool management module that manages the at least one pool of uniquely identified fixed size records, and wherein the record pool management module stores reservation related information on a fixed size record in the pool of uniquely identified fixed size records as an update to the fixed size record.

5. The reservation management information processing system of claim 1, wherein the set of reservation processing and transaction modules comprises an indexing and resource recovery module for:

creating a set of indexes associated with retrieving records in the set of pre-allocated tables of fixed length records.

6. The reservation management information processing system of claim 5, wherein the indexing and resource recovery module is further for:

periodically scanning a set of indexes;

detecting, in response to the scanning, a set of one or more lost resources and misplaced reservation resources; and

recovering the set of one or more lost resources and misplaced reservation resources.

7. The reservation management information processing system of claim 1, wherein the set of reservation processing and transaction modules comprises an application level locking and resource holding module for:

locking a set of reservation resources being used by a reservation application for a given period of time in a transitional state, wherein the set of reservation resources that are locked are recoverable.

8. The reservation management information processing system of claim 1, wherein the set of reservation processing and transaction modules comprises a timeout and restarting processing module for at least one of:

assigning a set of timeouts associated with the set of reservation processing and transaction modules and enforcing the set of timeouts; and

detecting that a failure has occurred in the set of reservation processing and transaction modules and restarting at least one of the set of reservation processing and transaction modules in response to detecting the failure, wherein restarting the at least one of the set of reservation processing and transaction modules is transparent to a user.

9. The reservation management information processing system of claim 1, wherein the method further comprises:

identifying at least a third fixed length record in at least one of the set of pre-allocated tables that is available for use; and

storing, via an update record transaction, a new reservation associated with the user in the third fixed length record based on at least the inventory resource that has been temporarily moved to the second fixed length record.

10. A computer implemented method for continuously and persistently managing a reservation system, the computer implemented method comprising:

pre-allocating, by a processor using a general purpose database, a set of tables of fixed length records, wherein the set of tables are pre-populated with fixed length records prior to being populated with data, wherein the fixed length records are configured to store reservation related information based on record update operations, and wherein the fixed length records are independently accessible by a reservation processing module and are independently lockable by the general purpose database, wherein the reservation processing module is independent from the general purpose database;

designating, by a processor, at least a first table in the set of pre-allocated tables to store user reservation dialog state information;

designating, by a processor, at least a second table in the set of pre-allocated tables to store inventory information;

tracking, by the reservation processing module, which of the fixed length records are currently being utilized to store reservation related information;

receiving, by a processor using the reservation processing module, a request for a reservation from a user;

identifying, based on the receiving and the tracking, at least one fixed length record in the first table that is available for use, wherein the first fixed length record is absent reservation related information;

storing, by a processor using the reservation processing module, a set of information associated with a user reservation dialog state in the at least one fixed length record that has been identified in the first table as an update to the first table, wherein the storing at least comprises temporarily storing, via an update record transaction, at least one reservation inventory resource from a fixed length record of the second table in the at least one fixed length record that has been identified for a given amount of time; and

managing, by a processor using the reservation processing module, the request from the user based on a set of reservation state information within the set of tables comprising at least inventory information in the second table.

11. The computer implemented method of claim 10, wherein the general purpose database is a relational database.

12. The computer implemented method of claim 10, wherein the set of tables is a set of range clustered tables.

13. The computer implemented method of claim 10, wherein managing the request further comprises:

determining that the request has failed to be satisfied within a given amount of time; and

discarding the request and releasing any reservation resources allocated to the request.

14. The computer implemented method of claim 10, wherein the managing further comprises:

storing a set of reservation related information associated with the request in one or more tables in the set of pre-allocated tables as updates to the one or more tables; and

persistently storing the set of reservation related information stored in the one or more tables on at least one persistent storage devices at one or more given intervals of time.

15. The computer implemented method of claim 10, wherein the inventory information is associated with at least one of accommodations, transportation, and entertainment events.

16. A computer implemented method for continuously and persistently managing a reservation system, the computer implemented method comprising:

pre-allocating, by a processor using a general purpose database, a set of tables of uniquely identified fixed size records, wherein the set of tables are pre-populated with uniquely identified fixed size records prior to being populated with data wherein the uniquely identified fixed size records are configured to store reservation related information based on record update operations, and wherein the uniquely identified fixed size records are independently accessible by a reservation processing module and are independently lockable by the general purpose database, wherein the reservation processing module is independent from the general purpose database;

managing, by a processor using the reservation processing module, the uniquely identified fixed size records, wherein the managing comprises at least tracking which of the uniquely identified fixed size records are currently being utilized to store reservation related information;

receiving, by a processor using the reservation processing module, a request from a user for a reservation;

identifying, based on the receiving, at least one uniquely identified fixed size record in a first of the set of tables that is available for use, wherein the uniquely identified fixed size record is absent reservation related information;

updating via an update record transaction, by a processor using the reservation processing module, the at least one uniquely identified fixed size record that has been identified with a set of user reservation dialog information, wherein the set of user reservation dialog information comprises at least user identification information and a set of inventory resources from one or more uniquely identified fixed size records in a second of the set of tables, wherein the set of user reservation dialog information is temporarily stored within the at least one record that has been identified for a given amount of time;

persistently storing, based on the updating, the at least one uniquely identified fixed size record that has been identified on at least one persistent storage device at one or more given intervals of time;

updating via an update record transaction, by a processor using the reservation processing module, the one or more uniquely identified fixed size records in the second of the set of tables based on updating the at least one uniquely identified fixed size record in the first of the set of tables; and

persistently storing the one or more uniquely identified fixed size records from the second of the set of tables on at least one persistent storage device, at one or more given intervals of time.

17. The computer implemented method of claim 16, wherein the managing the uniquely identified fixed size records further comprises:

determining that each uniquely identified fixed size record in the one or more sets is one of active, inactive, allocated, and not allocated.

18. The computer implemented method of claim 16, further comprising at least one of:

binding a recovery time of the general purpose database, after a failure thereof, to a given amount of time; and

binding a set of operations that generate a reservation based on the request received from a user, after a failure of at least one operation in the set of operations, to a given amount of time.

19. The computer implemented method of claim 16, wherein the general database is a transactional relational database that utilizes log-based recovery.

20. The computer implemented method of claim 16, wherein the general purpose database is updated by updating the uniquely identified fixed size records.

21. The computer implemented method of claim 16, wherein at least one set of the uniquely identified fixed size records comprises a plurality of inventory resources.

22. The computer implemented method of claim 21, further comprising:

analyzing the plurality of inventory resources;

determining that at least one resource in the plurality of inventory resources has been lost; and

restoring the at least one resource that has been lost as an available resource in the plurality of inventory resources.

23. The computer implemented method of claim 21, further comprising:

performing a recovery of at least one resource in the plurality of resources, wherein the performing is based on;

generating an index based on the plurality of inventory resources that identifies a set of reservations to which each inventory resource in the plurality of inventory resources has been allocated.

24. The computer implemented method of claim 21, further comprising:

performing a recovery of at least one resource in the plurality of resources, wherein the performing is based on;

scanning a set of current reservation sessions; and

identifying that the inventory resource has been idle more than a given amount of time.