Dynamically affinitizing users to a version of a website

• US 9,729,652 B2
• Filed: 04/22/2013
• Issued: 08/08/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 04/22/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Inventors: Ligregni, Sergio, Scaria, Joel, Richey, Kyle, Shelton, Parker, Gadkari, Archana Manoj, Dharmarajan, Baskaran, Shahpurwala, Shabbir, Shroff, Amar, Vikram, Shardul, Tsuchida, Derek
• Primary Examiner(s): Blair, Douglas
• Application Number:
  US13/867,289
• Publication Number:
  US 20140317289A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,569 Days
• 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 41/082 the condition being updates or upgrades of network functionality
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/02 based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/306 User profiles
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/56 Provisioning of proxy services store-and-forward switching systems in data switching networks H04L12/54
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/563 Data redirection of data network streams
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/63 Routing a service request depending on the request content or context

Abstract

Systems and methods for providing user'"'"'s access to a particular version of an electronic resource (e.g., a website, web resource or the like) where versions of such electronic resources are stored across a set of servers are disclosed. In one embodiment, user'"'"'s requests may be received—either requesting a particular version or as an unversioned request. A version control module (for example, a load balancer) may receive these requests and assign the user'"'"'s request to a first server according to different metrics, e.g., regarding version control rules and/or effective load balancing considerations. If the initial server assigned is not able to handle the user'"'"'s request, the user'"'"'s request may be proxied to another server, according to different metrics. If there is no server that may handle the user'"'"'s request (after a certain number of proxied requests), the request may be returned to the user as not handled.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

receiving, at a load balancer computing device, electronic resource metadata identifying a plurality of versions of an electronic resource accessible via a network, each version of the electronic resource being stored at one or more servers within the network;

receiving, at the load balancer computing device, user metadata corresponding to at least one user;

receiving, at the load balancer computing device, a request for access to the electronic resource from the at least one user;

determining, using the load balancer computing device, if the request for access to the electronic resource is versioned or unversioned based at least in part on the user metadata;

based at least in part on determining that the request for access to the electronic resource is unversioned;

calculating, using the load balancer computing device, a version affinitization based at least in part on a unique identifier for the at least one user;

calculating, using the load balancer computing device, a cluster of the one or more servers within the network based at least in part on the unique identifier for the at least one user;

mapping, using the load balancer computing device, a combination of the version affinitization and the cluster to a version of the electronic resource, wherein the mapping changes dynamically as each of the one or more servers in the cluster changes versions of the electronic resource;

identifying, using the load balancer computing device, a first server to service the request according to a set of first metrics including versioning rules based at least in part on the version of the electronic resource and load balancing traffic in the network;

transmitting, using the load balancer computing device, the request to the first server to service the request; and

based at least in part on the first server being unable to service the request, redirecting, using the load balancer computing device, the request to a second server according to a set of second metrics.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the electronic resource comprises a website, a webpage, a web service, an application, or a database.

3. The method of claim 2 wherein the network comprises the Internet or another network configuration.

4. The method of claim 3 further comprising:

receiving the electronic resource metadata or the user metadata from a datastore.

5. The method of claim 3 further comprising:

receiving the request for unversioned access to the electronic resource.

6. The method of claim 3 wherein the set of first metrics comprise version control rules, metrics regarding percentage of available current versions, metrics regarding load on particular servers hosting available current versions, metrics regarding upgrading of electronic resources, or metrics regarding percentage load on such versions/servers.

7. The method of claim 3 further comprising:

proxying the request to the second server based at least in part on the set of second metrics.

8. The method of claim 7 wherein the set of second metrics comprise version control rules, metrics regarding percentage of available current versions, metrics regarding load on particular servers hosting available current versions, metrics regarding upgrading of electronic resources, or metrics regarding percentage load on such versions/servers.

9. The method of claim 3 further comprising:

stamping the user metadata with version metadata identifying the version of the electronic resource based at least in part on the mapping.

10. The method of claim 9 further comprising:

assigning a first server to service the request according to the mapping.

11. The method of claim 9 further comprising:

dynamically changing the mapping of the version affinitization and the cluster to the version of the electronic resource based at least in part on at least a portion of the set of first metrics.

12. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

receiving the request comprising metadata specifying access to the electronic resource.

13. A system, comprising:

a memory device to store instructions; and

a processing device to execute the instructions stored in the memory device to generate a load balancer in communication with a set of servers, each of the set of servers comprising versions of an electronic resource, the load balancer being partitioned into a plurality of versioned Virtual IPs (VIPs) and unversioned VIPs, the versioned VIPs associated with a version of the electronic resource, wherein the load balancer;

receives a request for access to the electronic resource from at least one user;

receives user metadata corresponding to at least one user;

determines whether the request for access to the electronic resource is versioned or unversioned based at least in part on the user metadata;

based at least in part on the request for access to the electronic resource being unversioned;

calculates a version affinitization based at least in part on a unique identifier for the at least one user;

calculates a cluster based at least in part the unique identifier for the at least one user;

maps a combination of the version affinitization and the cluster to a particular version of the electronic resource based at least in part on, wherein the mapping changes dynamically as each of the set of servers in the cluster changes versions of the electronic resource;

assigns the request to a first server hosting the particular version of the electronic resource according to a set of first metrics including versioning rules; and

if the first server determines that it may not be able to handle the request, redirects the request to a second server according to a second set of metrics.

14. The system of claim 13 wherein the load balancer assigns the first server to service the request based at least in part on the mapping.

15. The system of claim 14 wherein said load balancer dynamically changes the mapping of the version affinitization and the cluster according to a metric.

16. The system of claim 15 wherein the metric comprises version control rules, metrics regarding percentage of available current versions, metrics regarding load on particular servers hosting available current versions, metrics regarding upgrading of electronic resources, or metrics regarding percentage load on such versions/servers.

17. The system of claim 13 wherein the load balancer reassigns the request to a second server based on a determination that the first server may not be able to service the request.

18. The system of claim 17 wherein the second set of metrics comprises version control rules, metrics regarding percentage of available current versions, metrics regarding load on particular servers hosting available current versions, metrics regarding upgrading of electronic resources, or metrics regarding percentage load on such versions/servers.

19. A non-transitory computer-readable physical storage media storing instructions that, when executed by a computing device, cause the computing device to perform operations comprising:

receiving electronic resource metadata identifying a plurality of versions of an electronic resource accessible via a network, each version of the electronic version being stored at one or more servers within the network;

receiving user metadata corresponding to at least one user to identify at least one of the plurality of versions of the electronic resource accessible to the at least one user;

receiving a request for access to the electronic resource;

determining if the request for access to the electronic resource is versioned or unversioned;

based at least in part on determining that the request for access to the electronic resource is unversioned;

calculating a version affinitization based at least in part on a unique identifier for the at least one user;

calculating a cluster of the one or more servers within the network based at least in part on the unique identifier for the at least one user;

mapping a combination of the version affinitization and the cluster to a version of the electronic resource, wherein the mapping changes dynamically as each of the one or more servers in the cluster changes versions of the electronic resource;

determining a first server to service the request based at least in part on a set of first metrics comprising version control rules;

transmitting, using the load balancer computing device, the request to the first server to service the request; and

if said first server determines that it may not be able to handle the user'"'"'s request, redirecting the user'"'"'s request to a second server based at least in part on a set of second metrics.

20. The computer-readable physical storage media of claim 19 wherein the set of first metrics comprises metrics regarding percentage of available current versions, metrics regarding load on particular servers hosting available current versions, metrics regarding upgrading of electronic resources, or metrics regarding percentage load on such versions/servers.