System and method for communicating information between application programs

• US 20020188766A1
• Filed: 06/06/2001
• Published: 12/12/2002
• Est. Priority Date: 06/06/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Intel Corporation
• Original Assignee: Intel Corporation
• Inventors: Vuppula, Srinivas
• Granted Patent: US 7,331,050 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 719/318
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/542 Event management; Broadcasting; Multicasting; Notifications

Abstract

System and method for providing communications between at least two application programs. In one embodiment, the method may include receiving a registration request from at least one consumer application program, receiving event information regarding at lest one of a plurality of devices from at least one provider application program, and directing the event information to the at least one consumer application program. The method may further include invoking a notify program associated with at least one of the consumer application programs. In one embodiment, a system implementing the invention may include a processor, a memory coupled to the processor via a bus, an event provider interface to receive a plurality of event information from a plurality of provider application programs, an event consumer interface to receive event subscription information from at least one consumer application program, and an event manager to direct event information received via the event provider interface to the consumer application program via the event consumer interface based on the event subscription information.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

receiving a registration request from at least one consumer application program;

receiving event information regarding at least one of a plurality of devices from at least one provider application program;

directing the event information to at least one consumer application program based on the registration request.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein directing comprises:

invoking a notify procedure associated with at least one of the consumer application programs.

3. The method of claim 2 wherein invoking comprises:

retrieving a reference to the notify procedure from an internal table.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein:

the registration request comprises a sink object.

5. The method of claim 4 wherein the sink object comprises a notify method.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein the registration request comprises notification information;

and wherein receiving the registration request comprises adding the notification information to an internal table based on the registration request.

7. The method of claim 6 wherein the notification information comprises:

at least one event identifier to identify at least one event about which the consumer application is to be notified; and

a notify procedure reference for each event identifier, the notify procedure to be invoked upon the receiving event information.

8. The method of claim 7 wherein the notification information further comprises:

a consumer application program identifier.

9. The method of claim 1 wherein the event information comprises:

an event identifier; and

a plurality of event data.

10. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

receiving an unregistration request from the at least one consumer application program.

11. A method for providing inter-application communication comprising:

providing an event provider interface;

providing an event consumer interface

maintaining an internal table to direct event information received from a provider application program via the event provider interface to at least one consumer application program via the event consumer interface.

12. The method of claim 11 wherein the internal table comprises a plurality of events and a plurality of notify procedure references to notify procedures to be invoked on the occurrence of a designated event received from the provider application program via the event provider interface.

13. The method of claim 12 wherein the plurality of events and the plurality of notify procedure references are received from the at least one consumer application program via the event consumer interface.

15. The method of claim 14 wherein receiving the subscribe event is achieved via an event consumer interface;

and wherein receiving the provide event is achieved via an event provider interface.

16. The method of claim 14 wherein the at least one consumer application program conforms to the Common Information Model (CIM) of the Distributed Management Task Force, Inc. (DMTF).

17. The method of claim 14 wherein the contents of the table comprise:

a plurality of event identifiers; and

a plurality of notify procedure references associated with the event identifiers.

18. The method of claim 17 wherein the contents of the table further comprise:

a plurality of consumer application program identifiers associated with the event identifier.

20. The system of claim 19 further comprising:

an internal table by which the event manager maintains the event subscription information.

21. The system of claim 19 wherein the event manager directs the event data to those consumer application programs that subscribed to the particular event

14. A method comprising:

receiving a subscribe event from at least one consumer application program;

updating a table based on each subscribe event;

receiving a provide event from at least one provider application program;

directing event information to the at least one consumer application program based on the contents of the table and responsive to receiving the event information.

19. A system comprising:

a processor;

a memory coupled to the processor via a bus;

an event provider interface to receive a plurality of event information from a plurality of provider application programs;

an event consumer interface to receive event subscription information from at least one consumer application program; and

an event manager to direct event data received via the event provider interface to the at least one consumer application program via the event consumer interface based on the event subscription information.

22. A system comprising:

a processor;

a memory coupled to the processor via a bus;

means for communicating with at least one consumer application program to receive event subscription information;

means for receiving a plurality of event information from a plurality of provider application programs; and

means for directing the event information to the at least one consumer application program via the means for communicating based on the event subscription information.

23. The system of claim 22 wherein the means for directing comprises:

means for maintaining an internal table to store the event subscription information.

24. The system of claim 22 wherein the means for directing communicates the event data to those consumer application programs that subscribed to the particular event

26. The computing device of claim 25 wherein directing comprises:

invoking a notify procedure registered by at least one of the consumer application programs.

27. The computing device of claim 25 wherein registering comprises:

receiving a registration request from at least one consumer application program;

adding notification information to an internal table based on the registration request.

29. The computing device of claim 28 wherein receiving the subscribe event is achieved via an event consumer interface;

and wherein receiving the provide event is achieved via an event provider interface.

30. The computing device of claim 28 wherein the at least one consumer application program conforms to the Common Information Model (CIM) of the Distributed Management Task Force, Inc. (DMTF).

25. A computing device comprising a machine readable medium and a processor, the machine readable medium including instructions which when executed by the processor cause the processor to perform operations comprising:

registering at least one consumer application program.

receiving event information regarding at least one of a plurality of devices from at least one provider application program;

directing the event information to the at least one consumer application program.

28. A computing device comprising a machine readable medium and a processor, the machine readable medium including instructions which when executed by the processor cause the processor to perform operations comprising:

receiving a subscribe event from at least one consumer application program;

updating a table based on each subscribe event;

receiving a provide event from at least one provider application program;

directing event information to the at least one consumer application program based on the contents of the table and responsive to receiving the provide event.