Method and system for time bounding notification delivery in an event driven system

• US 20060123427A1
• Filed: 12/02/2004
• Published: 06/08/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 12/02/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Lauzon, Shawn William, Harold, Ward K.
• Granted Patent: US 7,434,230 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 719/318
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/485 Task life-cycle, e.g. stopping, restarting, resuming execution G06F9/4881 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/542 Event management; Broadcasting; Multicasting; Notifications

Abstract

The present invention is directed to a method and system for preventing unnecessary delays during notification delivery process in an event driven system. The unnecessary delays may be caused by waiting for event completion acknowledgments for an unbounded time. Notifications (event handle requests) may be dispatched to all interested parties in parallel. Then, handling acknowledgments from the interested parties may be gathered after a specific delay. Termination requests may be sent to non-responding parities in order to prevent indefinite waiting or an advertent notification cycle. Alternatively, non-responding parties may be removed from a list of listeners which have been registered as interesting parties for a software component in the event driven system.

Claims

1. A method for time bounding notification delivery in an event driven system, comprising:

sending an event handle request to each of a plurality of listeners in parallel;

receiving an acknowledgement from each of the plurality of listeners;

sending a terminate request to a non-responding listener,

wherein the non-responding listener has not sent the acknowledgement in a time bound.

2. The method as described in claim 1, wherein each of the plurality of listeners is registered as an interesting party in a software component in the event driven system.

3. The method as described in claim 1, wherein the event handle request is sent whenever a triggering event is detected.

4. The method as described in claim 1, wherein the acknowledgment is a completion acknowledgement from a listener when it accomplishes the event handle request.

5. The method as described in claim 1, further comprising:

determining whether any of the plurality of listeners has not sent the acknowledgement in the time bound.

6. The method as described in claim 1, further comprising:

proceeding to a next operation,

wherein each of the plurality of listeners has sent the acknowledgement or has received the termination request.

7. A event driven system comprising:

a notification broadcaster sending handle requests for an event;

a plurality of listeners communicatively coupled to the notification broadcaster, the plurality of listeners receiving the handle requests and sending acknowledgments after completing actions in accordance with the handle requests,

wherein the notification broadcaster proceeds to a next operation after a time bound.

8. The event driven system as described in claim 7, wherein a termination request is sent to any of the plurality of listeners which have not sent acknowledgements in the time bound.

9. The event driven system as described in claim 7, further comprising a notification dispatcher coupled to the notification broadcaster and the plurality of listeners,

wherein the notification dispatcher relays handle requests and acknowledgements from/to the broadcaster and the plurality of listeners.

10. The event driven system as described in claim 9, wherein the notification dispatcher sends an acknowledgement to the broadcaster after the notification dispatcher determines that there is no outstanding event handle request.

11. The event driven system as described in claim 10, wherein the outstanding event handle request is terminated after the time bound.

12. The event driven system as described in claim 7, wherein the notification broadcaster sends the handling requests when it detects a triggering event.

14. The method as described in claim 12, further comprising:

sending a termination request to the non-responding listener.

13. A method for preventing a software component from being blocked waiting for a notification in an event driven system, comprising:

registering all interested parties to a list of listeners;

detecting a triggering event;

in parallel, sending an event handle request to each from the list of listeners upon detection of the triggering event;

receiving an acknowledgement from one of the listeners; and

removing a non-responding listener from the list of the listener,

wherein the non-responding listener has not sent the acknowledgement in a time bound.

15. The method as described in claim 13, wherein the termination request cancels processing of the event handle request in the non-responding listener.

16. The method as described in claim 13, further comprising:

employing a dispatcher for sending notifications and gathering acknowledgements,

wherein the notifications include the event handle request, and the termination request.

17. The method as described in claim 13, further comprising:

continuing to perform a next operation after the time bound.

18. The system for time bound notification delivery, further comprising:

means for registering all interested parties of a software component to a listener list;

means for detecting any triggering event;

means for sending an event handle request, in parallel, to each listener from the listener list upon detection of the triggering event;

means for receiving an acknowledgement from the each listener; and

means for removing a non-responding listener from the listener list,

wherein the non-responding listener has not sent the acknowledgement in a time bound.

19. The system as described in claim 18, further comprising:

means for relaying the event handle request;

means for sending an acknowledgement after determining that outstanding event handle requests have been handled in the time bound.