SOLUTION THAT OPTIMIZES A WEBSPHERE CORE GROUP BRIDGE TO HANDLE PEER CORE GROUP MESSAGING FOR A DISTRIBUTED COMPUTING SYSTEM WITH A LARGE TOPOLOGY

• US 20090198781A1
• Filed: 02/04/2008
• Published: 08/06/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 02/04/2008
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: STOPYRO, JAMES W., MICKLEY, JAKOB L., THALHEIMER, DANA R., LEGGETT, JACQUELLE D.
• Application Number:
  US12/025,257
• Publication Number:
  US 20090198781A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/206
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/546 Message passing systems or structures, e.g. queues

Abstract

The present invention discloses a solution to optimize a manner in which core group communications are handled. In the solution, a message to be conveyed from one core group to a different core group can be identified. The message can be encased in a bridge wrapper. This encasing does not alter a format or content of the identified message. The encased message can be conveyed to the different core group. A processing of the encased message by the different core group can be dependent upon the bridge wrapper and can be dependent upon a network topology connecting the core groups. For example, the bridge wrapper can permit bridges to selectively forward posts, subscriptions, and status messages to non-sending core groups in a chain topology implementation. In a mesh topology, use of the bridge wrapper can enable a bridge to resent and/or remove local posts.

Claims

1. A method for processing messages between core groups comprising:

identifying a message to be conveyed from one core group to a different core group;

encasing said message in a bridge wrapper, wherein said encasing step does not alter a format of said identified message and does not alter content of said identified message; and

conveying said encased message to the different core group, wherein a processing of the encased message by said different core group is dependent upon said bridge wrapper.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein different types of bridge wrappers exist, said types of bridge wrappers comprising a subscription type wrapper for subscription messages, and a post type wrapper for post messages

3. The method of claim 1, wherein said bridge wrapper causes the processing to vary depending upon a type of topology used to connect said core group and said different core group, wherein permissible ones of said type of topology comprise a mesh topology and a chain topology.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein said bridge wrapper permits the different core group to resend local posts to subscribed core groups that experience a bridge start/stop event.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein said one core group and said different core group are part of a plurality of interconnected core groups, which are connected using a chain topology, wherein said bridge wrapper permits a core group bridge of the different core group to forward subscriptions and posts to non-sending core groups.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein said one core group and said different core group are part of a plurality of interconnected core groups, which are connected using a chain topology, wherein said bridge wrapper permits a core group bridge of the different core group to generate status messages to propagate a state of a failing bridge to other connected ones of said interconnected peer groups.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein a different core bridge associated with the different core group is used to perform the processing of the encased message, wherein said core bridge and said different core bridge are each a service of a JAVA 2 ENTERPRISE EDITION (J2EE) APPLICATION SERVER.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein said J2EE APPLICATION SERVER is a WEBSPHERE APPLICATION SERVER and wherein each of the core groups is a WEBSPHERE core group.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein said one core group and said different core group are included in a plurality of communicatively linked core groups, wherein each of the core groups comprises at least five servers, wherein each of the core groups is associated with a group specific core bridge, wherein said group specific core bridges enable communications between said core groups, and wherein a peer relationships exists between each of the group specific core bridges.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein said steps of claim 1 are performed by at least one machine in accordance with at least one computer program stored in a computer readable media, said computer programming having a plurality of code sections that are executable by the at least one machine.

11. A core group bridge optimized to handle peer core group messaging of a distributed computing system with a large topology comprising:

a topology evaluator configured to determine a topology of a plurality of core groups, wherein a peer relationship exists between the plurality of core groups, and wherein the determined topology defines a set of message transmission parameters for a core group bridge;

a request coordinator configured to determine a need to transmit a message received by the core group bridge from an associated core group based on the determined topology, wherein the request coordinator fulfills duplicate messages without the need to transmit the message; and

a message encapsulator configured to encase the message received from the request coordinator with a wrapper, wherein the wrapper modifies a processing of the message when received by other core group bridges contained within the plurality of core groups.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein said core group is a WEBSPHERE core group conforming to WEBSPHERE based standards, wherein said core group bridge is a WEBSPHERE core group bridge conforming to WEBSPHERE based standards.

13. The system of claim 11, wherein each core group is a set of WEBSPHERE APPLICATION SERVER processes configured to communicate for high availability purposes, wherein said core group bridge is a service on a WEBSPHERE APPLICATION SERVER that enables communication between core groups.

14. The bridge of claim 11, wherein each of said core group bridges handles traffic for at least four servers belonging to a core group associated with the core group bridge, and wherein said plurality of core groups consists of at least three core groups, each associated with a group specific core group bridge, each group specific core group bridge comprising said topology evaluator, said request coordinator, and said message encapsulator.

15. The system of claim 11, further comprising:

a post repository local to the associated core group configured to store data, wherein the data is placed in the post repository by the request coordinator.

16. The system of claim 11, wherein the determined topology is at least one of a chain topology and a mesh topology.

17. The system of claim 11, wherein the message received by the request coordinator is at least one of a subscription request, a post message, and a status message.

18. Software for communicating among core groups comprising:

a set of programmatic instructions digitally encoded on a machine readable medium configured to be executed by a computing device, wherein said set of programmatic instructions are part of a service of a JAVA 2 ENTERPRISE EDITION (J2EE) APPLICATION SERVER, wherein said service is a core bridge that enables communication between a plurality of core groups, wherein each of said core groups is associated with a group specific core bridge, wherein said a peer relationship exists between the core bridges, wherein each of said set of programmatic instructions encapsulates each message to be conveyed among the core groups within a bridge wrapper without altering a format and content of the encapsulated message, wherein information associated with the bridge wrapper causes a processing of the received message to vary in accordance with the details specified within the information.

19. The software of claim 18, wherein the plurality of core groups are connected to each other through a chain topography, wherein said set of programmatic instructions directs the associated core group to selectively forward posts, subscriptions, and status messages to non-sending core groups.

20. The software of claim 18, wherein the plurality of core groups are connected to each other through a mesh topology, wherein the set of programmatic instructions resends local posts to subscribed core groups that experience bridge start/stop events.