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

• US 7,434,230 B2
• Filed: 12/02/2004
• Issued: 10/07/2008
• 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.
• Primary Examiner(s): Lee; Thomas
• Assistant Examiner(s): WU, QING YUAN
• Application Number:
  US11/002,700
• Publication Number:
  US 20060123427A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,405 Days
• Field of Search: 719/318, 714/48
• 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 parties 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, wherein each of the plurality of listeners is configured to perform an action related to the event handling request in response to receiving the event handling request and each of the plurality of listeners is registered as an interested party in a software component in the event driven system;

determining whether an acknowledgement from each of the plurality of listeners has been received within a time bound, wherein each acknowledgment is a completion acknowledgement from a listener of the plurality of listeners when the listener accomplishes the action related to the event handle request;

sending a terminate request to a non-responding listener from the plurality of listeners where the non-responding listener has not sent the completion acknowledgement in the time bound to prevent delay from waiting for each acknowledgment, wherein the non-responding listener cancels performance of the event handling request in response to receiving the terminate request, and

cancelling the non-responding listener'"'"'s registration as an interested party in the software component in the event driven system to prevent future event handling requests from being sent to the non-responding listener.

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

3. 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.

4. 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.

5. 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 the listeners from the list of listeners upon detection of the triggering event wherein each of the listeners is configured to perform an action related to the event handling request in response to receiving the event handling request;

receiving an acknowledgement from one of the listeners, wherein the acknowledgment is a completion acknowledgment from the listener when the listener accomplishes the action related to the event handle request; and

removing a non-responding listener from the list of listeners when the non-responding listener has not sent the completion acknowledgement in a time bound to prevent future event handle requests from being sent to the non-responding listener; and

sending a termination request to the non-responding listener when the non-responding listener has not sent the completion acknowledgment in a time bound to prevent delay from waiting for the acknowledgment, wherein the non-responding listener cancels performance of the event handling request in response to receiving the termination request.

6. The method as described in claim 5, wherein the termination request cancels processing of the event handle request in the non-responding listener.

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

employing a dispatcher for sending notifications and gathering acknowledgements,

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

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

continuing to perform a next operation after the time bound.