Message queueing in middleware by a message broker

• US 9,928,125 B1
• Filed: 09/07/2017
• Issued: 03/27/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 07/13/2017
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Phillips, William F., Lourenco, Victor M., Clas, Patrick J.
• Primary Examiner(s): Scott, Randy
• Application Number:
  US15/697,508
• Time in Patent Office: 201 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2209/541 Client-server
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/546 Message passing systems or structures, e.g. queues

Abstract

A message broker configured to handle messages received from a plurality of client applications comprises a plurality of message queues that are each associated with a different task. A first synchronous message is received at a first message queue from a first client application. A determination is made that at a time the first synchronous message is received there is an earlier-received message from a different client application waiting in the first message queue. In response to the determination, the first synchronous message is coalesced with the earlier-received message such that a task associated with the first message queue is executed only once for both messages and a notice of the execution is returned to the first client application.

Claims

1. A method for managing a plurality of vital product data (VPD) rebuild request messages, wherein each VPD rebuild request message is configured to cause a rebuild of a VPD file for hardware discovered during system configuration of a distributed system, the method comprising:

generating, by a first component of the distributed system and as part of hardware discovery during the system configuration, a first synchronous VPD rebuild request message;

receiving, at a VPD rebuild message queue of a message broker, the first message, wherein the message broker comprises a plurality of message queues, each message queue associated with a different task of a plurality of tasks, wherein the message broker is configured to handle messages received from a plurality of components of the distributed system, wherein at a time the first message is received there is an earlier-received synchronous VPD rebuild request message waiting in the VPD rebuild message queue, and wherein the earlier-received message is from a second component of the distributed system;

determining that a force execution flag in the first message is set to true;

generating, by a third component of the distributed system and as part of hardware discovery during the system configuration, a second synchronous VPD rebuild request message;

receiving, at the VPD rebuild message queue and after receipt of the first message, the second message;

determining that at a time the second message is received the earlier-received message is waiting in the VPD rebuild message queue;

determining that a force execution flag in the second message is set to false;

coalescing, in response to the waiting message determination and the false flag determination, the second message with the earlier-received message such that a rebuild of the VPD file is executed only once for both messages and the rebuilt VPD file is returned to both the second component and the third component but not to the first component; and

executing, in response to the true flag determination and after the rebuild of the VPD file, a second rebuild of the VPD file such that the second rebuilt VPD file is returned to the first component but not to the second component or the third component.