643 results about "Distributed Computing Environment" patented technology

A system and method for searching for documents within spaces in a distributed computing environment are provided. A client sends a lookup message to a space which stores documents. The lookup message may specify desired characteristics, such as a name or partial XML schema, of the stored documents. The documents may include XML service advertisements and XML device advertisements as well as general-purpose XML documents. A set of zero or more documents which match the lookup message are discovered. In one embodiment, the lookup message may include a desired name. If the lookup message includes both a desired name and a desired schema, the set of discovered documents may include both discovered documents having a name that matches the desired name and discovered documents having a schema that matches the desired schema. If the lookup message includes neither a desired name nor a desired schema, the set of discovered documents may include substantially all the documents stored in the space. After the matching documents are found, the space may send a lookup response message to the client. For each discovered document, the lookup response message may include a name and an advertisement. Each advertisement may include information which is usable by the client to obtain the respective discovered document or access the resource (e.g., a service) that the document advertises. The advertisements and messages may be expressed in a data representation language such as XML.

Distributing and instantiating software version upgrades in a distributed computing environment. This includes defining the required versions of software as the contents of a software version upgrade kit. This is written, e.g., as a table of contents or a list, to a database to generate software version upgrade kit tables. These tables are used to generate software version upgrade kits. The kits are then used as a source to download copies of the upgrade kits to clients to be upgraded. This enables upgrading the software on the client.

Methods, systems, computer program products, and methods of doing business by using dynamic capacity-on-demand techniques for re-routing traffic in a distributed computing network. When demand on an enterprise's resources exceeds some predetermined level, dynamic modifications cause static content (such as images) to be served from resources which are external to the enterprise, such as a caching system which is located close to the enterprise's end users. When demand falls below the predetermined level, the modifications are effectively reversed, such that the external resources are no longer used. The predetermined level may apply to a single monitored device, or to a group of monitored devices. The dynamic capacity-on-demand techniques may also be used for dynamic types of content, such as for dynamically re-routing access to an application program executing on an external resource, and may be used for internal capacity-on-demand as well.

A plurality of repeater servers form a shared content delivery network (CDN) to serve resources to clients on behalf of a plurality of content providers. First and second resources are associated with a first content provider, the first resource referencing the second resource. The second resource is associated with a domain of the shared CDN. Responsive to a request that causes the first resource to be served to a client from a server in a domain associated with the first content provider, a CDN server is identified in the domain associated with the shared CDN to serve the second resource to the client. The CDN server is selected based, at least in part, on load conditions on at least some of the CDN servers, and on the client's location. Responsive to the CDN server being requested to serve the second resource: if a copy of the second resource is available on the CDN server, the copy is served to the client from the CDN server; otherwise, the second resource is replicated on the CDN server and then served to the client from the CDN server.

Embodiments of message gates are described. A message gate is the message endpoint for a client or service in a distributed computing environment. A message gate may provide a secure endpoint that sends and receives type-safe messages. Gates may perform the sending and receiving of messages between clients and services using a protocol specified in a service advertisement. In one embodiment, the messages are eXtensible Markup Language (XML) messages. For a client, a message gate represents the authority to use some or all of a service's capabilities. Each capability may be expressed in terms of a message that may be sent to the service. Creation of a message gate may involve an authentication service that generates an authentication credential, and that may negotiate the desired level of security and the set of messages that may be passed between client and service. A message gate may perform verification of messages against a message schema to ensure that the messages are allowed. Message gates may embed the authentication credential in outgoing messages so that the receiving message gate may authenticate the message. Messages may also include information to allow the receiving gate to verify that the message has not been compromised prior to receipt.

Systems and methods for returning results of services within a distributed computing environment are provided. After a client invokes one or more functions of a service, results of the function(s) may be returned to the client in a plurality of ways: for example, in a message, in a space (e.g., a network-addressable storage location), in a space wherein the client is notified via an event, using an advertisement returned in a message, using an advertisement returned in a space, and using an advertisement returned in a space wherein the client is notified via an event. The advertisement may include the information necessary to access and read the results in a storage location such as a space. A schema for the service may specify a plurality of messages which are usable to invoke the function(s) of the service. The messages, results, and advertisements may be expressed in a platform-independent and / or programming-language-independent data representation language such as XML. The availability of these plurality of methods may enhance the flexibility and adaptability of the distributed computing environment for a variety of situations, such as for clients having differing capabilities. For additional flexibility, results may also be efficiently passed to another service.

Exemplary embodiments may employ techniques for dynamically dispatching requests to resources operating in a distributed computing environment, such as a computing cloud, according to one or more policies. Embodiments may further dynamically adjust resources in the computing environment using predictive models that use current loads as an input. Embodiments may still further maintain a state for a processing environment independent of the type or configuration of a device used to access the environment on behalf of a user.

Techniques for managing information in a computing environment. Information associated with components of the computing environment is obtained. Then, from at least a portion of the obtained information, a determination is made as to the existence of one or more relationships associated with at least a portion of the components of the computing environment. The determination of the existence of one or more relationships is capable of accounting for a full lifecycle (e.g., including deployment, installation and runtime) associated with at least one component of the computing environment. Thus, techniques for managing runtime dependencies between the various components of computing systems are disclosed which provide a level of abstraction from individual systems and allow the computation of service / component (wherein the component may, for example, be an application, middleware, hardware, a device driver, an operating system and a system associated with the computing environment) dependencies that are related to end-to-end services, as perceived by a customer. By way of example, the inventive techniques may be applied to a distributed computing environment. The computing environment may also be an autonomic computing environment.

In a distributed computing environment, a queue of jobs is maintained on a job database, along with parameters for each of the computing devices available to process the jobs. A task model defining the job is provided for generating a plurality of tasks comprising each job. The tasks are maintained in a tuple database, along with the status of each task, indicating when each task is ready for processing. As a computing device becomes available to process a task, its capabilities are matched with those required to complete tasks that are ready for processing and the highest priority task meeting those requirements is assigned to the computing device to be processed. These steps are repeated until all the tasks required for the job have been processed, or the job is otherwise terminated.

Systems and methods for managing digital assets in a distributed computing environment are described. Meta-data for the digital assets is stored separately from the digital assets. Meta-data for some of the digital assets is copied and stored at a central location. Meta-data for the digital assets is generated by clients of the system. A method of propagating a digital asset identification tag associated with a digital asset includes: receiving a command from a client of the distributed computing system to the central computing resource, the command comprising an indication that a change occurred to the asset identification tag of a digital asset and the changed digital asset identification tag; locating the digital asset identification tag at the central resource; updating the digital asset identification tag in response to the received command; and transmitting the updated tag to another client having a copy of the digital asset.

Methods, systems, and computer program products are disclosed for provisioning software resources used with aggregated web services. The disclosed techniques enable heterogeneous identity systems to be joined in the dynamic, run-time web services integration environment. Authentication and authorization may now be performed for the aggregated service, as well as for its sub-services. SOAP ("Simple Object Access Protocol") messages, as an example, may be used to relay identity information among distributed services, whereby credentials may be specified in the SOAP message header to accompany a service request specified in the SOAP message body.

In a distributed computing environment, a message gate may be the message endpoint for a client or service to communicate with another client or service. Devices may have a gate factory (e.g. message endpoint constructor) that is trusted code on the device for generating gates based on XML message descriptions. The use of the gate factory may ensure that the gate it generates is also trusted code, and that the code is correct with respect to a service advertisement. A service advertisement may indicate, for a particular service, a message schema, service URI and authentication service URI. In one embodiment, the pieces the gate factory needs to construct a gate are the XML schema of the service and the URI of the service. In another embodiment, an authentication credential may also be obtained and used in gate construction by running an authentication service specified in the service advertisement. A gate factory for a device may generate gate code that may incorporate the language, security, type safety, and / or execution environment characteristics of the local device platform. By constructing gates itself, a device has the ability to ensure that the generated gate code is relatively bug-free, produces only valid data, and provides type-safety.

A system and method for providing message-based leasing of resources in a distributed computing environment. Services may issue leases to clients and provide operations on those leases. The lease functionality of a service may be defined in an XML message schema. Gates may be used to perform lease operations. Leases may be granted for a period that may be negotiated. Leasing messages for performing leasing operations may be defined. The leasing messages may include messages to renew a lease and to cancel a lease. Services may specify an address where leasing messages may be sent. A lease renewal mechanism may be provided in which a gate may receive lease renewal messages and automatically respond to them. A mechanism to detect stale advertisements in a space may be provided. When a service publishes its advertisement in a space, the service obtains a lease on the publishing of its advertisement. Each advertisement may include a time by which the service may renew the advertisement. When the lease is not renewed, the space service marks the service advertisement as stale. Services renew advertisements by sending a renewal message to the space. Stale service advertisements may be deleted after a period. A space service may allow clients to lease service advertisements in the space to thus grant clients access to the services. Messages are described for accessing the leasing services provided by the space services.

A system and method for searching for Internet-based repositories within a distributed computing environment are provided. A client on a device may interact with a search service on the same or a different device to find spaces (i.e., network-accessible XML object repositories) for storage and / or retrieval of data. The client may send an XML search request to the search service. The search request may include one or more desired characteristics, such as keywords, which are sought of a space. Based upon the search request, the search service may generate search results including locations (e.g., URIs) of one or more resulting spaces. The spaces may include web pages. In generating the search results, the search service may interact with a network-accessible third-party search engine, such as a browser-accessible search engine. The search service may obtain a service advertisement for each of the resulting spaces. Each service advertisement includes information which is usable to access the respective space. The search service may send the search results, including the advertisements and / or URIs, to the client to enable the client to access the resulting spacees at their respective locations. The search service may store the search results in a results space and send the address of the results space to the client.

A service discovery protocol may allow clients in a distributed computing environment to search for services. Service providers (or a listener agent) may respond to search requests by publishing or providing corresponding service advertisements or URIs to corresponding service advertisements. When a service provider responds to a discovery search request (either directly or through a listener agent), the provider may choose to publish a protected or an un-protected (complete) advertisement. A protected advertisement may include the set of information necessary to obtain a complete advertisement. Publishing a protected advertisement may force the client to obtain a valid credential from an authentication service before receiving the complete un-protected advertisement from the service provider. A complete un-protected advertisement is needed to create a message endpoint for accessing the service. Forcing clients to obtain a valid credential before receiving an advertisement may provide an additional level of security for the service provider. The security credential that may need to be obtained to receive the complete advertisement may also be used to construct a message gate to communicate with the service where the gate embeds the security credential in each message to the service.

Techniques for assigning ranks to nodes in a large linked database, such as world wide web or any other hypermedia database, partition the nodes so that the link matrix has a predominantly block-diagonal form. Within each block, a local rank is computed for nodes in the block, possibly by different computer in a distributed computing environment. A block rank is then estimated for each block as a whole, and may optionally include block-level weights to implement customized ranking. The local ranks and block ranks are then combined to form a global rank, which may be used to rank the nodes. Alternatively, a global rank vector for the database may be used as an initial vector in an iterative link-based ranking scheme to obtain more accurate global ranks for the nodes. The global rank vector may be divided to provide local rank vectors for use in subsequent applications of the method.

Various embodiments of a mechanism for a client to specify a display service to be used by a service for displaying data for the client in a distributed computing environment are described. A display service on or associated with the device on which the client resides that the client wishes to use to display the results of the service. When the client runs the service, the client may send a message to the service specifying the service advertisement of the client's display service. The service may then generate a message channel that allows it to send messages to the client's display service. Thus, when displaying results, the service invoked by the client becomes a client of the client's display service and sends its results, directly or by reference, for display to that display service.

An adaptive timeout value setting is determined for DCE applications, wherein the timeout value setting is adapted and adjusted according to environmental factors and communication conditions between a client / server pair. The adaptive timeout value setting takes into consideration the communication time between a client and a server in each client / server pair in determining and setting a timeout value for each pair. The timeout value for a client / server pair is adjusted in a dynamic fashion so that the client is able to be more adaptive to real environment changes and so that the server's performance is not degraded due to ineffective timeouts. The system and method determines an adaptive timeout value setting in distributed computing environment (DCE) applications for a client / server pair wherein each pair has a client system and a server system. A server response time of the server system is tracked to a remote procedure call from the client system. The remote procedure call includes a binding handle, and the server response time is based on a time of the server system responding to the remote procedure. An optimal timeout value is calculated from the response time, and a timeout value of the binding handle is reset as the optimal timeout value.

The invention relates to a process and apparatus for tracing software entities, more particularly a tracing tool providing tracing capabilities to entities in an application. The object-tracing tool provides software components to allow tracing the execution of an application. Tracing software entities is important for software developers to permit the quick localization of errors and hence facilitate the debugging process. It is also useful for the software user who wishes to view the control flow and perhaps add some modifications to the software. Traditionally, software-tracing tools have been confined to single node systems where all the components of an application run on a single machine. The novel tracing tool presented in this application provides a method and an apparatus for tracing software entities in a distributed computing environment. This is done by using a network management entity to keep track of the location of the entities in the system and by using a library of modules that can be inherited to provide tracing capabilities. It also uses a log file to allow the program developer or user to examine the flow, the occurrence of events during a trace and the values of designated attributes. The invention also provides a computer readable storage medium containing a program element to direct a processor of a computer to implement the software tracing process.

A message gate is the message endpoint for a client or service in a distributed computing environment. A message gate may provide a secure message endpoint that sends and receives type-safe messages. A gate may have a gate name that is a unique ID that refers only to the gate. In one embodiment, a gate is assigned a gate name when the gate is created and the gate name refers to only that gate for the life of the gate. A gate may be addressed using its gate name. The name may allow clients and services to migrate about the network and still work together. In a preferred embodiment, the gate address is independent of the physical message transport address and / or socket layer. Thus, a gate name may provide a virtual message endpoint address that may be bound and un-bound to a message transport address.

A service discovery protocol may allow clients in a distributed computing environment to search for services using flexible search criteria. A client may send a search message that may be formatted in a data representational language and may include search criteria. The search criteria may specify a service name or a service type or both a service name and a service type. The search criteria may be compared to advertisements for services within the distributed computing environment to find advertisements that match the search criteria. An advertisement may be a document in the data representation language that provides access information for a corresponding service. The client may receive one or more search response messages indicating one or more advertisements that match the search criteria. The client may obtain and advertisement for a located service and may use the advertisement to construct a message gate to communicate with the service according to messages defined by the advertisement.

A distributed computing environment in which agent processes direct their own movement through a computer network. Place processes provide a computing context within which agent processes are interpreted. An agent process controls its movement from one place process to another within the network by using a ticket. An agent process which moves from one place process to another transports definitions of classes of which objects included in the agent process are members. An agent process which moves from one place process to a second place process avoids unnecessary transportation of objects included in the agent process by substituting equivalent objects which are found in the second place process. An agent process sends clones of the agent process to several place processes simultaneously. If two clones travel along paths which are coextensive for an initial portion thereof, a single clone is transported along the initial portion of the paths and other clones are formed from the single clone, thereby avoiding transferring redundant information along communications media. Two agent processes, which occupy a single place process, interact by exchanging references to one another. The single place process ensures that neither agent process receives a reference to the other agent process without simultaneously giving to the other agent process a reference to the former agent process. Unauthorized or inadvertent excessive use of network resources by an agent process, or a place process, is prevented by associating with each process a permit which defines various capabilities and resource allowances of the process.

A client terminal presents a graphical user interface (GUI) to a distributed computing environment. A first interface is configured to receive data of a portable storage medium. The data includes a key authentication signal and user settings. The key authentication signal identifies an authorized user of the distributed computing environment. A second interface is configured to communicate with an operably linked server. A controller is operative to verify the key authentication signal provided to the first interface in accordance with a distributed computing instruction set, and, upon verification, establishing communication with the operably linked server via the second interface. In this way, the server executes server side applications accessed by a user from the client terminal in accordance with the user settings.

A technique for determining a root cause of a condition (e.g., service outage) of at least one subject component in a computing environment comprises the following steps / operations. First, one or more components in the computing environment upon which the at least one subject component depends (e.g., antecedents) are identified. Identification comprises traversing at least a portion of a model representative of an existence of one or more relationships associated with at least a portion of components of the computing environment and which is capable of accounting for a full lifecycle (e.g., including deployment, installation and runtime) associated with at least one component of the computing environment. Then, one or more procedures are performed in accordance with the one or more identified components to determine a condition status associated with each of the one or more identified components. By way of example, the inventive techniques may be applied to a distributed computing environment. The computing environment may also be an autonomic computing environment.

A system and method for interaction and access to shared content among clients and services in a distributed computing environment. A client may access a space service. The space service may store one or more XML service advertisements and / or other XML content in a space, and each of the service advertisements may include information which is usable to access and execute a corresponding service. The space service may include an XML schema which specifies one or more messages usable to invoke functions of the space service. For example, the schema may specify methods for reading advertisements from the space and publishing advertisements in the space. In accessing the space service, the client may send information such as an XML message (as specified in the schema) to the space service at an Internet address. In accessing the space service, the client may search the one or more service advertisements stored in the space. The client may select one of the service advertisements from the space. The desired service may be executed on behalf of the client. Upon execution, the service may generate a set of results. In one embodiment, these results may be published in a new space which may be accessed by the client for whose benefit the service was executed.

Systems and methods for resource aware scheduling of processes in a distributed computing environment are described herein. One aspect provides for accessing at least one job and at least one resource on a distributed parallel computing system; generating a current reward value based on the at least one job and a current value associated with the at least one resource; generating a prospective reward value based on the at least one job and a prospective value associated with the at least one resource at a predetermined time; and scheduling the at least one job based on a comparison of the current reward value and the prospective reward value. Other embodiments and aspects are also described herein.

A data replication facility for distributed computing environments. A computer network having a plurality of network nodes utilizes a distributed directory provider service (DPS) having an established master node. The DPS supports a file replication service (FRS). The FRS establishes one of the nodes as originator node which receives new or updated files from one or more user / GUIs and / or from one or more software providers such as a security provider. The originator node in cooperation with the master node establish a backup copy of the new or updated file in the master node. Thereafter, the originator node publishes a File Version Variable (FVV) representation of the new or updated file to other network nodes (slave nodes) which obtain such file from the originator or, if need be, from the backup master node. Object observers are utilized to determine changes to the file version variables thereby triggering the downloading of new or updated files into the network nodes, whereby data file replication is accomplished throughout the network. In addition to avoiding a single point of failure, embodiments of the present invention also are network-topology independent. Additional syncing threads are employed as part of the file replication service to further ensure synchronization of the network nodes' data files within a predetermined interval, regardless of network failure modes. Embodiments of the present invention are particularly useful with networks of the client-server storage network variety.

Method and system for submitting computing jobs in a distributed computing environment including receiving a job request with an instruction to execute a computing job, selecting a job handler for handling the computing job based on selection information and submitting the computing job to the selected job handler. The invention can be embodied in a client unit, thus providing a decentralized distribution of computing jobs and avoiding bottlenecks in the distribution of computing jobs for example in a computing grid.

In a distributed computing environment, a message gate may be the message endpoint for a client or service. A message gate may provide a secure message endpoint that sends and receives type-safe messages. Devices may have a gate factory (e.g. message endpoint constructor) that is trusted code on the device for generating gates based on XML message descriptions. In one embodiment, the gate factory may construct a gate from the XML schema of the service, a URI for the service, and an authentication credential. Access to some services may be unrestricted. For such services, a gate may be constructed without an authentication credential, saving the overhead of running an authentication service and incorporating an authentication credential. Gate construction may also be optimized for certain clients that do not desire to perform checking of messages against a service's XML schema. If verification is not desired, a client may avoid or may chose to avoid building (e.g. by a gate factory) some or all of the gate code that checks the messages against the XML schema. Also, the building of a gate may be made lightweight by appropriate reuse or sharing of pieces used to construct other gates. Devices may maintain a cache of gates to avoid constructing them each time the same service is run.