399 results about "Distributive data processing" patented technology

A method and system is provided for improved electronic voting. The system optionally allows paper type ballots to be utilized. A plurality of cryptographic routines are utilized in a distributed data processing system to maximize the privacy of both the voter's identity and the content of completed ballots. An authentication server is utilized to interact with a voter to issue electronic ballots and receive completed electronic ballots in a manner which determines the authenticity of the identification of the voter, while maintaining the content of the completed ballot confidential. The distributed data processing system further includes a results server which tabulates the content of completed ballots in a manner which maintains the identity of the voters associated with the particular ballots confidential. The distributed data processing system may further include a journal server which records completed ballots, in a manner which facilitates the challenge of ineligible votes and the correction of erroneous votes.

A distributed data processing system provides a virtual workplace environment. The virtual workplace environment may be a three-dimensional model of an office, a conference room, or an entire office building complex. Participants are represented by three-dimensional avatars, which move within the virtual environment. Participants may also share data within the virtual environment. Two-dimensional data may be projected onto the surface of a three-dimensional object within the environment, such as a wall. Three-dimensional data may be rendered within the environment for the participants to inspect.

A method, system, apparatus, and computer program product is presented for management of a distributed data processing system. A network management framework allows system administrators to configure user-associated monitoring parameters and device-associated monitoring parameters for users and devices within the distributed data processing system. Resources within the distributed data processing system are dynamically discovered, and the discovered resources are adaptively monitored using the network management framework.

A method, system, apparatus, and computer program product are presented for management of a distributed data processing system. Resources within the distributed data processing system are dynamically discovered, and the discovered resources are adaptively monitored using the network management framework. A network or system administrator configures some mission critical endpoints with multiple network interface cards (NICs) and specifies mission critical endpoints, non-mission critical actions, etc. During status collection activities associated with network or system management activities, the categorization of an endpoint as a mission-critical or non-mission critical endpoint affects the manner in which the status collection activity is performed. Applications can request the performance of actions at endpoints without regard to the categorization of the endpoint or without regard to the categorization of the requested action, and the network management system routes the action based on whether or not the specified endpoint is a mission critical endpoint. A non-mission-critical endpoint is associated with a mission-critical endpoint based on the non-mission-critical endpoint's communication history with the mission critical endpoint. The management system may use the status of a non-mission-critical endpoint as a reflection of the status of a mission-critical endpoint.

A method and apparatus for adaptively targeting advertisements to a specific client computer from a server within a distributed data processing system is provided. As a user of the client browses the World Wide Web, the material that is downloaded to the client constitutes a datastream. At some location during the routing of the datastream, either on the server or at the client, the datastream is scanned to generate a list of keywords that are present within the datastream. The datastream may be analyzed in real-time or cached and analyzed on a delayed basis. The generated list of keywords represents a summary of the content that appears to be the focus of interest of the user. The keywords are compared against a database of advertisements, and the server selects an advertisement that matches the user's area of interest in comparison to the analysis of the user's browsing history. The selected advertisement is then inserted into the datastream to be routed to the client. In consideration for viewing targeted advertisements and to entice a Web viewer to allow the monitoring of a datastream so that targeted advertisements may be placed into the datastream, a Web viewer may receive online connection service for free, for a reduced cost, at a premium level of service, or for other some other value, such as frequent viewer credits that may be exchanged for goods and services.

A method and a computer program product are disclosed for tracing the execution path through complex distributed applications in an n-tier client / server distributed computing environment over LAN, WAN, wireless, or the Internet. The system enables quick and pinpointed location of applications and application components along the execution path while consuming only minimal system resources. A tracing token is generated and passed from application component to application component, triggering the collection and recording of identification, timing and application data at each stage of the execution path. The tracing action may be automatically activated by the detection of some system event (such as a slow response to user requests) or be controlled manually by a system operator. The recorded data can be used to considerably speed up application analysis and problem troubleshooting.

A method, computer program product, and distributed data processing system that allows a single physical I / O adapter, such as a PCI, PCI-X, or PCI-E adapter, to use a PCI adapter identifier to associate its resources to a system image and isolate them from other system images thereby providing I / O virtualization is provided. Specifically, the present invention is directed to a mechanism for sharing among multiple system images a conventional PCI (Peripheral Component Interconnect) I / O adapters, PCI-X I / O adapters, PCI-Express I / O adapters, and, in general, any I / O adapter that uses a memory mapped I / O interface for communications. A mechanism is provided that allows a single physical I / O adapter, such as a PCI, PCI-X, or PCI-E adapter, to use a PCI adapter identifier to associate its resources to a system image and isolate them from other system images, thereby providing I / O virtualization.

Syndrome values are employed as a mechanism for synchronization and consistency in a distributed data processing environment. Syndromes are computed for local resources on individual peer nodes and an aggregate syndrome is computed from the individual syndromes. This renders it easy to determine not only that a change has occurred but it also makes it easy to determine which node needs to be updated and thus avoids the needless transmission of updated contents.

A method and apparatus for encoding transactions for goods and services using an e-receipt is provided. A consumer and a merchant conduct a commercial transaction using a distributed data processing system. An electronic receipt is recorded on a removable storage medium at a first data processing system. The electronic receipt contains data concerning the commercial transaction. The removable storage medium is then read at a second data processing system. After validating the electronic receipt, another commercial transaction or another stage of the original commercial transaction may be performed. The electronic receipt may be validated for a warranty claim on goods or services subject to the purchase transaction, and the removable storage medium may be an optical card or a smart card, either of which is able to store thousands of e-receipts and other electronic documents related to a commercial transaction, with the integrity of each guaranteed through digital signature, digital certificate, etc.

A method and system is disclosed for monitoring an operation of a distributed data processing system. The system can include a plurality of applications running on a plurality of host processors and communicating with one another, such as through a message passing technique. The method includes steps executed in individual ones of the plurality of applications, of (a) examining individual ones of generated API calls to determine if a particular API call meets predetermined API call criteria; (b) if a particular API call meets the predetermined API call criteria, storing all or a portion of the content of the API call as a stored event; (c) processing a plurality of the stored events to identify logically correlated events, such as those associated with a business transaction; and (d) displaying all or a portion of the stored API call content data for the logically correlated events.

A method and apparatus for efficient multimedia data interchange which utilizes multimedia pacing in a distributed data processing system. During a multimedia communications session, each of a plurality of receiving stations transmits multimedia pacing requests to a sending station at negotiated set time intervals. The multimedia pacing request includes information on the availability of current storage for multimedia data at the receiving station, a minimum data time remaining in storage in the receiving station and other information pertaining to the interchange of the multimedia data. The sending station then allocates various priorities to the transmission of data to the plurality of receiving stations in an order indicative of the type of data, i.e. multimedia or non-multimedia, and the information in the multimedia pacing request pertaining to the minimum data time remaining in storage at the receiving station. In addition, the sending station periodically determines the availability of the transmission queue. When the transmission queue is not readily available, the sending station transfers only high priority multimedia data to the transmission queue; however when the transmission queue is available, the sending station transfers lower priority multimedia data to the transmission queue as well. The sending station can then supply a plurality of receiving stations with significant multimedia data in advance when the communications interface is not overloaded.

Searching for information in a distributed data processing system, including providing a semantics-based search index by storing in the semantics-bases search index search keywords from documents according to semantics from selected document structure templates, the document structure templates selected in dependence upon the structures of the documents and upon model document structures in the document structure templates; establishing a search scope corresponding to semantics supported by the semantics-based search index; receiving from a client a search query message comprising search terms and, optionally, the search scope; retrieving, from the semantics-based search index, index entries satisfying the search terms and the search scope; creating from the retrieved index entries a search result message; and transmitting the search result message to the client.

A network usage data recording system and method employing distributed data processing and data storage is described. In one embodiment, the present invention provides a network usage recording system having a multiple level distributed data storage system. The system includes a first network data collector including a first data storage system. A second network data collector is provided including a second data storage system. A data correlator collector is provided including a correlated data storage system. The data correlator collector is in communication with the first data storage system and the second data storage system.

Data processing workload administration in a cloud computing environment including distributing data processing jobs among a plurality of clouds, each cloud comprising a network-based, distributed data processing system that provides one or more cloud computing services; deploying, by a job placement engine in each cloud according to the workload execution policy onto servers in each cloud, the data processing jobs distributed to each cloud; determining, by each job placement engine during execution of each data processing job, whether workload execution policy for each deployed job continues to be met by computing resources within the cloud where each job is deployed; and advising, by each job placement engine, the workload policy manager when workload execution policy for a particular job cannot continue to be met by computing resources within the cloud where the particular job is deployed.

A method, computer program product, and distributed data processing system for memory management. Memory regions are registered and have access rights and Protection domains associated with them in response to receiving a request for a memory operation including a virtual address, which is used to address into a data structure. A second data structure is then used to translate the virtual address into physical addresses for the operation. A third data structure is used to allow an incoming request responsive to a remote operation being initiated.

A method, system, apparatus, and computer program product are presented for management of resource leases within a distributed data processing system. A resource manager receives a lease request from a requester for a resource in which the lease request has a requested lease period. In response to receiving the lease request, the resource manager secures leases along a logical circuit of resources through the distributed data processing system. The resource manager requests leases from other resource managers along the data path that comprises the logical circuit because use of the requested resource requires use of other resources. After securing leases on a logical circuit of resources, the resource manager returns a lease grant for the resource to the requester. If the system detects oversubscribed conditions and / or error conditions, the system can adjust the pending leases in an appropriate manner, such as terminating a lease, adjusting the lease period of a lease, and the like.

A method, system, apparatus, and computer program product is presented for management of a distributed data processing system. The network management framework is able to monitor multiple sources of network packets on various subnets within the distributed data processing system; distributed packet snoopers are deployed from a packet usage manager to monitor the multiple sources of network packets. The system administrator can request packet filtering based upon selected active users or active applications. A bandwidth history database is compiled from bandwidth usage data associated with multiple entities within the data processing system, including users, applications, and / or endpoints within the data processing system. In response to a requested action within the data processing system, bandwidth usage for the requested action can be predicted with reference to the bandwidth history database. The actual and predicted bandwidth usage of requested actions can be displayed to the system administrator in real time.

A method, system, and computer program product is presented for providing access to a set of resources in a distributed data processing system. A reverse proxy server receives a resource request from a client and determines whether or not it is managing a session identifier that was previously associated with the client by the reverse proxy server; if so, it retrieves the session identifier, otherwise it obtains a session identifier and associates the session identifier with the client using information that is managed by the reverse proxy server. The reverse proxy server then modifies the resource request to include the session identifier and forwards the modified resource request to an application server.

Method and framework for identifying optimal allocations of computing resources in a complex, distributed data processing environment. A plurality of server models are established, with each server model including one or more server nodes and each server node having an associated set of capacity attributes. Similarly, a plurality of service models are established, each service model including one or more service nodes and each service node having an associated set of demand attributes. The server models are defined with a layered relationship as are the service models. A node that is part of a model in one layer corresponds to a model in the next-lower layer. The invention generates optimized mappings of service nodes that are described in user-selected service models to server nodes that are described in user-selected server models, as a function of the associated sets of demand and capacity attributes.

A method for continually controlling the collective behavior of a set of computing devices in a distributed data processing system. A gateway node disseminates a specification request comprising a set of parameters to a set of computing devices. The gateway node may be unaware of the number and identity of individual computing devices. Each computing node receiving the request determines whether its attributes satisfy the predicates expressed in the specification request. If so, the node processes the parameters in the specification request and modifies its own behavior based on the values in the parameters of the specification request. Subsequently, the gateway node may also observe the quality of information (QoI) values communicated from the set of computing devices. The gateway node iteratively modifies the parameters disseminated in subsequent specification requests based on a divergence between a computed quality of information value and a desired quality of information value.

A method, computer program product, and distributed data processing system that allows a single physical I / O adapter to validate that a memory mapped I / O address referenced by an incoming I / O operation is associated with a virtual host that initiated the incoming memory mapped I / O operation is provided. Specifically, the present invention is directed to a mechanism for sharing a PCI family I / O adapter and, in general, any I / O adapter that uses a memory mapped I / O interface for communications. A mechanism is provided that allows a single physical I / O adapter to validate that a memory mapped I / O address referenced by an incoming memory mapped I / O operation used to initiate an I / O transaction is associated with a virtual host that initiated the incoming memory mapped I / O operation.

A distributed data processing system provides a virtual workplace environment. The virtual workplace environment may be a three-dimensional model of an office, a conference room, or an entire office building complex. Participants are represented by three-dimensional avatars, which move within the virtual environment. Participants may also share data within the virtual environment. Two-dimensional data may be projected onto the surface of a three-dimensional object within the environment, such as a wall. Three-dimensional data may be rendered within the environment for the participants to inspect.

As a solution to the problem of distributed knowledge of data object definitions, data object definitions are removed from the source code. A Meta Data Service is created and made available on a network which knows the definitions of all of the objects that are used by applications that are designed to use the Meta Data Service. When an object is created, the Meta Data Service creates and stores a meta definition for the object. Data objects are passed over a network in a “soft” format. Applications within a distributed data processing system are designed in such a manner such that, at any stage of object processing, an application does not assume to understand the definition or structure of an object, nor is an application hard-coded with the object definitions. At each stage, an application queries the Meta Data Service for the meta definition of the object before proceeding with the processing of an object. The application then receives a meta definition for the data object that allows the application to perform properly tailored processing for the data object.

A method, computer program product, and distributed data processing system for modifying one or more virtual resources that reside within a physical adapter, such as a peripheral component interconnect (PCI), PCI-X, or PCI-E adapter, and that are associated with a virtual host is provided. Specifically, the present invention is directed to a mechanism for sharing conventional PCI I / O adapters, PCI-X I / O Adapters, PCI-Express I / O adapters, and, in general, any I / O adapter that uses a memory mapped I / O interface for host to adapter communications. A mechanism is provided for directly modifying one or more virtual resources that reside within a physical adapter, such as a PCI, PCI-X, or PCI-E adapter, and that are associated with a virtual host.

A method is presented for processing transactions in a federated computational environment. Resource requests are received at a first federated entity from a second federated entity. The first federated entity responds to federation protocol operations for the second federated entity in accordance with a trust relationship between the first and second federated entity. The services of the first federated entity are provided by a set of data processing systems within a distributed data processing system, and each data processing system in the set of data processing systems is able to act as an identity provider. A first data processing system in the set of data processing systems establishes itself to act as an identity provider for the set of data processing systems with respect to the second federated entity and then is employed to perform federated protocol operations as an identity provider for requests from the second federated entity.

A method for updating operational parameters of a monitoring agent on a client in a distributed data processing system is presented. The monitoring agent filters the outgoing network data traffic from the client to a server and determines whether an outgoing transaction is addressed such that an application on the server receives the outgoing transaction as a request to change the operational parameters of the monitoring agent. The outgoing transaction is parsed for a destination address and matched with a destination address stored as an operational parameter of the monitoring agent on the client. The destination address may be a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) embedded within a Hypertext Transport Protocol (HTTP) request. In response to a positive determination, the monitoring agent then sends a request to the server to send to the monitoring agent an update of the operational parameters of the monitoring agent.

A partitioned NUMA machine is managed to dynamically transform its partition layout state based on NUMA considerations. The NUMA machine includes two or more NUMA nodes that are operatively interconnected by one or more internodal communication links. Each node includes one or more CPUs and associated memory circuitry. Two or more logical partitions each comprise at a CPU and memory circuit allocation on at least one NUMA node. Each partition respectively runs at least one associated data processing application. The partitions are dynamically managed at runtime to transform the distributed data processing machine from a first partition layout state to a second partition layout state that is optimized for the data processing applications according to whether a given partition will most efficiently execute within a single NUMA node or by spanning across a node boundary. The optimization is based on access latency and bandwidth in the NUMA machine.

To suppress a server processing load and a network load in a sensor network which accommodates a great number of mobile sensor nodes. Among a plurality of distributed data processing servers (DDS) for managing data of sensor nodes, a distributed data processing server (DDS) that is a home server to hold data of a mobile sensor node is set for each sensor node by a directory server (DRS). At each distributed data processing server (DDS), upon reception of the data from the sensor node, identification process is executed as to whether the data is sensor data to be managed by itself or another distributed data processing server. If a result of the identification is the sensor data to be managed by another distributed data processing server, the data is transferred to the distributed data processing server (DDS-1), which corresponds to the home server of the sensor data, based on setting of the directory server (DRS).

A method, system, and computer program product is presented for restricting access to a set of resources in a distributed data processing system. A server determines a set of authorized resources for which a user is authorized to access; the set of authorized resources is a subset of the set of resources that are operational within the distributed data processing system. An evaluation is made about the availability of the set of authorized resources based upon state information about the set of authorized resources. A list of a set of entitled resources for the user is then generated; the set of entitled resources is a subset of the set of authorized resources. An indication of the set of entitled resources may be sent to the user, after which the system would respond to requests for the user to access the set of entitled resources.

A method, computer program product, and distributed data processing system for directly sharing an I / O adapter that directly supports adapter virtualization and does not require an LPAR manager or other intermediary to be invoked on every I / O transaction is provided. The present invention also provides a method, computer program product, and distributed data processing system for directly creating and initializing a virtual adapter and associated resources on a physical adapter, such as a PCI, PCI-X, or PCI-E adapter. Specifically, the present invention is directed to a mechanism for sharing conventional PCI (Peripheral Component Interconnect) I / O adapters, PCI-X I / O adapters, PCI-Express I / O adapters, and, in general, any I / O adapter that uses a memory mapped I / O interface for communications. A mechanism is provided for directly creating and initializing a virtual adapter and associated resources within a physical adapter, such as a PCI, PCI-X, or PCI-E adapter. Additionally, each virtual adapter has an associated set of host side resources, such as memory addresses and interrupt levels, and adapter side resources, such as adapter memory addresses and processing queues, and each virtual adapter is isolated from accessing the host side resources and adapter resources that belong to another virtual or physical adapter.