Containment-Aware Discovery Service Protocol

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Solution Overview

Problem

In unique identifier networks, discovery services face challenges in efficiently tracking and tracing query items across multiple event servers, managing data ownership and authentication, and providing fast and accurate track and trace information, especially when items are contained within other containers or reused in supply chains.

Innovation Solution

A communication protocol and system that utilizes a discovery service database to store event notifications, allowing for parallel querying of relevant events from event servers, employing inference techniques to trace containment hierarchies, and ensuring data ownership and authentication, while using main memory databases for fast performance.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Loss of information

If discovery services query all event servers to retrieve track and trace information, then completeness of tracking data is improved, but network traffic and query time increase significantly

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvecompleteness of tracking dataVSAvoidquery time

Core Design Contradiction:

Loss of informationVSLoss of time

Solution Approach 1:

Event servers perform preliminary actions by proactively pushing event notifications to the discovery service as events occur, rather than waiting for queries. This pre-population of the discovery service database with event notifications eliminates the need for comprehensive queries across all event servers, reducing query time while maintaining data completeness.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #10Preliminary action

Solution Approach 2:

The discovery service acts as an intermediary between event servers and clients. It maintains a local database of event notifications and filters relevant events based on containment hierarchies, reducing the need for clients to query multiple event servers directly and minimizing network traffic.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #24Intermediary (Mediator)

2Reliability

If discovery services store all event notifications from all event servers, then availability of tracking information is improved, but data storage requirements and processing complexity increase

Engineering Contradiction:

Improveavailability of tracking informationVSAvoidprocessing complexity

Core Design Contradiction:

ReliabilityVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

The discovery service implements local quality by maintaining a focused database of only those event notifications relevant to the containment hierarchy being tracked. Rather than storing all events from all servers uniformly, it selectively stores and processes events based on their relevance to query items and their containers, reducing processing complexity while maintaining reliability.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #3Local quality

Solution Approach 2:

The system segments event notifications by containment hierarchy levels. The discovery service processes events at different hierarchical levels (query item level, container level, and parent container levels) separately, allowing efficient filtering and retrieval without processing the entire event set monolithically.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #1Segmentation

3Reliability

If discovery services implement comprehensive authentication and data ownership controls, then data security is improved, but system complexity and authentication overhead increase

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvedata securityVSAvoidsystem complexity

Core Design Contradiction:

ReliabilityVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

Event servers maintain self-service authentication by digitally signing their event notifications with their own credentials. The discovery service verifies these signatures autonomously without requiring complex centralized authentication mechanisms, ensuring data security while minimizing system complexity.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #25Self-service

4Productivity

If discovery services query event servers in parallel for multiple items, then productivity is improved, but network traffic and resource consumption increase

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvetracking speedVSAvoidnetwork traffic

Core Design Contradiction:

ProductivityVSLoss of energy

Solution Approach 1:

Event notifications are pushed to the discovery service in advance as events occur, pre-populating the database with relevant information. This eliminates the need for parallel queries to multiple event servers, reducing network traffic while maintaining fast tracking speed through local database operations.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #10Preliminary action

Data Source

PatentUS8756686B2Communication protocol for a containment-aware discovery service

Publication Date: 2014.06.17 HASSO PLATTNER INSTITUT FUR SOFTWARESYSTTECHN

AI summary

In general, methods and apparatus, including computer program products, implementing and using techniques for providing a discovery service in a unique identifier network are described. Said discovery service is suitable for tracking and tracing a query item represented by a unique identifier in a unique identifier network. In particular, a communication protocol for a containment-aware discovery service is described.