Generic Service Management System for Distributed Object Reliability
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current systems for distributed object-oriented technologies lack comprehensive error detection and function replacement capabilities, leading to production losses when service providers fail, as they cannot continuously execute tasks after errors occur and do not allow clients to freely select alternative service providers.
Innovation Solution
A generic service management system with a registration scheme, search-and-execution scheme, and detection-and-replacement scheme, utilizing a Generic Evaluator (GEV) to monitor service providers, detect errors, backup execution status and parameters, and select higher-credit service providers to replace faulty ones, ensuring continuous task execution.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If a service provider is used to control equipment in a distributed system, then the system can operate with centralized management, but the system loses reliability when the service provider fails
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements preliminary action by establishing a backup service provider mechanism before failures occur. The system pre-configures backup providers and maintains their readiness, so when a primary service provider fails, the backup can immediately take over without requiring complex real-time decision-making or system reconfiguration. This resolves the contradiction by improving reliability through pre-planned redundancy while avoiding the complexity of dynamic fault-tolerance mechanisms.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces an intermediary mechanism in the form of a service provider registry or directory that mediates between clients and service providers. This intermediary maintains information about available service providers and their status, enabling automatic failover without requiring direct complex communication between clients and multiple backup providers. The intermediary simplifies the system architecture while ensuring reliable service continuity.
2Reliability
If error detection and replacement mechanisms are implemented, then system reliability improves, but the system requires more resources for monitoring and backup
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies self-service by enabling service providers to autonomously monitor their own status and automatically trigger failover when failures are detected. Service providers implement self-diagnostics and self-reporting mechanisms, eliminating the need for external monitoring resources. When a provider detects its own failure, it automatically notifies the registry and allows clients to switch to backups, reducing the overall resource requirements for error detection while maintaining high reliability.
3Productivity
If backup service providers are maintained, then continuous task execution is possible after failures, but the system requires additional infrastructure for backup management
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements universality by designing a multi-functional service provider registry that serves multiple purposes: service discovery, status monitoring, failover coordination, and backup management. This single universal infrastructure handles all backup-related operations, eliminating the need for separate complex backup management systems. The registry's multi-functionality enables continuous task execution while minimizing the additional infrastructure required.
4Loss of time
If automatic failover is implemented, then production loss is reduced, but the system requires sophisticated error detection and replacement mechanisms
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements feedback mechanisms where service providers continuously report their status to a central registry, and clients receive feedback about provider availability. This feedback loop enables automatic failover by providing real-time information about service provider status without requiring complex analysis or decision-making mechanisms. The simplicity of the feedback-based approach minimizes detection mechanism complexity while achieving rapid automatic failover to reduce production loss.
Data Source
AI summary
A generic service management system is disclosed. The generic service management system comprises a registration scheme; a search-and-execution scheme; and a detection-and-replacement scheme, used for detecting and replacing the invalid service provider, such as a semiconductor equipment manager. The present invention provides a GEV (Generic Evaluator) having the capabilities of error-detecting and data backup, and further combines Jini infrastructure and the programming technology of design by contract. The GEV archives the credit values of all the service providers for letting a client (such as a factory manager) to select a service provider having a higher credit value. The GEV periodically backups the execution status and parameters of service providers, so that, in case a service provider has errors, its backup information of execution status and parameters can be assigned to another service provider for continuously executing the unfinished job, thereby enhancing the reliability of distributed object-oriented systems. The present invention can detect abnormal behaviors, such as system crash, errors in transmitting information and degradation of performance, etc., and is suitable for use in production systems that are connected by networks, such as semiconductor manufacturing systems, optical telecommunication production systems, etc.