Online Purchase Ticketing System for Server Load Management
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Solution Overview
Problem
Online purchase systems face server overload when handling limited quantity items, leading to customers being dropped from their session and losing their place in line, causing frustration and negative customer experiences.
Innovation Solution
A system comprising a ticket server, a doorman server, and a checkout server, where the ticket server issues a purchase ticket with a predetermined redemption time, allowing the doorman server to validate and the checkout server to execute the purchase, thereby distributing tasks and avoiding server overload.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Device complexity
If a single checkout server handles all online purchase requests, then the purchase execution is centralized and simple to manage, but the server becomes overloaded during high demand, causing customers to be dropped from their session and lose their place in line
Solution Approach 1:
The patent divides the single checkout server into three separate servers: a ticket server that issues purchase tickets, a doorman server that validates tickets and manages queues, and a checkout server that processes payments. This segmentation distributes the workload across multiple servers, preventing any single server from becoming overloaded and causing session drops, thereby maintaining purchase session stability while managing complexity through modular architecture.
2Reliability
If multiple servers are used to handle purchase tasks, then server overload is reduced and customer experience is improved, but the system complexity increases with multiple components to coordinate
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a ticket server as an intermediary component that issues timed purchase tickets to customers before they reach the checkout process. This intermediary distributes request timing and prevents simultaneous overload on the doorman and checkout servers, allowing the multi-server system to handle capacity demands reliably while the ticket server absorbs some of the coordination complexity.
3Productivity
If the checkout server processes all purchase requests simultaneously, then fast checkout is achieved, but the server becomes overwhelmed and customers lose their place in line
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements preliminary actions by having the ticket server issue purchase tickets with predetermined redemption times before customers actually checkout. The doorman server validates these tickets and manages the queue in advance, preparing the system for checkout requests. This preliminary processing prevents simultaneous overload on the checkout server, maintaining both checkout speed and customers' place in line through staged, time-distributed processing.
Data Source
AI summary
Disclosed is an apparatus for executing on-line purchases. The apparatus includes three different servers, a ticket server, a doorman server, and a checkout server. The purchase tasks are spread among the servers, and timed, so that the on-line purchase can be handled without server overload and customers losing their place in line. The ticket server issues a purchase ticket to a customer. The purchase ticket includes a predetermined time after which the customer can present the ticket to purchase the purchase item. On or after the predetermined time, the customer presents the purchase ticket to the doorman server. The doorman server validates the ticket and checks that the predetermined time has passed. Once the doorman server approves the purchase ticket, the doorman server passes the purchase ticket to the checkout server with a purchase approval indicator. The checkout server then executes the on-line purchase of the purchase item.