Data processing: database and file management or data structures – Database design – Data structure types
Reexamination Certificate
2001-05-08
2004-06-08
Robinson, Greta (Department: 2177)
Data processing: database and file management or data structures
Database design
Data structure types
C707S793000, C709S238000, C709S239000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06748386
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates, generally, to content delivery systems, and, in preferred embodiments, to the automated construction of URL, cookie, and database query mappings in systems and methods for intelligent caching and refreshing of dynamically generated and static web content.
2. Description of the Related Art
The need to account for users' quality perceptions in designing Web servers for e-commerce systems has been well recognized, for the brand name of an e-commerce site is often associated with the type of experience users receive. Response time is a key point of differentiation among e-commerce Web sites. Snafus and slow-downs at major Web sites during special events or peak times demonstrate the difficulty of scaling up e-commerce sites. Such slow response times and down times can be devastating for e-commerce sites as indicated in a recent study on the relationship between Web page download time and user abandonment rate. The study shows that only 2% of users will leave a Web site (i.e. abandonment rate) if the download time is less than 7 seconds. However, the abandonment rate jumps to 30% if the download time is around 8 seconds. The abandonment rate goes up to 70% when the download time is around 12 seconds. This study clearly establishes the importance of fast response times to an e-commerce Web site to retain its customers.
In technical terms, to ensure the fast delivery of fresh dynamic content and engineer highly scalable e-commerce Web sites for special events or peak times puts heavy pressure on IT staffs due to the complexity of current e-commerce applications. For many e-commerce applications, Web pages are created dynamically based on the current state of a business, such as product prices, inventory, and other information stored in database systems. This characteristic requires e-commerce Web sites to deploy cache servers, Web servers, application servers, and database systems at the backend. The roles played by these servers are illustrated in FIG.
1
and summarized as follows:
1 . A database management system (DBMS)
10
or other external data sources
26
to store, maintain, and retrieve all necessary data and information to model a business.
2. An application server (AS)
12
that incorporates all the necessary rules and business logic to interpret the data and information stored in the database. AS
12
receives user requests
14
for HTML pages and cookies
40
, and depending upon the nature of a request, may need to access the DBMS
10
or external data source
26
via queries
28
or external data requests
30
and retrieve database results
32
or file
etwork access results
34
to generate the dynamic components of the HTML page
22
.
3. A Web server (WS)
16
which receives user requests
18
and cookies
36
from end users
20
and delivers the dynamically generated Web pages
24
back to the end users
20
.
4. Cache servers (edge caches or frontend caches) (not shown in
FIG. 1
) to accelerate content delivery.
One possible solution to scale up database-driven e-commerce sites is to deploy network-wide caches so that a large fraction of requests can be served remotely rather than being served from the origin Web site. This solution has several advantages, including improved content delivery times and reduced traffic at the Web sites. Many content delivery network (CDN) vendors provide Web acceleration services, and studies have shown that CDN can have a significant performance impact. However, for many e-commerce applications, HTML pages are created dynamically based on the current state of a business, such as product prices and inventory, rather than static information. As a result, the time to live (TTL) for these dynamic pages can not be estimated in advance, and content delivery by most CDNs is typically limited to the handling of fairly static pages and streaming media rather than the full spectrum of dynamic content.
Because the application servers, databases, Web servers, and caches are independent components, there is no efficient mechanism to have database content changes reflected in the cached Web pages. To ensure the freshness of dynamic content in the caches, integration of the caches, Web servers, application servers, and back-end database systems is required. Ideally, when updates in the database are observed, the pages which are impacted by such changes should be identified and such pages in the cache should be invalidated or refreshed accordingly. However, the information required for such integration includes the knowledge of what database queries and/or other external/internal data source access were the result of a dynamic Web page request. In other words, a mapping between URL requests and queries is required, and this knowledge is missing in conventional dynamic content caching solutions. Thus, there is a need for the automated construction of URL, cookie, and database query mappings to enable the efficient invalidation or refreshing of cached web content.
Note that knowledge about dynamic content is distributed across three or more different servers, including the Web server, the application server, and the database management server. Consequently, it is not straightforward to create a mapping between the data and the corresponding Web pages automatically. Some approaches, for example, assume that such mappings are provided by system designers. In other systems, programmers must re-engineer the application server programs to use a set of specific APIs (Application Program Interfaces) to generate such mappings.
More recently, other systems and methods for the construction of URL, cookie, and database query mappings have been proposed. For example, in U.S. Utility Patent U.S. Pat. No. 6,591,266 entitled “System and Method for Intelligent Caching and Refresh of Dynamically Generated and Static Web Contents” (“the '208 application”), the embodiment of
FIG. 3
in the '208 application does not require modification of application server program, but it does over-invalidate cached pages because it is not 100% accurate. The embodiments of
FIGS. 5
,
6
, and
7
in the '208 application require modification of application server programs or database application programs to pass additional parameters, but they are 100% accurate. The values of the URL string and cookie must be explicitly passed to the JDBC (Java Database Connectivity) (i.e. the database connection API).
SUMMARY OF THE DISCLOSURE
Therefore, it is an advantage of embodiments of the present invention to provide a system and method for the construction of URL, cookie, and database query mappings in which the users do not need to manually specify such mappings, as in other systems.
It is a further advantage of embodiments of the present invention to provide a system and method for the construction of URL, cookie, and database query mappings in which the existing application server programs do not need to be changed. Company Web sites may be reluctant to have their mission-critical application server programs modified by content delivery service providers. In addition, the source code may not be provided by the application server vendor.
It is a further advantage of embodiments of the present invention to provide a system and method for the construction of URL, cookie, and database query mappings which do not result in the over- or under-invalidation or refreshing of cached Web content.
It is a further advantage of embodiments of the present invention to provide a system and method for the construction of URL, cookie, and database query mappings which are automated, and wherein the mapping is “plug and play” compatible in the software of the Web site architecture, without requiring re-booting, recompiling, etc.
It is a further advantage of embodiments of the present invention to provide a system and method for the construction of URL, cookie, and database query mappings which can be selectively applied to one or more servlets in an application server, or enabled/disabled on the fly, witho
Black Linh
NEC Corporation
Robinson Greta
LandOfFree
System and method for automated construction of URL, cookie,... does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this patent.
If you have personal experience with System and method for automated construction of URL, cookie,..., we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and System and method for automated construction of URL, cookie,... will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFUS-PAI-O-3330507