Data processing: database and file management or data structures – Database design – Data structure types
Reexamination Certificate
1998-08-13
2001-12-04
Breene, John (Department: 2777)
Data processing: database and file management or data structures
Database design
Data structure types
Reexamination Certificate
active
06327591
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to a system and method for controlling an adaptive distributed information network.
2. Related Art
The management and control of a distributed information network presents significant difficulties. As more diverse distributed systems are introduced into the network the network must be managed and controlled to account for this. The usual solution is a manual reconfiguration, upgrade, or renewal. This can often mean that a user perceives poor performance or limitations for an unsatisfactory period of time before the problem can be resolved.
EP-A-0361974 discloses a method of managing a distributed database in which the load on a database server is monitored and, if this exceeds a threshold, data is transferred to another server. In this way it is claimed that the data is more uniformly distributed. This method does not however predict the outcome of relocation of the data and thus the outcome may result in an unacceptable degraded performance elsewhere in the system. This method is a trial and error method which can cause data to be moved between servers unnecessarily or a large number of times before an improvement in overall performance is achieved.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
It is an object of the invention to provide a more efficient management of a distributed information network
In accordance with one aspect the present invention provides an adaptive distributed information network system comprising:
a plurality of information centres connected over a network, each information centre holding any number of information units;
a plurality of information application means connected over the network to the information centres, each of said information application means being adapted to retrieve information units from and/or update information units at one or more of the information centres;
application control means for controlling the retrieval and/or updating of information units by said information application means to access specified information centres;
monitoring means for monitoring the passage of information over the network;
storage means for storing parameters modelling the distributed information network system; and
system controls means for using said modelling parameters in response to said monitoring means to adaptively determine an optimum distribution of the information units across the information centres and optimum information centres for the retrieval and/or updating of information units by said information application means, and for changing the distribution of the information units across the information centres and/or updating the specified information centres using the determined optimum distribution and/or optimum information centres respectively to improve the system performance.
In accordance with a second aspect the present invention provides a network controller for controlling a network of a plurality of information centres, and a plurality of information application means for retrieving and/or updating the information units from and/or at respectively, information centres specified for each information application means, the controller comprising monitoring means for monitoring the passage of information over the network, storage means for storing parameters modelling the distributed information network system, and distribution control means for using said modelling parameters in response to said monitoring means to adaptively determine an optimum distribution of the information units across the information centres and optimum information centres for the retrieval and/or updating of information units by said information application means, and for changing the distribution of the information units across the information centres and/or determining the specified information centres using the determined optimum distribution and/or optimum information centres respectively to improve the network performance.
In accordance with a third aspect the present invention provides a method of controlling a network comprising a plurality of information centres connected over the network, each holding any number of information units, and a plurality of information application means connected over the network to the information centres, the information application means retrieving and/or updating information units from and/or to respectively specified ones of the information centres, the method comprising the steps of:
monitoring the passage of information over the network;
adaptively determining an optimum distribution of information units across the information centres and optimum information centres for the retrieval and/or updating of information units using stored parameters modelling the distributed information network system; and
changing the distribution of the information units across the information centres and/or updating the specified information centres for respective information application means using the determined optimum distribution and/or optimum information centres respectively to improve the system performance.
Thus in accordance with the present invention by monitoring the passage of information of the network it is possible to determine the flow of information units between information centres and information application means. Using this information and modelling parameters which model the distribution of the information network system an optimum distribution of information units across the information centres and the optimum information centres for the information application means can be adaptively determined. In this way an optimum configuration for the distribution of data and the links between the information centres and the information application means can be determined. This configuration data can then be used to reconfigure the data base by changing the distribution of the information units across the information centres and/or changing the information centres to which queries are addressed by the information application means.
When information units for an information application means are present on more than one information centre, the performance of the system may be improved simply by redirecting the queries from the information application means to another information centre. This is appropriate when for example the information centre to which an information application means is currently directing queries is heavily loaded and another information centre holding the same information data is not heavily loaded. Clearly the performance can be improved simply by re-routing the queries from the information application means to the less heavily loaded information centre.
The system operates to update the links to the specified information centres in preference to changing the distribution of the information units since merely updating the links is a less computationally intensive and network intensive operation than moving information between information centres. However, in order to fully optimise the system, generally a mix of the redistribution of information units and the updating of the links will be required.
The distribution of information can be controlled by copying, moving and/or deleting information units at information centres. When such a redistribution of the information units has taken place, the specified information centres for respective information applications are redefined so that the information applications can access the appropriate information centres.
The adaptation to change the distribution of the information units and the specified information centres can take place either continuously during the operation of the network, at a period when network traffic is low, or at predetermined times. Alternatively, certain information units could be moved immediately whilst other information units are left until network traffic is low so that a partial adaption of the network takes place. The adaption criterion chosen will depend upon the application requirements.
The determination of the optimum configuration can be tri
Edwards Derek J
Oates Martin J
Osborn Beatrice M
Pengelly Alan D
Breene John
British Telecommunications public limited company
Nixon & Vanderhye P.C.
Pham Linh
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