Electrical computers and digital processing systems: multicomput – Computer-to-computer session/connection establishing
Reexamination Certificate
1997-03-28
2001-04-03
Rinehart, Mark H. (Department: 2756)
Electrical computers and digital processing systems: multicomput
Computer-to-computer session/connection establishing
C709S228000, C370S468000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06212562
ABSTRACT:
RELATED APPLICATIONS
The present invention is related to the invention disclosed in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/827,536, filed Mar. 28, 1997 (H16-16415).
TECHNICAL FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention is directed to local resource management of local data processing resources, which may include, for example, a CPU, memory, disk I/O, a video CODEC unit, a display unit, and/or the like.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Continuous multimedia applications are being developed for entertainment (e.g., video-on-demand services), for office automation (e.g., video conferencing), for crisis management, for command and control, and the like. In these continuous multimedia applications, video, audio, and/or image streams are processed within a node and between nodes of a data processing system.
Some continuous multimedia applications are mission critical and some are not. For example, the continuous multimedia applications being developed for entertainment (e.g., video-on-demand services), for office automation (e.g., video conferencing), and the like, are not particularly mission-critical. By contrast, the continuous multimedia applications being developed for crisis management, for command and control, and the like, are often mission critical. Mission-critical continuous multimedia applications are becoming increasingly important.
Mission-critical continuous multimedia applications have at least three unique characteristics—they are criticality driven, they are dynamic, and they operate in real time. With respect to the first of these unique characteristics, media streams in mission-critical continuous multimedia applications may be associated with an attribute of criticality. Criticality is an indication of the importance of a particular application being executed at a given time, and is assigned to the application by an system administrator (or mediator) who reviews all applications to determine the criticality differences between them. For instance, an application which is performing periodic image-capturing and flaw detection in a process control can be more important than an application that monitors floor activities in a controlled plant. Consequently, the periodic image-capturing and flaw detection stream is assigned a higher criticality level by the system administrator than is the video stream relating to the monitored floor activities. In order to support different criticality levels, the data processing system which processes such media streams must be criticality cognitive and must be able to support plural critical multimedia data streams in the presence of multiple service requests.
With respect to the second of these unique characteristics, mission-critical continuous multimedia applications are often dynamic and may vary greatly in their demands on the local resources of the data processing system. In digital battlefield management, for example, detection of a mobile target may trigger a sequence of reactions, such as video monitoring, infrared tracking, image library retrieval for target matching and recognition, media data fusion and filtering, and command and control. Such dynamic demands on the local resources of the data processing system are not predictable a priori, and, therefore, require applications to negotiate on line for, and adapt to, the available local resources, which may include disk i/o bandwidth, CPU cycles, memory space, video compression/decompression capacity, and the like. Without sufficient resources and proper resource management, multimedia streams may lose their data or timeliness in a random fashion, causing application malfunction.
With respect to the third of these unique characteristics, mission-critical continuous multimedia applications must operate according to a guaranteed latency and data flow rate. Latency is the end-to-end delay from the time when the very first media unit is produced at a stream source to the time it reaches a stream destination. Rate is the number of media data units per second that are processed by a processing node.
The present invention is directed to a local resource management arrangement that manages a node's local resources which are required to execute one or more applications. In more detailed aspects of the present invention, a local resource management arrangement manages a node's local resources that are required to execute, in real time, criticality driven and dynamic applications.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
According to one aspect of the present invention, a resource manager for managing a resource comprises QoS shrinking means, preempting means, and QoS expanding means. The resource executes executing sessions, and the resource receives an arriving session. The executing sessions have corresponding QoS's, and the arriving session has a QoS. The QoS shrinking means shrinks the QoS's of the executing sessions and the QoS of the arriving session. The preempting means preempts, as necessary, the executing sessions in order to execute the arriving session. The QoS expanding means expands the QoS's of the executing sessions remaining after preemption.
According to another aspect of the present invention, a method is provided to manage a resource. The resource executes executing sessions, the resource has a resource capacity constraint, and the resource receives an arriving session. Each of the executing sessions has a QoS and a criticality level, and the arriving session has a QoS and a criticality level. The method comprises the following steps: a) shrinking the QoS of the executing sessions and of the QoS's of the arriving session; b1) admitting the arriving session without preemption if the executing sessions and the arriving session do not exceed the resource capacity constraint of the resource; b2) if the arriving session and the executing sessions having criticality levels higher than the criticality level of the arriving session do not exceed the resource capacity constraint of the resource, but the arriving session and all executing sessions exceed the resource capacity constraint of the resource, preempting, as necessary, the executing sessions which have criticality levels that are lower than the criticality level of the arriving session; b3) denying admission of the arriving session if the arriving session and all of the executing sessions having criticality levels higher than the criticality level of the arriving session exceed the resource capacity constraint of the resource; and c) expanding the QoS of sessions remaining following steps b1), b2), and b3).
According to yet another aspect of the present invention, a system comprises a plurality of resources, an operating system, a plurality of resource schedulers, and a resource manager. The operating system is arranged to operate the resources. Each resource scheduler schedules access to a corresponding resource. The resource manager receives resource capacity constraints from the resource schedulers, the resource manager manages the resources in order to execute sessions within the resource capacity constraints, and the resource manager sits on top of the operating system.
According to still another aspect of the present invention, a resource manager manages a session according to a criticality level, a timing requirement, and a QoS of the session.
According to a further aspect of the present invention, a method of initiating on-line QoS negotiation and adaptation by a user comprises the following steps: a) specifying a criticality level for a session; b) specifying a timing requirement for the session; c) specifying a QoS for the session; and d) after partial execution of the session, re-specifying at least one of the criticality level, the timing requirement, and the QoS for the session
REFERENCES:
patent: 5689508 (1997-11-01), Lyles
patent: 5898668 (1999-04-01), Shaffer
patent: 5917822 (1999-06-01), Lyles et al.
Huang et al., “Integrated System Support for Continuous Multimedia Applications,”Proceedings of the International Conference on Distributed Multimedia Systems and Applications,Hawaii, (Au
Honeywell International , Inc.
Marshall O'Toole Gerstein Murray & Borun
Rinehart Mark H.
Thompson Marc D.
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