Data processing: database and file management or data structures – Database design – Data structure types
Reexamination Certificate
1998-10-02
2003-01-21
Metjahic, Safet (Department: 2171)
Data processing: database and file management or data structures
Database design
Data structure types
C707S793000, C705S03600T, C709S241000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06510429
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to the field of client/server (also known as “distributed”) computing, where, for example, one computing device (“the client”) requests another computing device (“the server”) to perform part of the client's work.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Client/server computing has become more and more important over the past few years in the information technology world. This type of distributed computing allows one process (a “client”) running on a machine to delegate some of its work to another process (a “server”) running on another machine that might be, for example, better suited to perform that work. The client and server might also be two processes running on the same physical machine.
Message queuing data processing technology has become more and more prevalent in today's client/server computer networks. This technology permits a client computer system to communicate with a server computer system even though these two systems are very different to each other, in terms of operating system, data format and communication protocol. Further, due to the asynchronous nature of this technology, the client can send the server a message and the server can store the message in a queue and process and respond to the message at a later time. This is quite different from the synchronous client/server models which have required the client and server to converse in real time (e.g., the client waits for the server to respond before the client carries on with other tasks).
Message queuing and commercially available message queuing products are described in “
Messaging and Queuing Using the MQI
”, B. Blakeley, H. Harris & R. Lewis, McGraw-Hill, 1994, and in the following publications which are available from IBM Corporation: “
An Introduction to Messaging and Queuing
” (IBM Document number GC33-0805-00) and “
MQSeries—Message Queue Interface Technical Reference
” (IBM Document number SC33-0850-01). IBM and MQSeries are trademarks of IBM Corporation. IBM's MQSeries messaging software products provide transactional messaging support, synchronising messages within logical units of work in accordance with a messaging protocol which gives assured once and once-only message delivery even in the event of system or communications failures. MQSeries products provide assured delivery by not finally deleting a message from storage on a sender system until it is confirmed as safely stored by a receiver system, and by use of sophisticated recovery facilities. Prior to commitment of transfer of the message upon confirmation of successful storage, both the deletion of the message from storage at the sender system and insertion into storage at the receiver system are kept ‘in doubt’ and can be backed out atomically in the event of a failure. This message transmission protocol and the associated transactional concepts and recovery facilities are described in international patent application WO 95/10805 and U.S. patent 5465328, which are incorporated herein by reference.
It is becoming more and more common to combine such a messaging and queuing system with a relational database system, such as IBM's DB2 product or Microsoft's Access product (DB2 is a trademark of IBM Corp. while Access is a trademark of Microsoft Corp.) since relational databases are commonly used as a structured mechanism for storing and retrieving large quantities of related data.
For example, Sun Microsystems, Inc. have described (see European Patent Application No. 806,731, published Nov. 17, 1996) a messaging and queuing system used to carry out a publish/subscribe function. Servers act as publishers and publish messages while specifying a topic for each message. Clients act as subscribers and specify a topic on which they would like to receive messages. A messaging and queuing broker is placed in between the clients and servers and acts to distribute published messages to the appropriate clients. The system allows for a database to be provided as a publishing server so that a large quantity of structured data can be published to the network. The database could also be provided as a subscribing client, storing received published messages for easy and structured retrieval of a large quantity of messages. This system does not describe any further integration between the messaging and queuing system and the relational database system.
Oracle Corporation has taken this integration one step further with their Oracle8 Advanced Queuing (AQ) system (“Oracle
8
” and “Advanced Queuing” are trademarks of Oracle Corp.) by allowing a client application (subscriber) to submit a structured query to the messaging and queuing broker, in order to specify which published messages the subscriber wants to receive. The ability of a subscriber to use a standard database language, such as SQL (structured query language) to specify a topic of interest allows for a high-level of specificity in terms of expressing exactly what types of published messages the subscriber would like to receive. For example, the subscriber can use standard SQL query statements in order to specify that the subscriber would like to receive all published IBM stock quotes but only if the share price is greater than 100 United States dollars per share. In addition to using SQL statements, the subscriber can also take advantage of the various visual relational database programming techniques such as that provided by the Microsoft Access product in order to make it easier for the programmer to specify exactly what types of published messages the subscriber would like to see.
Open Horizon Corporation have taken this integration one step further still, with their Ambrosia
2
.
1
product (Ambrosia is a trademark of Open Horizon Corp.), by allowing a messaging and queuing broker to add subject matter to the contents of published messages before forwarding the messages on to requesting subscribers. The messaging and queuing broker receives a published message into an input queue. Like the Oracle product, standard SQL techniques are used to specify exactly which types of published messages a subscriber wants to see. However, the Ambrosia product goes further to collate the information in the published message with records stored in a relational database. Specifically, once a published message is received, some of the data from the database records is then added to the contents of the published message in order to create a published message with a more detailed contents, as compared to the published message that was originally received by the messaging and queuing broker. For example, if a published message specifying that IBM stock is now listing for 125 dollars per share is received at the broker's input queue, the broker could be programmed to retrieve information from a relational database, such information containing the identity of the customer (e.g., C
23
) and the amount of IBM stock which this customer presently owns (e.g., 225 shares). The retrieved information from the database is then combined with the published information to create a more detailed message that customer C
23
owns 225 shares of IBM stock which is currently trading at 125 dollars per share, which is then forwarded to the customer C
23
who has previously registered as a subscriber.
While the Ambrosia product provides considerable value over the other products mentioned above, it suffers from the disadvantage that dedicated software code must be written to specify exactly how the published messages will be collated with the database records.
Active Software, Inc.'s ActiveWeb (a trademark of Active Software, Inc.) message broker product is similar to Open Horizon's Ambrosia product in that database content can be added to published messages to add value to the published message. ActiveWeb makes use of a specific piece of software code called a database adapter to perform the collation (e.g., join) operation. This adapter is required in order to extract data from the published messages, convert the data into a database query in the exa
Clay A. Bruce
Le Uyen
Metjahic Safet
LandOfFree
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