Patent ID: 7162524
Filing Date: 2007-01-09
Classification: H04L

Abstract:
1. A content-based publish/subscribe system for providing gapless message delivery from a publishing client to a subscribing client, the system comprising: a plurality of brokers operatively coupled to one another via a network, each of the brokers including at least one processor and being configured as one of a publisher-hosting broker, a subscriber-hosting broker and an intermediate broker, the subscriber-hosting broker being operatively coupled to the publisher-hosting broker via the network through the intermediate broker; and a plurality of publishing clients and a plurality of subscribing clients, wherein the system is operative to enable at least a subset of the subscribing clients to request a deterministic merge of messages from multiple publishing clients, the messages from the multiple publishing clients being delivered to each subscribing client in the subset of subscribing clients in a same order; wherein at least a portion of the plurality of brokers are configured so as to eliminate a need for persistent storage of messages at the intermediate broker and to substantially guarantee a gapless delivery of one or more messages transmitted by the publishing client to the subscribing client, even in a presence of a failure in the publish/subscribe system.