Abstract:
Embodiments of the present invention address deficiencies of the art in respect to resource consumption in a clustered environment hosting an e-meeting and provide a method, system and computer program product for resource consumption reduction for an e-meeting via meeting affinity. In one embodiment of the invention, an e-meeting affinity method can provided. In a clustered environment, the e-meeting affinity method can include identifying a clone supporting an e-meeting and having session affinity with a moderator to the e-meeting. The method further can include establishing session affinity between the clone and other participants to the e-meeting for requests relating to the e-meeting while permitting parallel session affinity to other clones for requests from the other participants not relating to the e-meeting.

Description:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
       [0001]    1. Field of the Invention 
         [0002]    The present invention relates to the field of collaborative computing and more particularly to managing resource consumption for an e-meeting hosted within a cluster of servers. 
         [0003]    2. Description of the Related Art 
         [0004]    The rapid development of the Internet has led to advanced modes of communication and collaboration. Using the Internet as a backbone, individuals worldwide can converge in cyberspace to share ideas, documents and images in a manner not previously possible through conventional telephony and video conferencing. To facilitate collaboration over the Internet, a substantial collection of technologies and protocols have been assembled to effectively deliver audio, video and data over the single data communications medium of the Internet. These technologies include both synchronous forms of collaboration such as instant messaging and application sharing, and asynchronous forms of collaboration such as discussion forums and document libraries. 
         [0005]    An e-meeting represents one popular form of electronic collaboration. In an e-meeting, participants can view a common space, for instance a whiteboard or a shared application (or both), through which ideas can be exchanged. The viewing of the common space can be complemented with a teleconference, a videoconference, an instant messaging session, or any combination thereof, such that the e-meeting can act as a near substitute for an in-person meeting in a conference room. In as much as an e-meeting can involve a set of different participants utilizing a diverse set of computing tools, the resource consumption of any given e-meeting can be significant. 
         [0006]    The problem of e-meeting resource consumption can be compounded in a clustered environment where multiple servers host multiple e-meeting instances according to high-availability and load balancing principles. Specifically, in the clustered environment, different participants to an e-meeting can be handled by different servers in order to achieve availability and load balancing objectives in the cluster. However, to support participants to an e-meeting across different servers can require substantial replication of e-meeting specific data across the different servers of the cluster. Therefore, unnecessary resource consumption can result merely through data replication for the e-meeting. 
         [0007]    Clustered environments have long incorporated session affinity as a tool for ensuring that individual clients remain bound to a particular server in a cluster. Specifically, session affinity refers to the logical linkage between a requesting client and a responsive clone or process in a server group, often referred to in the art as a node, where both the requesting client and the responsive clone or node have engaged in a communicative session. In consequence of session affinity, within a session once a server clone has been selected to respond to the requests of a client, the selected clone can remain bound to the requesting client throughout the duration of the session. As a result of this binding, the prevailing selection policy need be applied only once in a session and the overhead resulting from the needless re-application of the selection policy can be avoided. Notwithstanding, while session affinity accounts for a binding of an individual to a particular server, session affinity does not treat the circumstance where the individual belongs to a group such as a group of participants to an e-meeting. 
       BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
       [0008]    Embodiments of the present invention address deficiencies of the art in respect to resource consumption in a clustered environment hosting an e-meeting and provide a novel and non-obvious method, system and computer program product for resource consumption reduction for an e-meeting via meeting affinity. In one embodiment of the invention, an e-meeting affinity method can be provided. In a clustered environment, the e-meeting affinity method can include identifying a clone supporting an e-meeting and having session affinity with a participant to the e-meeting—for instance the moderator of the e-meeting. The method further can include establishing session affinity between the clone and other participants to the e-meeting for requests relating to the e-meeting while permitting parallel session affinity to other clones for requests from the other participants not relating to the e-meeting. 
         [0009]    In one aspect of the embodiment, identifying a clone supporting an e-meeting and having session affinity with a participant to the e-meeting can include determining an identifier for the session affinity, and deriving an identifier for meeting affinity for the e-meeting from the identifier for the session affinity. As such, establishing session affinity between the clone and other participants to the e-meeting can include providing the identifier for meeting affinity to the other participants to the e-meeting, and forcing session affinity with the clone for requests from the other participants incorporating the identifier for meeting affinity. In another aspect of the embodiment, determining an identifier for the session affinity can include initiating a request with a meeting servlet in the clustered environment and receiving from the meeting servlet in response to the request an identifier for meeting affinity for the participant. 
         [0010]    In another embodiment of the invention, a message affinity configured collaborative data processing system can be provided. The system can include a sprayer coupled to a set of clones in a clustered environment. Each of the clones can include a configuration for supporting a plurality of e-meetings for different moderators and participants to the e-meetings. Session affinity logic can be coupled to the clones as can a meeting servlet. The meeting servlet can include program code enabled to facilitate the establishment of meeting affinity with a particular one of the clones for a moderator and a set of participants to an e-meeting supported by the particular one of the clones. 
         [0011]    Additional aspects of the invention will be set forth in part in the description which follows, and in part will be obvious from the description, or may be learned by practice of the invention. The aspects of the invention will be realized and attained by means of the elements and combinations particularly pointed out in the appended claims. It is to be understood that both the foregoing general description and the following detailed description are exemplary and explanatory only and are not restrictive of the invention, as claimed. 
     
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE SEVERAL VIEWS OF THE DRAWINGS 
         [0012]    The accompanying drawings, which are incorporated in and constitute part of this specification, illustrate embodiments of the invention and together with the description, serve to explain the principles of the invention. The embodiments illustrated herein are presently preferred, it being understood, however, that the invention is not limited to the precise arrangements and instrumentalities shown, wherein: 
           [0013]      FIG. 1  is a schematic illustration of a clustered collaborative system configured for meeting affinity; and, 
           [0014]      FIG. 2  is a message flow diagram illustrating a process for establishing meeting affinity in a clustered collaborative system. 
       
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION 
       [0015]    Embodiments of the present invention provide a method, system and computer program product for reducing resource usage in a cluster through meeting affinity. In accordance with an embodiment of the present invention, participants to an e-meeting can establish affinity with a particular server in a clustered collaborative system. Specifically, a participant to an e-meeting, such as the moderator of the e-meeting, can select a particular server to which affinity is to be maintained, and the other participants to the e-meeting can be notified of the selected server. Thereafter, the participants can establish affinity with the selected server thereby obviating the need to replicate e-meeting data across different servers in the clustered collaborative system. 
         [0016]    In further illustration,  FIG. 1  is a schematic illustration of a clustered collaborative system configured for meeting affinity. The clustered collaborative system can include a cluster of servers  120  configured for communicative coupling to one or more participant computing platforms  110 A,  110 B over a computer communications network  130 . The cluster of servers  120  can include a router or sprayer  140  coupled to a set of clones  150 , each having a configuration for hosting e-meetings on behalf of the cluster of servers  120  as if only a single server had been established to host e-meetings. Each of the clones  150  further can include e-meeting resources  160  provided to support the hosting of e-meetings in respective ones of the clones  150 . 
         [0017]    The clustered collaborative system can include session affinity logic  170  coupled to the sprayer  140 . The session affinity logic  170  can include program code enabled to establish session affinity for an individual one of the participant computing platforms  110 A,  110 B with a selected one of the clones  150 . To achieve session affinity, the program code can be enabled to provide a session identifier for the selected one of the clones  150  to a participant computing platform  110 A,  110 B at the outset of a session. For each communicative transaction thereafter, the program code of the session affinity logic  170  can direct the communicative transaction to the selected one of the clones  150  indicated by the session identifier. 
         [0018]    Notably, the clustered collaborative system further can include a set of meeting servlets  180  corresponding to individual ones of the clones  150 . Each meeting servlet  180  can include program code enabled to establish an e-meeting for a group of participants via corresponding participant computing platforms  110 A,  110 B. The program code of the meeting servlet  180  further can be enabled to facilitate the establishment of meeting affinity for the participants to the e-meeting and to utilize a meeting affinity identifier in lieu of a session identifier when configuring subsequent requests for routing to specified ones of the clones  150 . Specifically, in operation a particular one of the participants to the e-meeting, such as a moderator of the e-meeting, through moderator participant platform  110 A can determine session affinity for a clone  150  in the cluster  120  in a session identifier  100 A. Meeting affinity code  190  for the moderator participant platform  110 A can publish the session identifier  100 A as a meeting identifier  100 B to other participant platforms  110 B for the e-meeting. 
         [0019]    Thereafter, the meeting affinity code  190  for each of the participant platforms  110 A,  110 B can utilize the meeting identifier  100 B as a session identifier in forcing session affinity to the same one of the clones  150  in the cluster of servers  120 . In this way, meeting affinity can be established for all participants to the e-meeting. As an alternative, meeting affinity can be established just for a single tool within the e-meeting, such as a white boarding session, or a screen sharing session. In consequence, the resources  160  for the selected one of the clones  150  will be the same for all of the participants to the e-meeting thereby eliminating the need to replicate resources across multiple ones of the clones  150  in the cluster of servers  120 . 
         [0020]    In yet further illustration,  FIG. 2  is a message flow diagram illustrating a process for establishing meeting affinity in a clustered collaborative system. As shown in  FIG. 2 , in step  200 , the moderator and one or more participants to an e-meeting can establish an e-meeting and each of the moderator and participants can receive session affinity to a clone in the clustered environment. In step  210 , the moderator can acquire the identity of the clone with which the moderator has attained session affinity. In particular, the moderator can initiate a request to the meeting servlet to identify the clone and in step  220 , the meeting servlet can respond by providing the session identifier to the moderator in the form of a meeting identifier which is identical to the session identifier. In particular, the meeting servlet can return the meeting identifier within a cookie. 
         [0021]    Thereafter, in step  240  the moderator can send the meeting identifier to the participants to the e-meeting via sideband channel such as a lightweight session initiated protocol (SIP) message. Alternatively, the participants to the e-meeting can acquire the meeting identifier from a shared desktop of the moderator. As yet another alternative, the participants to the e-meeting can acquire the meeting identifier from a central repository through the meeting servlet. In any case, in step  250 , the participants can change their session affinity for e-meeting related requests to the clone specified by the meeting identifier by forwarding a request to the meeting servlet. In step  260 , the meeting servlet can respond to each of the participants with a cookie containing the identity of the clone for the e-meeting. Finally, in step  270 , the e-meeting can be conducted knowing that meeting affinity has been established for the moderator and the remaining participants without tampering with session affinity for requests that are not related to the e-meeting. 
         [0022]    Embodiments of the invention can take the form of an entirely hardware embodiment, an entirely software embodiment or an embodiment containing both hardware and software elements. In a preferred embodiment, the invention is implemented in software, which includes but is not limited to firmware, resident software, microcode, and the like. Furthermore, the invention can take the form of a computer program product accessible from a computer-usable or computer-readable medium providing program code for use by or in connection with a computer or any instruction execution system. 
         [0023]    For the purposes of this description, a computer-usable or computer readable medium can be any apparatus that can contain, store, communicate, propagate, or transport the program for use by or in connection with the instruction execution system, apparatus, or device. The medium can be an electronic, magnetic, optical, electromagnetic, infrared, or semiconductor system (or apparatus or device) or a propagation medium. Examples of a computer-readable medium include a semiconductor or solid state memory, magnetic tape, a removable computer diskette, a random access memory (RAM), a read-only memory (ROM), a rigid magnetic disk and an optical disk. Current examples of optical disks include compact disk-read only memory (CD-ROM), compact disk-read/write (CD-R/W) and DVD. 
         [0024]    A data processing system suitable for storing and/or executing program code will include at least one processor coupled directly or indirectly to memory elements through a system bus. The memory elements can include local memory employed during actual execution of the program code, bulk storage, and cache memories which provide temporary storage of at least some program code in order to reduce the number of times code must be retrieved from bulk storage during execution. Input/output or I/O devices (including but not limited to keyboards, displays, pointing devices, etc.) can be coupled to the system either directly or through intervening I/O controllers. Network adapters may also be coupled to the system to enable the data processing system to become coupled to other data processing systems or remote printers or storage devices through intervening private or public networks. Modems, cable modem and Ethernet cards are just a few of the currently available types of network adapters.