Abstract:
A transport policy for one or more documents for transmission from a local storage to one or more end points for said documents is retrieved from a remote registry associated with an offering. Thereafter the documents are transmitted according to the transport policy. The registry may be co-hosted with at least one of the document end points. Prior to transmission, the documents may be enqueued, for example in queues corresponding to various qualities of service policies for delivery of said documents. The qualities of service policies may be likewise retrieved from the remote registry. The documents are preferably, but need not be, transmitted in message envelopes determined by the transport policy.

Description:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION  
       [0001]     The present invention relates to techniques for delegating the definition of a transport protocol and an underlying envelope for message communications to a data consumer, for example an offering for which the data is collected.  
       BACKGROUND  
       [0002]     Communication systems often provide ways to define transport protocols and underlying envelope formats to be used to transport messages within such systems. Transport protocols are, generally, sets of rules (protocols) used to send data in the form of message units between computers (e.g., over the Internet). Examples include the hypertext transport protocol (HTTP), the secure variant thereof (HTTPS), the simple message transport protocol (SMTP), the file transport protocol (FTP), and others. The two most widely used transport protocols on the Internet are TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) and UDP (User Datagram Protocol). The message envelopes define the various fields used to distinguish messages and selectively receive them.  
         [0003]     Generally, the transport protocol and corresponding message envelope can be determined at any time prior to transmission of a message. However, once a message starts to flow to its final destination, or is queued waiting to be sent, it is difficult (if not impossible) to change such parameters. On the other hand, offerings are constantly changing over time and need to dynamically adapt how documents of relevance thereto are transmitted.  
         [0004]     Consequently, what is needed are techniques for delegating the definition of a transport protocol and an underlying envelope for message communications to a data consumer, for example an offering for which the data is collected.  
       SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION  
       [0005]     In accordance with one embodiment of the present invention, a transport policy for one or more documents for transmission from a local storage to one or more end points for said documents is retrieved from a remote registry associated with an offering. Thereafter the documents are transmitted according to the transport policy. The registry may be co-hosted with at least one of the document end points. Prior to transmission, the documents may be enqueued, for example in queues corresponding to various qualities of service policies for delivery of said documents. The qualities of service policies may be likewise retrieved from the remote registry. The documents are preferably, but need not be, transmitted in message envelopes determined by the transport policy.  
         [0006]     A further embodiment of the present invention provides for enqueuing, according to one ore more document handling policies associated with one or more offering, one or more documents for delivery to one or more document endpoints, said enqueuing being to one or more queues of a communication system segregated by qualities of service policies per offering and subject to queue quotas defined by said offerings, and transmitting said documents to said document endpoints according to transport policies associated with said queues. The qualities of service policies may, prior to said enqueuing, be retrieved from registries associated with said offerings. The document handling policies preferably include the transport policies and may define related message envelopes.  
         [0007]     Another embodiment of the present invention includes a first module configured to format a document for transmission from a local document storage location to a remote document endpoint according to first offering-specific criteria to produce a so-formatted document, and a second module communicatively coupled to receive the so-formatted document from the first module, the second module being configured to enqueue the so-formatted document in a queue prior to transmission according to second offering-specific criteria defining a quality of service for delivery of said so-formatted document and to transmit the so-formatted document from the queue according to a transport policy defined by the second offering-specific criteria. The second module may be further configured to retrieve the second offering-specific criteria from a registry associated with the remote document endpoint prior to enqueuing the so-formatted document. The second module may be also configured to transmit the so-formatted document in a message envelope defined by the transport policy.  
     
    
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS  
       [0008]     The present invention is illustrated by way of example, and not limitation, in the figures of the accompanying drawings in which:  
         [0009]      FIG. 1  illustrates an example of a network configured in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention including managed service containers (MSCs) and associated connection offering platforms (COPs);  
         [0010]      FIG. 2  illustrates in further detail relationships between MSCs and COPs in accordance with yet another embodiment of the present invention;  
         [0011]      FIG. 3  illustrates modules involved in communications between the MSC and the COP in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention; and  
         [0012]      FIG. 4  illustrates in further detail aspects of the communication modules shown in  FIG. 3 .  
     
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION  
       [0013]     Described herein are techniques for delegating the definition of a transport protocol and an underlying envelope for message communications to a data consumer, for example an offering for which the data is collected. Usually, though not necessarily, such offerings will be hosted remotely from the points at which the documents are first readied for transmission. By remote we mean a site or platform other than that at which an application program is executing, without regard to geographic location or separation distance. Hence, a remote site may be physically nearby the platform where the application program is running or it may be quite some distance away. Further, although the present invention will be discussed with reference to certain illustrated embodiments thereof, readers should remember that such illustrations and references are not intended to limit the more general scope and nature of the present invention, which is best understood by reference to the claims following this description.  
         [0014]     Various embodiments of the present invention may be implemented with the aid of computer-implemented processes or methods (a.k.a. programs or routines) that may be rendered in any computer language including, without limitation, C#, C/C++, Fortran, COBOL, PASCAL, assembly language, markup languages (e.g., HTML, SGML, XML, VoXML), and the like, as well as object-oriented environments such as the Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA), Java™ and the like. In general, however, all of the aforementioned terms as used herein are meant to encompass any series of logical steps performed (e.g., by a computer processor or other machine) in a sequence to accomplish a given purpose.  
         [0015]     In view of the above, it should be appreciated that some portions of the detailed description that follows are presented in terms of algorithms and symbolic representations of operations on data within a computer memory. These algorithmic descriptions and representations are the means used by those skilled in the computer science arts to most effectively convey the substance of their work to others skilled in the art. An algorithm is here, and generally, conceived to be a self-consistent sequence of steps leading to a desired result. The steps are those requiring physical manipulations of physical quantities. Usually, though not necessarily, these quantities take the form of electrical or magnetic signals capable of being stored, transferred, combined, compared and otherwise manipulated. It has proven convenient at times, principally for reasons of common usage, to refer to these signals as bits, values, elements, symbols, characters, terms, numbers or the like. It should be borne in mind, however, that all of these and similar terms are to be associated with the appropriate physical quantities and are merely convenient labels applied to these quantities. Unless specifically stated otherwise, it will be appreciated that throughout the description of the present invention, use of terms such as “processing”, “computing”, “calculating”, “determining”, “displaying” or the like, refer to the action and processes of a computer system, or similar electronic computing device, that manipulates and transforms data represented as physical (electronic) quantities within the computer system&#39;s registers and memories into other data similarly represented as physical quantities within the computer system memories or registers or other such information storage, transmission or display devices.  
         [0016]     The present invention can also be implemented with apparatus to perform the operations described herein. These apparatus may be specially constructed for the required purposes, or may comprise one or more general-purpose computers, selectively activated or reconfigured by a computer program stored in or accessible by the computer(s). Such a computer program may be stored in a computer readable storage medium, such as, but not limited to, any type of disk including floppy disks, optical disks, CD-ROMs, and magnetic-optical disks, read-only memories (ROMs), random access memories (RAMs), EPROMs, EEPROMs, magnetic or optical cards, or any type of media suitable for storing electronic instructions, and each coupled to a computer system bus.  
         [0017]     The algorithms and processes presented herein are not inherently related to any particular computer or other apparatus. Various general-purpose systems may be used with programs in accordance with the teachings herein, or it may prove convenient to construct more specialized apparatus to perform the required method. For example, any of the methods according to the present invention can be implemented in hard-wired circuitry, by programming a general-purpose processor or by any combination of hardware and software. One of ordinary skill in the art will immediately appreciate that the invention can be practiced with computer system configurations other than those described below, including hand-held devices, multiprocessor systems, microprocessor-based or programmable consumer electronics, DSP devices, network PCs, minicomputers, mainframe computers, and the like. The invention can also be practiced in distributed computing environments where tasks are performed by remote processing devices that are linked through a communications network. The required structure for a variety of these systems will appear from the description below.  
         [0018]     In one embodiment, the present methods and systems are adapted for use within an environment in which “offerings” (i.e., application programs and the like) installed at computer systems/networks at one ore more user locations communicate with processes running on remote computer systems (e.g., servers or other systems as may be installed at data centers, service centers, etc.). Such an environment may be used, for example, to provide remote support for the offerings, allowing the users of the offerings to be freed from tasks such as installing periodic software updates and patches. Of course, many other examples of the use of such an environment exist and the examples presented herein are in no way meant to limit the more general applicability of the present invention. As will become apparent from the discussion below, the architecture of this environment includes both an infrastructure made up of common services (these may include, for example, communications, data management, data visualization, etc.) and a series of components called “offlets” that provide customized instances of these common services specific to/for an offering.  
         [0019]      FIG. 1  illustrates these concepts and their relationship to one another in the context of a network  10 . An offering describes the technology (e.g., software, hardware, etc.) required to provide a suite of services to an end user (i.e., assets employed by the user). The technology is broken into offlets  12   a ,  12   b  and a series of common services that are supported by a hardware and software infrastructure. Offlets are configured to take advantage of these common services and are themselves made up of a series of services, asset information and interaction logic that is otherwise not provided by the common services.  
         [0020]     As the term is used herein, an asset  14   a - 14   e  can be any element (e.g., computer hardware, software, storage, a service processor, a mobile phone, etc.) that can interact with an offering; or, more generally, something the associated offering helps manage or provides some service to. An asset then can be hardware that is adapted to provide a service, an operating system running on the hardware, and/or an application program running on the operating system. The offerings collect information from and/or provide information to the assets via network  10 . To support these activities, the network  10  includes a common communication architecture managed by a common software infrastructure; in particular, by instances of a managed services container (MSC)  16   a ,  16   b . The MSC represents the software that can interact, either directly or via a proxy, with the one or more assets of interest.  
         [0021]     Relationships between assets and offlets are flexible inasmuch as servers  18   a ,  18   b  hosting one or more offlets may be located anywhere and assets can be served by more than one offering through an offlet. Thus, the present communications architecture adopts a different model from that found in deployments where a large number of servers report back to a large data center. Such data centers are very expensive to create and to maintain, especially for offerings where a large number of assets are participating. By contrast, in the present scheme offerings are delivered from any number of different servers that can be distributed anywhere that is network accessible by the assets. No topological restrictions exist. The part of the software infrastructure that supports these sorts of deployments is called the connection offerings platform (COP)  20   a ,  20   b . The COP manages the interfaces, provides the infrastructure and contains the common services that offlets need to operate within, and hosts the offlets that provide the business technology capabilities to fulfill the overall needs of the offerings.  
         [0022]      FIG. 2  shows an example of a network  22  of COPs  24   a ,  24   b ,  24   c  providing offerings used by a number of assets  26   a - 26   h . In this example, three COPs are utilized to provide two offerings. The first offering, a software update with an associated software update offlet  28 , is provided from a platform  24   c  residing within a local area network (e.g., the user&#39;s network). This platform  24   c  is disconnected from external networks and relies on the receipt of hard copy updates  30  (e.g., in the form of CD-ROMs, DVDs or other media) that contain new software from the service provider. These media contain content that can be loaded by the software update offlet  28  (and via one or more MSCs  32   a ,  32   b ) to ensure that the associated assets  26   e - 26   h  are maintained and up to date. In this mode the COP  24   c  is operating in a disconnected fashion.  
         [0023]     The second offering, incident management, is supported by two offlets  34   a ,  34   b . One offlet  34   a  runs on a COP  24   a  located at a level  1  service provider site, the other  24   b  in the main service provider&#39;s premises. Offlets can contain other offlets and in this case the overall incident management offlet contains two offlets. One, offlet  34   a , provides automated incident management and analysis along with a basic knowledge base sufficient to facilitate first level support. If the incident cannot be resolved at this level, the incident is escalated by the offlet  34   a  to a second incident management offlet  34   b , which contains a more detailed knowledge base so as to facilitate managing the incident to closure.  
         [0024]     As shown, communication can be MSC-to-COP (e.g., to provide for the transmission of telemetry or the issuing of commands to an offlet for processing) and/or COP-to-COP (e.g., to support distributed offlet processing). Either or both of these forms of communication can be restricted to an internal network (or network of networks) or may operate across a wide area network or Internet.  
         [0025]     Finally,  FIG. 2  introduces the concept of offering modules  36   a ,  36   b ,  36   c , which exist within the MSCs to support interaction between the offlets and the assets. The offering modules are designed to facilitate customizations of the common services (such as communication services, etc.) provided by the MSCs, for example so as to collect or filter information only relevant to particular assets and offerings.  
         [0026]      FIG. 3  illustrates in more detail the role of an offering module  38  within an MSC  40  and its various intercommunications with an asset  42  and a COP  44 . As discussed earlier the MSC  40  provides certain common services to all assets, including the abstraction of the communications to/from the COP. Within the present network environment communications between the asset  42  and the COP  44  (i.e., the offlet hosted at the COP  44  and associated with the offering providing services to the asset) are based on a document model where each message is treated as a separate document (e.g., an extensible markup language (XML) form or other document). This document model allows for various customizations, such as communication quality of service, on an offering-by-offering basis. Individual offerings can thereby dictate the handling of their messages (e.g., for disaster recovery and other purposes) while still making use of a common communications infrastructure available to all offerings.  
         [0027]     Recall that an asset  42  can be any combination of hardware and/or software. To provide a means of integrating and managing such assets (which by their nature can be quite diverse), asset modules  46  are provided. Given the diversity of assets available, different asset modules for each type of asset monitored or acted upon by offerings provisioned to the MSC  40  may be used to expose the assets&#39; native programming/communication environment. Stated differently, asset modules  46  provide a mapping between that which an asset&#39;s native agentry exposes and a common information model (e.g., the document model described above) used by the MSC  40 . Communication between asset modules and their associated assets can take the form of simple network management protocol (SNMP) or intelligent platform management interface (IPMI) communication, system calls, “command scrapings”, etc.  
         [0028]     Asset module  46  thus interacts with the asset  42  and allows for protocol normalization (i.e., the asset module communicates with the agent using the agent&#39;s native protocol or native application programming interface (API) while providing a common interface inbound into the MSC) and data model normalization (i.e., the asset module translates the asset&#39;s native data model into the common information model used within the network). Asset modules are configured based on the needs of the associated offlet(s) and abstract the protocol/model/control variances in the assets.  
         [0029]     The documents (i.e., messages) provided by the asset module  46  are received in the MSC  40  by the offering module  38 . Such offering modules plug directly into the MSC  40  through one or more exposed APIs and access the asset module(s)  46  as needed through the normalized interface that is exposed to the MSC. Examples of these modules might include modules for asset management, software updating, hardware fault reporting, etc. Each offering module  38  is thus provisioned to support an associated offering hosted on one or more connected COPs  44 .  
         [0030]     Upon receipt of a document from the asset module  46 , the offering module  38  filters and/or formats the document according to the associated offering-specific rules for such items. To do so, the offering module retrieves the offering rule parameters from a COP registry  48  maintained by the COP  44  hosting the associated offlet. The COP registry is discussed further below. This retrieval may be done via a lookup module  50 , which may include a local cache  52  used to store locally copies of the offering parameters (i.e., configuration information) so as to minimize the need for communications between the offering module  38  and the COP  44 . The offering parameters returned to the offering module  38  may include the destination for the document (e.g., a URI of a data store for the message at the COP  44  or elsewhere), the quality of service for the delivery of the document, filtering patterns to employ (e.g., XML path language expressions to specify the locations of structures and data within an XML document), and/or a method to use in sending the document (e.g., simple object access protocol (SOAP)/Java messaging service (JMS), representational state transfer (REST), hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP), etc.).  
         [0031]     The offering-specific rules obtained from the COP registry  48  or lookup module cache  52  essentially customize the general communications infrastructure provided by the MSC  40 . Based on these rules, the offering module  38  prepares and formats the document received from the asset module  46  and passes the (now offering-specific) formatted document to the communication module  54  for delivery to the document endpoint  58  at COP  44  (or elsewhere as specified by the URI returned from the registry  48 ). Communication module  56  may include one or more queues for storing such documents prior to transmission to the document endpoint  58 , for example as a means for providing various document delivery quality of service (QoS). Documents are transmitted using the method and QoS defined by the offering.  
         [0032]     From the above it should be apparent that COP  44  acts in various capacities, for example as a data aggregation point, a services aggregation point and a knowledge delivery vehicle. A COP&#39;s role in the overall network is defined by the offerings that it supports, its relationship with other COPs and its relationships with its MSCs. It is important to note it is the offering that determines the platform&#39;s behavior, the data transmission and the knowledge application. The COP simply provides the common features that allow this to happen.  
         [0033]     The COP registry  48  is a container that persistently stores configuration and topology information for an instance of the COP to operate in the network. To reduce complexity in management and administration of the network, everything a COP needs to operate with its associated assets/MSCs, provisioned offerings, and even other COPs may be stored in the registry, for example: 
        a) Topology information for assets, MSCs and other COPs.     b) Appropriate information to create communication endpoints.     c) A local offering registry (i.e., a registry of all of the offerings that are contained within the COP that the registry is a part of and which may include the name and a description of the offerings, URIs for MSCs and COPs associated with the offerings and/or pointing to any software needed by those MSCs/COPs, configuration options for the offerings, and software bundles for the offerings (if appropriate)). The local offering registry is the data store of record for each COP that represents the information pertinent to accessing, activating and provisioning offerings on the COP and the associated MSCs.     d) Connection mode and connection quality of service (QoS) properties for communicating with MSCs and COPs.     e) Privacy policies associated with offerings.     f) User authentication/authorization information, personalization information and/or customization information.        
 
         [0040]     Information exchange between the COP  44  and MSC  40  is bidirectional, but the communications will always be initiated by the MSC  40 . As indicated above, such communications are initiated by the MSC&#39;s lookup module  50 , seeking, for example, an address (e.g., a URI) of a document end point  58  from the COP registry  48  for the specific type of document to be sent. Once the address of the end point is known, the MSC  40  can send the document to that address. An inbound message broker (not shown) at the COP  44  may receive and dispatch the document to an appropriate message handler, which may then process and parse the document and trigger the appropriate business process.  
         [0041]     The reverse data flow from the COP  44  to the MSC  40  is similar. When an offering needs to send information back to or execute a command on a specific MSC, it will perform a lookup to retrieve the specific address for the MSC endpoint. The message is then dispatched to an appropriate outbound message broker for eventual retrieval by the MSC  40  (e.g., through an intermittent polling mechanism). The actual data flow may depend on the messaging system used to implement the outbound message broker and/or the type of connection that exists between the MSC  40  and the COP  44 . All of these communications may be managed asynchronously, such that once a message is committed to an appropriate message broker the sender can continue processing other documents.  
         [0042]      FIG. 4  illustrates communication module  54  in further detail. The offering-specific formatted document  60  is received in communication module  54  at a receive queue  62 . It is dispatched from the receive queue to an outbound message queue  56   a - 56   n  according to the QoS parameters specified by the offering. In one embodiment, one of these outbound message queues may be used for documents for which no QoS is specified. In cases where a particular queue&#39;s quota of messages has been reached, or will be reached by the addition of a new document, queue cleanup may be performed prior to enqueuing the new document. This queue cleanup procedure may be offering-specific as directed by queue policies specified by offering parameters obtained from the COP registry  48 . In one embodiment of the present invention the queue quota policies are described in XML documents defining two characteristics of the queues: the first associated with the size of the queues (which parameter will trigger the cleanup), the second describing the method(s) used to perform the cleanup when it is needed (e.g., remove oldest messages first, remove largest messages first, remove low priority messages first, etc.). The specified method may be called when either the queue-specific policy defining its size has triggered it, or when a more generic event does so.  
         [0043]     The document queues  56  are specific per offering and per QoS/transport/endpoint. That is, different queues may exist for documents having different QoS transmission parameters, different transport mechanisms and/or different endpoints. Documents are transmitted out of the queues  56  according to triggers, which may be event driven or time driven (or both), under offering-specific policy control. Outbound documents are passed to a sender module  64  appropriate for the type of transport to be used and the sender module transmits the documents to the associated endpoint  58 .  
         [0044]     Before inserting a new document  60  in any queue, the communication module  62  will call a queue quota manager  66 . The quota manager  66  will, for each queue or for the document&#39;s targeted queue and based on the policies associated with the subject queue(s), determine whether or not the subject queue(s) has/have reached its/their limits. If so, the quota manager will call an associated cleanup procedure. The order of how the queues and quotas are checked is defined either on a per-queue based limit, or by a global queue limit setting associated with an ordering mechanism to call, in order, the cleanup processes. This global mechanism will decide in which order the queues will be cleaned up when the global limit is reached. One the clean-up procedures have been completed (if they were in fact performed), then for a document  63  for which the COP registry lookup has returned a quality of service, that document is queued in the associated queue for the specific offering and QoS. If such a queue does not yet exist within the communication module  54 , the communication module  54  will create it. For a document for which the COP registry lookup has returned no QoS, the document will be stored with like documents (i.e., those with no associated QoS) in a single queue. Documents are transmitted out of their respective queues according to triggers (event-driven or otherwise).  
         [0045]     Thus, the present communication mechanism provides the ability to delegate transport protocol and associated message envelope definitions for documents to the final destination (i.e., the offering) of the documents being queued. When the communication module  54  receives a document to be sent, it first queries the COP registry  48  associated with the offering and fetches the offering-specific characteristics, including the endpoint for the document (e.g., a URI thereof), the transport/envelope which should be used to send it, the QoS associated with the document, any document filtering which has to be applied, and the various settings or policies associated with queue management (some or all of which information may be locally cached to improve performance). In some cases the transport protocol may have an intrinsic QoS associated with it, or may expose an API to define the QoS to be used.  
         [0046]     The subsequent queuing of the document(s) is based on the QoS and the offering (e.g., in one embodiment of the present invention a unique queue exists per QoS, per offering). As a result of the lookup (to the COP registry or the local cache), information associated with the QoS of the queue is updated each time a new document is queued. Moreover, before inserting a new document in a queue, the communication module  54  will call a sub component  66  handling queue quota management. The quota manager  66  will, for each queue affected by the receipt of the document and based on the policies associated with such queue(s), determine whether or not the subject queue has reached its quota as defined by the offering parameters. If so, the queue manager  66  will call the cleanup procedure(s) appropriate for the subject queue. The order and manner of the quota check/queue cleanups may be defined on a per-queue based limit, or by one or more global queue settings associated with an ordering mechanism to call in order the cleanup procedures. This global mechanism will decide in which order the queues will be cleaned up when the global limits are reached. In one example, the cleanup process may see the non-QoS queue  56   a  cleaned first, followed by cleanup of the remaining queues in a priority order.  
         [0047]     When the sending module  64  is triggered, it chooses the documents to send using the sending policies and the QoS. The sending module  64  then, based on the transport protocol specified by the offering-specific characteristics retrieved from the COP registry (or local cache), pass the document to the associated message handler. The message handler prepares the document for transmission by creating the right envelope (if needed), and uses the designated transport mechanism to connect and send the documents to the endpoint defined by the offering.  
         [0048]     After sending a document, QoS policies may dictate subsequent handling. For example, such policies may impact document retention in the event the sender is required to wait for an acknowledgment of receipt from the document end point.  
         [0049]     Several advantages over conventional systems are afforded by the present invention. For example, the message transport and envelope characteristics are associated with the message queues and not the queued document (even when an individual document is in transit). Consequently, changing these parameters becomes relatively straight forward, involving only a change in the offering&#39;s COP registry  48  which will, in turn, trigger updates of the respective queues. Upon such update, all presently enqueued and subsequently enqueued documents will be transported in accordance with the new transport/envelope characteristics.  
         [0050]     Thus techniques for delegating the definition of a transport protocol and an underlying envelope for message communications to a data consumer, for example an offering for which the data is collected, have been described. Although discussed with reference to some specific examples, however, the scope of the invention should only be measured in terms of the claims, which follow.