Patent ID: 7676812

Claim:
An event notification system for sending event notifications to event consumers that subscribe to topics, the system comprising: a hierarchical network of topic managers, each topic manager in the hierarchical network of topic managers including a topic update module for updating topics, a distribution module for load balancing the transmission of event notifications within the hierarchal network of topic managers, a creation/deletion module for creating and deleting topics, and a naming module for obtaining a physical machine address associated with a topic, the distribution module performing load balancing based on the use of individual topic managers within the network of topic managers, each topic manger also comprising a processor, a network connection, and computer readable storage media having stored thereon computer executable instructions that, when executed at the processor, cause the hierarchical network of topic managers to: assign an event notification received from the event source to a topic; locate a subscription manager associated with the topic the event is assigned to from among a hierarchical multi-path network of subscription managers; and transmit the event notification to the subscription manager associated with the topic the event notification is assigned to; the hierarchical multi-path network of subscription managers comprising a plurality of subscription managers, at least some of the subscription mangers being connected to one another via a plurality of different physical paths within the hierarchical multi-path network, each of the subscription mangers comprising a processor, a network connection, and a computer readable storage media having stored thereon computer executable instructions that, when executed at the processor, cause the hierarchical multi-path network of subscription managers to: transmit an event notification to an event consumer at an address and in a format and manner specified in a subscription provided by the event consumer, transmitting including routing the event notification through the group of computer devices from a root subscription manager, via at least two different paths in the hierarchical multi-path network, to a last hop subscription manager, each of the at least two different paths having a different set of subscription managers between the root subscription manager and the last hop subscription manager; and wherein the last hop subscription manger is configured to suppress duplicate copies of the notification such that a single copy of the event notification is transmitted from the last hop subscription manager to the event consumer.