Centralized hierarchical configuration system for applications in a distributed network

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10459905-B2
Application number	US-201614990394-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jan 7, 2016
Priority date	Jan 7, 2016
Publication date	Oct 29, 2019
Grant date	Oct 29, 2019

Abstract

Systems are provided for configuring applications in a distributed environment to enable more granular customization of application behavior. A centralized hierarchical configuration data store may be used to store configurations corresponding to a multi-level hierarchical model. The distributed environment may include a plurality of applications hosted by a plurality of application servers, where the application servers and/or applications are associated with an environment, an instance, and a category. The plurality of applications may load and apply configurations via a configuration control engine from the centralized hierarchical configuration data store based on the environment, instance, and category associated with the applications.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A centralized hierarchical configuration system, comprising:
a centralized hierarchical configuration data store; and
an application server having at least one processor and memory storing computer-readable instructions, that when executed by the at least one processor, cause the application server to:
load a plurality of server settings to obtain data store connection settings to the centralized hierarchical configuration data store;
load a plurality of application settings to obtain an application environment, an application instance, and an application category associated with an application;
establish a data store connection, via a communication interface of the application server, to the centralized hierarchical configuration data store using the data store connection settings;
retrieve, by a configuration control engine of the application server, via the data store connection, a first set of configurations from the centralized hierarchical configuration data store in response to a first query for configurations having a default environment name, a default instance name, and a default category name, the first set of configurations including a first plurality of configurations including settings to control application behavior of the application;
retrieve, by the configuration control engine, via the data store connection, a second set of configurations from the centralized hierarchical configuration data store in response to a second query for configurations having the application environment, a default instance name, and a default category name, the second set of configurations including a second plurality of configurations including settings to control application behavior of the application;
retrieve, by the configuration control engine, via the data store connection, a third set of configurations from the centralized hierarchical configuration data store in response to a third query for configurations having the application environment, the application instance, and a default category name, the third set of configurations including a third plurality of configurations including settings to control application behavior of the application;
retrieve, by the configuration control engine, via the data store connection, a fourth set of configurations from the centralized hierarchical configuration data store in response to a fourth query for configurations having the application environment, the application instance, and the application category, the fourth set of configurations including a fourth plurality of configurations including settings to control application behavior of the application;
determine, by the application server, that a higher set of configurations includes a configuration of a corresponding plurality of configurations that was retrieved in a lower set of configurations; and
responsive to determining that the higher set of configurations includes a configuration of the corresponding plurality of configurations that was retrieved in a lower set of configurations, replace a value of the configuration in the lower set of configurations with a value of a configuration from the higher set of configurations,
wherein the first set of configurations corresponds to a first level of hierarchy, the second set of configurations corresponds to a second level of hierarchy higher than the first level of hierarchy, the third set of configurations corresponds to a third level of hierarchy higher than the first level of hierarchy and the second level of hierarchy, and the fourth set of configurations corresponds to a fourth level of hierarchy higher than the first level of hierarchy, the second level of hierarchy and the third level of hierarchy
wherein the centralized hierarchical configuration data store includes a configuration control table that includes information relating to a plurality of configurations, and
wherein the configuration control table of the centralized hierarchical configuration data store is keyed by a plurality of application environments, a plurality of application instances, and a plurality of application categories.

2. The centralized hierarchical configuration system of claim 1 , wherein the instructions, when executed by the at least one processor, further cause the application server to:
store the first set of configurations, the second set of configurations, the third set of configurations, and the fourth set of configurations in a cache of the application server.

3. The centralized hierarchical configuration system of claim 2 , where the instructions, when executed by the at least one processor, further cause the application server to:
retrieve the first set of configurations, the second set of configurations, the third set of configurations, and the fourth set of configurations from the cache of the application server in an event that the centralized hierarchical configuration data store is unavailable.

4. The centralized hierarchical configuration system of claim 1 , wherein the centralized hierarchical configuration data store includes a configuration log table that includes information relating to a history of the plurality of configurations of the configuration control table.

5. The centralized hierarchical configuration system of claim 1 , wherein the application retrieves the first set of configurations, the second set of configurations, the third set of configurations, and the fourth set of configurations in response to startup of the application.

6. The centralized hierarchical configuration system of claim 1 , wherein the application retrieves the first set of configurations, the second set of configurations, the third set of configurations, and the fourth set of configurations in response to a change in the plurality of configurations stored in the configuration control table of the centralized hierarchical data store.

7. A centralized hierarchical configuration system, comprising:
a centralized hierarchical configuration data store; and
an application server having at least one processor and memory storing computer-readable instructions, that when executed by the at least one processor, cause the application server to:
load a plurality of server settings to obtain data store connection settings to the centralized hierarchical configuration data store;
load a plurality of application settings to obtain a first attribute of the application and a second attribute of an application;
establish a data store connection to the centralized hierarchical configuration data store using the data store connection settings;
retrieve, by a configuration control engine of the application, via the data store connection, a first set of configurations from the centralized hierarchical configuration data store in response to a first query for configurations having a default first attribute and a default second attribute, the first set of configurations including a first plurality of configurations including settings to control application behavior of the application; and
retrieve, by the configuration control engine, via the data store connection, a second set of configurations from the centralized hierarchical configuration data store in response to a second query for configurations having the first attribute of the application and a default second attribute, the second set of configurations including a second plurality of configurations including settings to control application behavior of the application;
retrieve, by the configuration control engine, via the data store connection, a third set of configurations from the centralized hierarchical configuration data store in response to a third query for configurations having the first attribute of the application and the second attribute of the application, the th

Assignees

• Bank Of America

Inventors

• Floyd Rodney Shannon
• Zhu Yifei

Classifications

• G06F16/285

  Clustering or classification · CPC title

• G06F16/282

  Hierarchical databases, e.g. IMS, LDAP data stores or Lotus Notes · CPC title

• G06F16/2246

  Trees, e.g. B+trees · CPC title

• G06F16/2282 Primary

  Tablespace storage structures; Management thereof · CPC title

• G06F16/951

  Indexing; Web crawling techniques · CPC title