Dispatcher framework to provide inter-application communication

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9304841-B2
Application number	US-201514697116-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Apr 27, 2015
Priority date	Jun 20, 2013
Publication date	Apr 5, 2016
Grant date	Apr 5, 2016

Abstract

A dispatcher framework to provide non-blocking inter-application communication is disclosed. In various embodiments, a call to a service that is blocking with respect to the service is received from a calling process. The service is called on behalf of the calling process in a manner that does not require the calling process to remain blocked during at least a portion of a time during which the call to the service is performed.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method, comprising:
receiving from a calling process a call to a service;
generating a proxy instance for the call to the service;
calling, using the proxy instance, the service on behalf of the calling process in a manner that does not require the calling process to remain blocked during at least a portion of a time during which the call to the service is performed;
starting a timer in response to receiving the call from the calling process; and
in response to the proxy instance receiving a result for the call or the timer having expired, returning, by the proxy instance, at least one of the result or a status of the call to the calling process.

2. The method of claim 1 , further comprising receiving, by the proxy instance, a response to the call from the service.

3. The method of claim 2 , further comprising returning, by the proxy instance, the response is to the calling process.

4. The method of claim 3 , wherein the response is returned to the calling process in response to a poll or other communication from the calling process.

5. The method of claim 3 , wherein the response is returned to the calling process at least in part by calling a function associated with the calling process.

6. The method of claim 5 , wherein the function associated with the calling process was indicated by the calling process in the call.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein the receiving of the call to the service includes receiving one or more calls to one or more services, and
wherein the generating of the proxy instance includes generating, for each of the one or more calls to the one or more services, a proxy instance that is specific to a corresponding one of the one or more calls to the one or more services.

8. The method of claim 1 , wherein the generating of the proxy instance comprises spawning a dispatcher thread to handle the call.

9. The method of claim 1 , wherein the generating of the proxy instance comprises spawning a service binary instance to handle the call.

10. The method of claim 9 , wherein the service binary instance is specific to the service associated with the calling process.

11. The method of claim 9 , wherein the service binary instance is specific to the service.

12. The method of claim 11 , wherein the service comprises a first service, the service binary instance comprises an instance of a first service binary, and further comprising receiving from the calling process a second call to a second service; and invoking a second service binary instance, comprising an instance of a second service binary associated with the second service, to call the second service on behalf of the calling process in response to the second call.

13. The method of claim 9 , wherein the service binary instance is specific to the calling process.

14. The method of claim 13 , wherein the calling process is a first calling process, the call comprises a first call, and the service binary instance comprises a first service binary instance; and the method further includes receiving from a second calling process a second call to the service, and invoking a second service binary instance to call the service on behalf of the second calling process to satisfy the second call.

15. The method of claim 1 , further comprising serving as a proxy between the calling process and the service binary instance.

16. The method of claim 1 , wherein the calling process comprises a backup process.

17. The method of claim 1 , wherein the service is associated with a data storage node.

18. The method of claim 17 , wherein the calling process comprises a backup process configured to backup data stored on the storage node, at least in part by making the call to the service.

19. The method of claim 1 , wherein the proxy instance resides in a first device and the calling process resides in a second device.

20. The method of claim 1 , wherein the proxy instance manages a set of connections between a first device on which the proxy instance resides and a second device that is remote in relation to the first device and that provides the service.

21. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
in the event that the calling process sends the call to the service, performing, by the calling process, other work while the calling process awaits at least one of the result or the status of the call.

22. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
crashing, by the service, on a remote system; and
in the event the service crashed, performing, by the calling process, other work such that the calling process is not affected by the crashing of the service other than not receiving performance of the service in response to the call to the service.

23. A system, comprising:
a communication interface; and
a processor coupled to the communication interface and configured to:
receive from a calling process a call to a service;
generate a proxy instance for the call to the service;
call, using the proxy instance, the service on behalf of the calling process, via the communication interface, in a manner that does not require the calling process to remain blocked during at least a portion of a time during which the call to the service is performed;
start a timer in response to receiving the call from the calling process; and
in response to the proxy instance receiving a result for the call or the timer having expired, return at least one of the result or a status of the call to the calling process.

24. The system of claim 23 , wherein the processor is further configured to receive from the service a response to the call and to return the response to the calling process at least in part by calling a function associated with the calling process.

25. The system of claim 23 , wherein the processor is further configure to spawn a service binary instance to handle the call.

26. A computer program product, embodied in a tangible, non-transitory computer readable storage medium, comprising computer instructions for:
receiving from a calling process a call to a service;
generating a proxy instance for the call to the service;
calling, using the proxy instance, the service on behalf of the calling process in a manner that does not require the calling process to remain blocked during at least a portion of a time during which the call to the service is performed;
starting a timer in response to receiving the call from the calling process; and
in response to the proxy instance receiving a result for the call or the timer having expired, returning, by the proxy instance, at least one of the result or a status of the call to the calling process.

Assignees

• Emc Corp

Inventors

• Madhavapeddi Vijay C
• Bachu Kiran K

Classifications

• G06F9/541 Primary

  via adapters, e.g. between incompatible applications · CPC title

• G06F9/45533

  Hypervisors; Virtual machine monitors · CPC title

• G06F9/547 Primary

  Remote procedure calls [RPC]; Web services · CPC title