Combining disparate applications into a single workload group

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9848060-B2
Application number	US-201514829667-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Aug 19, 2015
Priority date	Dec 9, 2014
Publication date	Dec 19, 2017
Grant date	Dec 19, 2017

Abstract

Different protocol applications (e.g., TCP/IP server applications and SNA applications) are monitored and combined into a same workload, and load balancing decisions are made that affect both types of applications. In the approach, monitoring agents verify the health and availability of both the TCP/IP server applications and SNA applications, and such information is then used by a workload manager to create a distribution policy for the workload. The workload manager provides the distribution policy to a load balancing mechanism, which is operable to distribute workload connections to any of these applications. The TCP/IP connections and SNA sessions for a workload group are then routed to one site, or to an alternate site.

First claim

Having described our invention, what we now claim is as follows:

1. A method for managing requests to access a data source, wherein the requests are directed to instances of first or second applications that are each supported in first and second sites, and wherein each of the first and second sites has its own copy of the data source, comprising:
associating into a workload group instances of the first and second applications;
receiving status information associated with a status of each of the first and second applications that comprise the workload group;
using the received status information to generate a distribution policy for workload connection requests to access the data source, the distribution policy derived from the received status information about both the first and second applications; and
providing the distribution policy to a load balancer that has responsibility to select which of the first and second sites receives a particular workload connection request;
wherein the receiving, using and providing operations are carried out by software executing in at least one hardware processor.

2. The method as described in claim 1 further including:
receiving, at a given one or more first and second sites, a new workload connection request to access the data source issued from the load balancing appliance and based on the provided distribution policy; and
directing the received new workload connection request to one of: an instance of a first application, and an instance of a second application.

3. The method as described in claim 2 wherein the first application is a TCP/IP server application, and the second application is an SNA application.

4. The method as described in claim 3 wherein the status information is health and availability information associated with each of the TCP/IP server and SNA applications.

5. The method as described in claim 4 wherein the health and availability information associated with the TCP/IP server application is obtained over an application programming interface (API) query.

6. The method as described in claim 4 wherein the health and availability information associated with the SNA application is obtained by evaluating an SNA command response for an SNA resource name defined for the SNA application.

7. The method as described in claim 1 further including updating the distribution policy periodically, or on-demand as a status of one of the first and second applications changes.

Assignees

• IBM

Inventors

• Fitzpatrick Michael Gerard
• Arrowood Andrew Hilliard
• Mericle Grant Stephen

Classifications

• H04L69/16

  Implementation or adaptation of Internet protocol [IP], of transmission control protocol [TCP] or of user datagram protocol [UDP] · CPC title

• H04L67/1029

  using data related to the state of servers by a load balancer · CPC title

• H04L67/1004 Primary

  Server selection for load balancing · CPC title

• H04L67/1008

  based on parameters of servers, e.g. available memory or workload (monitoring of computer activity G06F11/30) · CPC title

• H04L69/18

  Multiprotocol handlers, e.g. single devices capable of handling multiple protocols · CPC title