Method and apparatus for notification transmission comprising a notification service

The present invention relates to a method for transmitting a notification in a distributed information processing network. It also relates to a network implementing this method.

The invention applies in particular to the architecture of distributed objects of networks complying with the "Common Object Request Broker Architecture" (CORBA) specification of "The Object Management Group" (OMG).

In this architecture, the objects are distributed over the various information processing units present in the network. They communicate via a software bus designated by "Object Request Broker" (ORB) in the CORBA specification.

The term "software bus" refers to the entity that allows objects to send and receive requests in a distributed environment. Distributed applications are installed on information processing units communicating with each other on the one hand by the physical medium to which the information processing units forming the network are connected, and on the other hand by the lower layers of the protocol communication, that is to say for example the IP (Internet Protocol) and TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) layers.

The information processing units are, for example, automatic exchanges of a telecommunication network or even a set of workstations connected to one or more printers.

In such a network, the objects wherever they are on the network provide services to client objects making requests on the network for these services. The role of the software bus (ORB) is to deliver the requests to the concerned server objects and to return the output values ​​to the client objects. This is done transparently for the client object. This one does not know where the objects reside on the network, how they are carried out, how they are memorized, nor how they are carried out. To send a request, the client object only needs the object reference.

In accordance with the CORBA specification, each distributed object includes a communication interface written in IDL (Interface Definition Language). This IDL interface allows you to statically define the interfaces of objects allowing the porting of objects between different models of objects.

After compilation of the IDL interface, the stub or strain obtained is linked to the achievement of the object.

Thus, the client object can interact with a remote server object simply by invoking the IDL functions as a local object without being concerned with the situation of the server object on the network. To this end, the client object can use the format of the communication interface of the server object to address its request.

In such networks, a large amount of data is transmitted directly synchronously from a sending object to a receiving object, both connected to the same software bus.

However, a lot of data goes through notification servers. These notification servers receive notifications of sending objects registered as such with the notification service. Receiving objects, registered as receiving objects and having indicated one or more predetermined test criteria in order to filter the notifications addressed to them based on the data they contain, receive notifications from the notification service which meet the predetermined test criteria.

Filtering methods are particularly useful in order to reduce the amount of data transmitted over the network and to adapt the notification service to the needs of each receiving object.

These filters can be dynamically declared and modified.

The data transmitted by the sending objects in the form of notifications are structured according to fields or attributes containing values ​​specific to each sending object and concerning it.

Filtering consists of the identification of certain fields in the data structure and the implementation of a comparison on the values ​​of these fields according to the description of the filter.

Only notifications whose extracted values ​​meet the predetermined test criteria are transmitted to the receiving object.

In such types of network, the filtering methods implemented use simple structure tests which do not allow effective filtering. In particular, these filters do not provide efficient filtering and do not implement sufficiently elaborate test criteria. Also, they are not able to actually limit the traffic to the receiving objects so that they receive only the data they need.

Under these conditions, the network carries a large amount of data of little interest, unnecessarily increasing network traffic.

The object of the invention is to provide a solution to this problem and in particular to propose a transmission method and a network implementing such a method in which efficient filtering effectively reduces the number of communications while allowing the requirements to be satisfied. network operation.

To this end, the subject of the invention is a method of transmitting a notification in a network for processing information with applications distributed from a transmitter to at least one receiver via a notification service with which is registers the or each receiver in order to receive notifications meeting a predetermined test criterion, in which:<ul id="ul0001" list-style="dash" compact="compact"><li>the sender sends a notification to the notification service comprising a set of at least two values ​​relating to said sender;</li><li>the notification service checks, for each registered receiver, whether said set of values ​​satisfies said predetermined test criterion associated with said receiver; and</li><li>the notification service sends said notification concerning said transmitter to said receiver if the predetermined test criterion is satisfied;</li></ul> characterized in that said predetermined test criterion includes a comparison between them of at least two values ​​relating to said emitting object.

According to particular modes of implementation, the method can include one or more of the following characteristics:<ul id="ul0002" list-style="dash" compact="compact"><li>the network comprises several transmitters, each transmitter addresses to the other transmitters at least one particular value representative of information concerning it, said set of notification values ​​sent by said transmitter to the notification service comprises a value which is a function of at least one of said particular values ​​received by said transmitter, and said comparison is made between said value which is a function of at least one of said particular values ​​and a value relating to said transmitter;</li><li>the or each transmitter is intended for monitoring the operation of a resource, and the values ​​to which the comparison relates are information representative of the operating state of said associated resource; and</li><li>said predetermined test criterion is defined by said receiver when registering with the notification service.</li></ul>

The invention further relates to an information processing network with distributed applications comprising at least one transmitter, at least one receiver, and a notification service with which the or each receiver is registered in order to receive notifications satisfying a predetermined test criteria, in which:<ul id="ul0003" list-style="dash" compact="compact"><li>the or each transmitter comprises means for sending to the notification service a notification comprising a set of at least two values ​​relating to said transmitter;</li><li>the notification service includes means for verifying, for each registered receiver, whether said set of values ​​satisfies said predetermined test criterion associated with said receiver; and</li><li>the notification service includes means for sending said notification concerning said transmitter to said receiver if the predetermined test criterion is satisfied;</li></ul> characterized in that said predetermined test criterion comprises a comparison between them of at least two values ​​relating to said transmitter.

According to particular embodiments, the network can include one or more of the following characteristics:<ul id="ul0004" list-style="dash" compact="compact"><li>it comprises several transmitters, each transmitter comprises means for sending to the other transmitters at least one particular value representative of information relating to it, said set of values ​​of the notification sent by said transmitter to the notification service comprises a value which is a function of '' at least one of said particular values ​​received by said transmitter, and said predetermined test criterion comprises the comparison between said value which is a function of at least one of said particular values ​​and a value relating to said transmitter;</li><li>the or each transmitter is suitable for monitoring the operation of a resource, and the values ​​to which the comparison relates are information representative of the operating state of said associated resource;</li><li>said receiver comprises means for defining said predetermined test criterion when registering with the notification service; and</li><li>at least one of the transmitters and receivers is an object.</li></ul>

The subject of the invention is also a communication unit of a network for processing information with distributed applications, which network comprises at least one transmitter and at least one receiver, the communication unit comprising a notification service with which is register the or each receiver to receive notifications meeting a predetermined test criterion, the or each transmitter comprising means for sending a notification to the notification service comprising a set of at least two values ​​relating to said transmitter, the notification service comprising means for checking, for each registered receiver, whether said set of values ​​satisfies said predetermined test criterion associated with said receiver, and the notification service comprising means for sending said notification concerning said transmitter to said receiver if the predetermined test criterion is satisfied, characterized in that said predetermined test criterion comprises a comparison between them of at least two values ​​relating to said transmitter.

The invention will be better understood on reading the description which follows, given solely by way of example and made with reference to the single figure which is a schematic view of a network of objects distributed according to the invention implementing a notification service.

In the description which follows, it is assumed that each object conforms to the CORBA specification and that, consequently, the objects can communicate with each other simply by addressing requests regardless of their situation on the network.

In the single figure are represented five transmitting objects designated by the references 10A, 10B, 10C, 10D and 10E. Each of these objects is assigned to monitoring the operation of a separate information processing unit, for example a PABX of a telecommunications network. The objects are suitable for evaluating the operating state of any type of network component, whether it be a software or hardware resource. These objects are distributed over the network and are linked by a software bus 11.

A notification service, bearing the reference 12, is connected to the software bus and ensures the asynchronous communication of information between the objects of the network.

Receiver objects, designated by the references 14A, 14B, are connected to the software bus 11. These objects are for example assigned to services for monitoring the operation of the telecommunications network and are in particular intended for detecting faults on the network and for informing an operator for intervention.

The notifications service 12 is formed by a set of objects connected on the software bus 11. In particular, it comprises a notification server administrator 16 and a notification channel 18 intended for sending notifications received from the one of the sending objects to one or more of the receiving objects, when the data of the received notification satisfy a predetermined test criterion formulated by the receiving object when registering with the notification service.

Each of the emitting objects 10A to 10E is registered with the notification server administrator 16 via an IDL registration interface 20. This registration is carried out by sending a request from the object. transmitter to the interface 20. Such a request is shown diagrammatically for the object 10A by the arrow 21. Each sending object 10A to 10E receives, during its registration, the reference and possibly the format of the communication interface IDL 22 of the notification channel 18. This reference then allows it to transmit to the notification service 12 notifications comprising values ​​concerning him. These notifications form alarms and are representative of the operating state of the information processing unit with which the sending object is associated.

The structure of an alarm, written in IDL, is for example of the form;<img file="EP0875828A1_D0001.tif" /> or :<ul id="ul0005" list-style="none" compact="compact"><li>"name" is the name of the sending object,</li><li>"severity" is the level, evaluated on a scale of 1 to 5, of the severity of the failure encountered on the information processing unit associated with the corresponding sending object,</li><li>"highestseverity" is the highest level of gravity encountered among all the emitting objects 10A to 10E, and</li><li>"alarm_reason" is a failure identifier.</li></ul>

The sending object assigns a value to each of the fields according to the operating state of the associated unit.

In order to assign a value to the "highestseverity" field, the objects 10A to 10E are adapted to communicate with each other so that, when one of the objects sends an alarm indicating a failure of a determined level on the processing unit d 'associated information, all the other objects receive this alarm via their IDL interface.

Furthermore, the receiving objects 14A, 14B are registered with the notification service 12 in order to receive the notifications of interest to them. To this end, each receiving object 14A, 14B is registered with an interface IDL for registration 24 of the administrator of the notification server 16. This interface is suitable for the registration of objects connected to the software bus so that these they receive notifications from the notification service for which they are registered.

Registration is done in particular by providing the notification server administrator 16 with the reference of the registered receiving object.

The notification channel 18, forming a CORBA object, is controlled by the notification server administrator 16. In particular, the notification server administrator 16 registers the receiving objects with the notification channel 18 by providing to this one their reference.

When registering with the notification service, each receiver also defines a filter ensuring the selection of notifications to be sent to it according to the validation of a predetermined test criterion contained in the filter.

Depending on the filter defined by each receiving object, the notification server administrator 16 controls the configuration of the notification channel 18 for the implementation of filters 28A, 28B specific, respectively, to the receiving objects 14A and 14B. The notification channel 18 thus knows, for each receiving object 14A, 14B, the reference of the object and the test criterion specific to this object.

According to the invention, the predetermined test criterion consists in the comparison of two values ​​originating from the same transmitting object and representative of information concerning it.

For example, filtering is done by comparing the levels of the "severity" and "highestseverity" fields so that only the alarms with the highest level of all the alarms present on the network are transmitted to the receiving objects that have imposed such filtering.

For this purpose, the structure of the filter written in IDL according to the CORBA specification is of the following form:<img file="EP0875828A1_D0002.tif" /><img file="EP0875828A1_D0003.tif" /> in which :<ul id="ul0006" list-style="dash" compact="compact"><li>"Attributeld" is the identifier of an attribute,</li><li>"Filterltem" is a basic test which, by association with other basic tests, thanks to logical operators such as AND, OR, NOT, allows the writing of complex tests.</li></ul> "Filterltem" is determined by "FilterltemType" which gives the type of test, in this case, among the following tests: equality (equality), greater or equal (greater-OrEqual), less than or equal (lessOrEqual).

The arguments for the test are stored in "AttributeType".

According to the invention, two different structures are envisaged for the arguments of the test. On the one hand, it is "AttributeValueType" which corresponds to the test carried out by comparison between a value of a field of the data structure and a predetermined reference value, and on the other hand "TwoAttributesType" which corresponds to the test carried out by comparison between two field values ​​of the same data structure and relating to the same sending object.

For the drafting of the filter, these two different structures are designated more explicitly, respectively by:    "AttributeWithValue" and "AttributeWithOtherAttribute".

With such a filter structure, the filtering of notifications according to the test criterion according to which the severity level of the failure of the information processing unit ("severity") is greater than or equal to the highest level encountered on the network ("hi ghestseverity") is written in the form:    greaterOrEqual (AttributeType (AttributeWithOhterAttribute) {severity, highestseverity})

It is understood that with such a filtering system, the possibility of selecting the notifications to be sent to the receiving objects is increased. In particular, the filtering criteria can change as a function of time and the state of the network.

On the contrary, with the current filters implementing only a comparison of an attribute value with a reference value, such changes in the filtering criteria are impossible.

Although the description which is given here implements transmitter and receiver objects, these can be conventional software components and in particular conventional procedural programs.