Method and apparatus for notification transmission comprising a notification service

The present invention relates to a method for transmitting a communication in an information processing network distributed applications. It further relates to a network implementing the method.

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

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

The term "software bus" means 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 by one hand, the physical medium on which are connected to information processing units forming the network, and secondly by the lower protocol layers communication, that is to say for example the IP layer (Internet Protocol) and TCP (Transmission Control Protocol).

The information processing units are, for example switches of a telecommunications network or a set of workstations connected to one or more printers.

In such a network, objects anywhere on the network provide services to clients on the network objects emitting requests for these services. The role of software bus (ORB) is issuing requests to the relevant server objects and return the output values ​​to the client objects. This is done transparently to the client object. This one does not know where the objects reside on the network, how they are made, how they are stored or how they are run. The client object does not need to make a request that the reference object.

According to the specification CORBA, distributed each object has a communication interface written in IDL (Interface Definition Language). This IDL interface allows statically define the interfaces objects for porting objects between different models of objects.

After compiling the IDL interface, heel or strain obtained is linked to the achievement of the object.

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

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

However, many data passes through notifications servers. These servers receive notifications of issuers objects notifications registered as such with the notification service. Receiver objects enrolled as objects and receivers who indicated one or more predetermined test criteria to perform filtering notifications they receive from the data they contain, receive notification service notifications that meet the criteria of predetermined tests.

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

These filters can be declared dynamically and modified.

Data transmitted by the transmitters objects as notifications are structured according to the fields or attributes with specific values ​​to each object and transmitter on it.

The filtering consists in the identification of certain fields in the data structure and the implementation of a comparison of the values ​​of these fields as described in the filter.

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

In these types of network filtering methods implemented using simple structure of the tests do not allow effective filtering. In particular, these filters do not provide an efficient filtering and do not implement sufficiently developed test criteria. Also, they are not able to really limit the traffic to receiver objects so that they receive only the data being necessary for them.

Under these conditions, the vehicle network a large number of data of little value, unnecessarily increasing network traffic.

The European patent application published under number <patcit id="pcit0001" dnum="EP0759591A"><text>EP 0759591 A</text></patcit> also discloses a similar transmission process.

The invention aims to provide a solution to this problem and in particular to propose a transmission method and a network implementing such a process wherein an effective filter effectively reduces the number of communications while allowing to satisfy the imperatives network operation.

To this end, the invention relates to a transmission of a notification method in an information processing applications of distributed network from a transmitter to at least one receiver via a notification from which service is registered with the or each receiver to perform filter notifications according to a predetermined test criterion, said distributed applications to information processing network including other transmitters, the transmitter being associated with a data processing unit and other emitters being respectively associated with other information processing units, the transmitter and the other transmitters being adapted to communicate with each other at least one alarm indicating a failure of a given level on the information processing unit or one of the other information processing units, the method being characterized in that:<ul><li>the sender address notification service notification comprising a set of two values, the set of values ​​including a first value indicating a severity level encountered a failure on the information processing unit, the all values ​​also including a second value indicating the highest level of severity of a failure of a certain level encountered among the information processing unit or other information processing units;</li><li>the notification service checks, for each registered receiver, if said set of values ​​fulfills said predetermined test criterion associated with said receiver, said predetermined test criteria involving a comparison of the first value and second value to determine if the first value indicates a severity level of a higher failure that the severity level indicated by the second value; and</li><li>the service notifications such notice concerning the said transmitter to said receiver if the predetermined test criterion is satisfied, said notification service not giving such notice concerning the said transmitter to said receiver if the predetermined test criterion is not satisfied.</li></ul>

According to particular modes of implementation, the method may include the feature that the predetermined test criterion is defined by said receiver during registration to the notification service.

The invention further relates to an information processing applications of distributed network comprising at least one transmitter and other transmitters, the transmitter being associated with an information processing unit and other transmitters being associated with respectively other information processing units, transmitter and other transmitters being adapted to communicate with each other at least one alarm indicating a failure of a given level on the information processing unit or one of the other units an information processing, said network also having at least one receiver, and a notifications from which service is registered with the or each receiver to perform filter notifications satisfying a predetermined test criteria, wherein:<ul><li>the transmitter includes means for addressing the notification service notification comprising a set of two values, the set of values ​​including a first value indicating a severity level encountered a failure on the processing unit information, the set of values ​​also includes a second value indicating the highest level of severity of a failure of a certain level encountered among the information processing unit or other information processing units;</li><li>the notification service includes means for checking for each registered receiver, if said set of values ​​fulfills said predetermined test criterion associated with said receiver, said predetermined test criteria involving a comparison of the first value and second value to determine whether the first value indicates a higher level of seriousness of a failure that the severity level indicated by the second value; and</li><li>the notification service includes means for sending the said notification on the said transmitter to said receiver if the predetermined test criterion is met, the said notification said transmitter is not addressed to said receiver if the predetermined test criterion is not satisfied.</li></ul>

According to particular embodiments, the network may comprise one or more of the following characteristics:<ul><li>said receiver comprises means for defining said predetermined test criterion when registering with the notification service;</li><li>the transmitter or other emitters or at least the receivers are objects;</li></ul> The invention also relates to a unit of a processing network information to distributed applications, which network comprises a transmitter and other transmitters and at least one receiver, the transmitter being associated with a processing unit information and other issuers are respectively associated with other information processing units, transmitter and other transmitters being adapted to communicate with each other at least one alarm indicating a failure of a given level on the treatment unit information or one of the other information processing units, the communication unit comprising a notification from which service is registered with the or each receiver in order to perform a filtering of notifications when satisfying a predetermined test criterion, the communication unit being characterized in that the transmitter comprises means for addressing the notification service notification comprising an assembly of at least two values, the set of values ​​comprising a first value indicating a severity of failure encountered on the information processing unit, all values ​​also including a second value indicating the highest level of severity of a failure of a certain level encountered among the information processing unit or the other information processing units, the notification service including means for checking for each registered receiver, if said set of values ​​fulfills said predetermined test criterion associated with said receiver, said predetermined test criteria involving a comparison of the first value and the second value to determine whether the first value indicates a higher level of severity of a failure that the severity level indicated by the second value, and the notification service includes means for addressing the said notification said transmitter audit receiver if the predetermined test criterion is met, the said notification said transmitter is not addressed to said receiver if the predetermined test criterion is not satisfied.

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

In the following description assumes that each object meets the CORBA specification and therefore, objects can communicate with each other simply by addressing queries regardless of their location on the network.

On the single figure shows five issuers objects designated by references 10A, 10B, 10C, 10D and 10E. Each of these objects is allocated to monitoring the operation of a processing unit separate information, for example a switch of a telecommunications network. The objects are arranged to evaluate the operating status of any network component whether a software or hardware resource. These objects are distributed over the network and are connected by a software bus 11.

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

Receiver objects, designated by references 14A, 14B are connected to the bus 11. These software objects are for example allocated to telecommunication network operations and monitoring services are particularly intended for the detection of faults in the network and information of an operator for intervention.

The notification service 12 is formed of a set of objects connected to the software bus 11. Specifically, it includes a notification server administrator 16 and 18 a notification channel for the transmission of notifications received from the a sender objects to one or more receiver objects when the data received notification satisfy a predetermined test test formulated by the receiving object during registration to the service notifications.

Each object emitters 10A to 10E is registered with the notification server administrator 16 via a recording IDL interface 20. This registration is done by sending a request from the object transmitter to the interface 20. such a request is represented for the object 10A by arrow 21. Each object transmitter 10A to 10E receives at registration, reference and possibly the format of the communication interface IDL 22 notification channel 18. This reference then allows it to transmit to the notification service 12 notifications with values ​​for. These notifications form of alarms and are representative of the operating state of the information processing unit which is associated with the sender object.

The structure of an alarm, written in IDL, is for example of the form:<pre listing-type="program-listing"> {struc string name; shorts severity; highestseverity shorts; alarm_reason string; };</pre>or:<ul><li>"Name" is the name of the sender object,</li><li>"Severity" is the level, measured on a scale of 1 to 5, the severity of the fault encountered on the information processing unit associated with the object corresponding transmitter,</li><li>"Highestseverity" is the highest severity level meeting among all objects transmitters 10A to 10E, and</li><li>"Alarm_reason" is an identifier of the failure.</li></ul>

The sender object assigns a value to each field depending on the operating state of the associated unit.

To assign a value to "highestseverity" field 10A to 10E objects are adapted to communicate with each other so that when one object sends an alarm indicating a failure of a given level on the processing unit 'associated information, all of the other objects is addressed to this alarm through its IDL interface.

Furthermore, the receiver objects 14A, 14B are registered with the service notifications 12 to receive the notifications interesting. To this end, each receiver object 14A, 14B is registered with a registration IDL interface 24 of the notification server administrator 16. This interface is adapted to the registration of objects related to the software buses that are free will receive notifications from the notification service for which they are enrolled.

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

The notification channel 18, forming a CORBA object, is controlled by the notification server administrator 16. In particular, the notification server administrator 16 ensures registration of the receiver objects with the notification channel 18 by providing thereof their reference.

When registering with the notification service, each receiver also defines a filter that selects notifications to be sent to him according to the validation of a predetermined test criterion in the filter.

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

According to the invention, the predetermined test criterion consists of comparing two values ​​from one issuer representative object and information about it.

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

To this end, the filter structure written in IDL following the CORBA specification has the following form:<pre listing-type="program-listing"> typedef string Attributeld; struct {AttributeValueType Attributeld attributeld; Any attributeValue; }; struct {TwoAttributesType Attributeld attributeld1; Attributeld attributeld2; }; enum {TestType AttributeWithValue, AttributeWithOtherAttribute}; AttributeType union switch (TestType) { AttributeWithValue box: AttributeValueType single; AttributeWithOtherAttribute box: multi TwoAttributesType; }; enum {FilterltemType equalityChoice, greaterOrEqualChoice, lessOrEqualChoice, }; Filterltem union switch (FilterltemType) { equalityChoice box: AttributeType equality; greaterOrEqualChoice box: AttributeType greaterOrEqual; lessOrEqualChoice box: Attribute Type lessOrEqual; };</pre>in which :<ul><li>"Attributeld" is an attribute indentificateur,</li><li>"Filterltem" is a basic test which, together with other basic tests, with logical operators such as AND, OR, NOT, used to write complex tests.</li></ul>"Filterltem" is determined by "FilterltemType" gives the type of test, in this case, from the following tests: equality (equality) or greater (greater-OrEqual) or less (lessOrEqual).

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

According to the invention, two different structures are considered for the test case. This is on the one hand, of "AttributeValueType" which corresponds to the test carried out by comparing a value of a field of the data structure and a predetermined reference value, and secondly to "TwoAttributesType" matching the test by comparing two values ​​of fields in the same data structure and on the same subject issuer.

In drafting the filter, these two different structures are referred more explicitly, respectively:<ul><li>"AttributeWithValue" and "AttributeWithOtherAttribute".</li></ul>

With such a filter structure, filtering of notifications following the test criterion that the severity of the failure of the processing unit information ( "severity") is greater than or equal to the highest level met on the network ( "highestseverity") is written in the form:<ul><li>greaterOrEqual (AttributeType (AttributeWithOhterAttribute) {severity, highestseverity})</li></ul>

It will be understood that with such a filtering system, the possibility of selection of the notifications to be sent to receiver objects is increased. In particular, the filter criteria can evolve over time and the network status.

On the contrary, with the current filters employing only a comparison of an attribute value to a reference value, such changing filtering criteria are impossible.

Although the description given here implement transmitter and receiver objects, these may be conventional software including conventional procedural programming components.