US 2017/0286140 A1Published application

Java-based offload service in a mainframe environment

AssigneeCA, Inc.

InventorsJanet Pauline Eva Lowry, Frederic Armand Honore Duminy, Howard Israel Nayberg, Christopher Jamie Varughese

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Abstract

A JVM can be used as a conduit for transferring work items and results for work items between different processes/processors for a mainframe environment. The JVM provides infrastructure that allows a Java program running within the JVM to invoke native methods (e.g., assembly code methods) with a Java Native Interface (JNI). The Java program invokes a native method with the JNI to begin monitoring for work items and passes detected work items for processing to an appropriate resource, which was likely previously established. To pass a work item to a Java program, a native program code invokes Java code via the JNI that inserts a work item into the JVM address space (e.g., put the work item into a byte buffer). When the Java program obtains a work item result, the Java program invokes the native method via the JNI that writes a work item result to common storage.

Claims20

Dependent claims

A method comprising:

detecting, by an invoked first native program code previously invoked via an interface between the first native program code and a first process executing in a Java virtual machine, a computing task in common storage of a mainframe environment, wherein the computing task is associated with a first address space;
retrieving, by the invoked first native program code, the computing task from the common storage into a second address space of the mainframe environment, wherein the Java virtual machine executes within the second address space;
passing the computing task from the invoked first native program code to the first process via a buffer of the Java virtual machine;
communicating, by the first process, the computing task to a resource that will process the computing task;
in response to receipt of a result for the computing task, the first process invoking a second native program code via the interface to return the result to the first address space associated with the computing task;
and
in response to invocation of the second native program code, the invoked second native program code writing the result to the common storage.

4 more elements

A mainframe comprising:

a plurality of processors;
common storage;
and
a machine readable medium comprising,
a first native program code to executable by at least one of the plurality of processors to cause the mainframe to,
detect a computing task written to a region of the common storage allocated for computing tasks to be offloaded via a Java virtual machine,
retrieve the computing task into a first address space of the mainframe and that is associated with the Java virtual machine;
a second native program code executable by at least one of the plurality of processors to cause the mainframe to,
return a result of a computing task from the first address space to the region of the common storage;
Java program code executable within the Java virtual machine to cause the mainframe to,
invoke the first native program code via a native interface to retrieve a computing task pending in the region of the common storage;
offload a computing task provided by an invocation of the first native program code to a resource for processing;
and
invoke the second native program code via the native interface in response to receipt of a result for an offloaded computing task.

11 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.