Object load balancing

In a computer network, an object creation architecture for balancing a load of object creation requests among a plurality of server computers, the architecture comprising:

• a routing table comprising a plurality of stored object class identifiers, wherein at least one stored object class identifier is associated with a server computer;
• at a router computer, a load balancing service responsive to a supplied object class identifier in an object creation request from a client program on a client computer and operative to select a server associated with the supplied object class identifier in the routing table, the load balancing service further operative to route the object creation request to an object creation service at the selected server computer;
• at the selected server computer, an object creation service responsive to the object creation request from the load balancing service and operative to create a server object of an object class associated with the supplied identifier and further operative to assemble a stub with the server object, the stub operative to monitor calls to the server object to observe and store in a metric data store at the selected server computer a performance value, the performance value indicative of performance at the selected server computer according to a processing metric;
• at the router computer, a metric collector operative to retrieve the observed performance value from the metric data store and integrate the performance value into a collective metric data store, wherein the collective metric data store comprises metric data from plural server computers;
• and
• a load balancing engine at the router computer operative to consult the collective metric data store and associate in the routing table an object class identifier with a server having a performance value determined superior according to the processing metric by the load balancing engine.

In a computer network comprising a router computer, a plurality of server computers and a plurality of client computers, an architecture for balancing a load of computer object processing among the server computers, the architecture comprising:

• a routing table at the router computer associating object classes with server computers;
• a monitor at a server computer, the monitor operative to intercept a reference to an instantiated first software object of a monitored object class to transparently conduct and record a processing metric observation, the monitor further operative to send a processing metric value based on the processing metric observation and indicative of performance at the server computer;
• a load balancing service at the router computer, the load balancing service operative to receive a client computer request to create a second object of the monitored object class and route the request to a selected server associated with the monitored object class in the routing table, the load balancing service responsive to the processing metric value sent by the monitor to associate a server having a favorable processing metric value with the monitored object class in the routing table;
• and
• an object creation service at the selected server operative to receive the request from the load balancing service and create an object of the monitored object class.

In a computer network having a router computer and a plurality of server computers in a target group, a method for balancing object processing among the plurality of server computers, the method comprising:

• conducting plural processing performance metric observations associated with a software object class at a server computer;
• periodically blending the observations into a representative value indicative of performance at the server computer;
• periodically transferring the representative value from the server computer to a router computer to provide plural successive representative values to the router computer, wherein transferring is sufficiently delayed to facilitate blending a number of observations to dampen variance in the successive representative values;
• receiving at a router computer the plural representative values from the server computer and plural representative values from at least one other server computer in the target group;
• and
• routing resource requests received by the router computer to a server computer in the target group having a representative value indicative of more favorable performance than another server computer in the target group.

In a computer network comprising a client computer and a server computer, a computer implemented method for accommodating object transparent rebalance messages from the server computer to the client computer, the method comprising:

• generating a proxy at the client computer for receiving and forwarding calls from a client program to a software object;
• generating a stub at the server computer for receiving and forwarding calls from the proxy to the software object;
• establishing a connection between the proxy and the stub;
• providing the proxy with rebalance message receptive code run by the proxy transparently to the server object and the client program;
• providing the stub with rebalance message generating code run by the stub transparently to the server object and the client program;
• when the stub is referenced, determining in the rebalance message generating code whether performance at the server computer is below an acceptable minimum;
• and
• if performance at the server computer is below the acceptable minimum, sending a rebalance message from the rebalance message generating code to the rebalance message receptive code.

A load balancing service for balancing object processing among a plurality of server computers by accommodating object creation requests from a plurality of client programs executing on a plurality of client computers, the load balancing service comprising:

• at a client computer, a configuration database for associating object classes with remote computers, at least one object class in the configuration database associated with a router computer;
• at the client computer, an operating system service operative to receive an object creation request comprising an object class, the operating system service further operative to direct the object creation request to a computer associated with the object class in the configuration database;
• at the router computer, a routing table for associating an object class with a server computer;
• at the router computer, a routing service operative to receive the object creation request from the client computer and route the request to a selected server computer associated with the request's object class in the routing table;
• at the selected server computer, a class instance creator operative to receive the object creation request and create an object of the request's object class;
• an operating system service for providing a wrapper around the object, the wrapper comprising a method invocation service, the method invocation service operative to receive invocations of a method of the object from a client program and forward the invocation to the object, the method invocation service further operative to observe execution of the method by the object to produce an object class method performance observation, the object class method performance observation associated with the object class of the object and indicative of the method's performance according to a processing metric;
• an observation collection service at the router computer operative to collect and store the object class method performance observation and at least one other object class method performance observation in a collective observation store from a target group, the target group comprising the selected server computer and other plural server computers;
• and
• a load balancing engine at the router computer operative to evaluate the object class method performance observations from the target group to associate a favorable server computer in the target group with a selected object class in the routing table, the evaluated observations associated with the selected object class in the collective observation store, the favorable server computer having a more favorable object class method performance observation than another server in the target group according to the processing metric.

A computer-readable medium having stored thereon a data structure for routing object creation requests from a remote client computer, the data structure comprising:

• identifiers indicative of an object class;
• and
• a server identifier associated in the data structure with a selected one of the identifiers indicative of an object class, the server identifier indicative of a server computer providing to a router computer favorable processor metric observations for processing objects of the object class indicated by the selected one of the identifiers indicative of an object class;
• wherein the data structure is an accelerated routing table comprising a lookup table associating a server identifier with a hash function of an identifier indicative of an object class.