Discovering transactions silently propagated off-machine

In a distributed computing environment, including a plurality of machines distributed in the environment, including local machines that include a local transaction manager, the local transaction manager configured to manage transactions locally on the local machine and a distributed transaction manager configured to manage transactions across machines, a method of distributed transaction management, the method comprising:

• registering a local transaction manager on a local machine with a distributed transaction manager on the local machine;
• receiving at the local transaction manager a token template, wherein the token template specifies that the distributed transaction manager is the originator of the token template;
• creating a token for a transaction managed by the local transaction manager from the token template;
• sending the token from the local machine to another machine
• receiving the token at the distributed transaction manager from the other machine;
• and
• identifying that the local transaction manager is managing a transaction associated with the token, wherein identifying that the local transaction manager is managing a transaction associated with the token comprises at least one of consulting a repository cataloging transaction managers participating in transactions, polling transaction managers, recursively discovering transaction managers associated with the transaction, receiving the token via a custom protocol that can be used to identify transaction managers participating in the transaction, or consulting information in the token.

In a distributed computing environment, including a plurality of machines distributed in the environment, including local machines that include a local transaction manager, the local transaction manager configured to manage transactions locally on the local machine and a distributed transaction manager configured to manage transactions across machines, a system for managing transactions, the system comprising:

• one or more distributed transaction managers at a local machine, the one or more distributed transaction managers configured to manage transactions off of the local machine;
• one or more local transaction managers at the local machine configured to manage transactions on the local machine, wherein the local transaction manager is configured to register with the distributed transaction manager, and the distributed transaction manager is configured to provide the local transaction manager with a token template identifying the distributed transaction manager as the source of any tokens created using the token template;
• and
• a repository referenceable by the distributed transaction manager, the repository coordinating transaction managers with transactions, such that the distributed transaction manager can identify a local transaction manager associated with a token created from the token template, when the distributed transaction receives a token created from the token template.