Session management within a multi-tiered enterprise network

#1. Field of the Invention

#This invention relates generally to the field of data processing systems. More particularly, the invention relates to a system and method for managing session data within an enterprise network.

#2. Description of the Related Art

#A better understanding of the present invention can be obtained from the following detailed description in conjunction with the following drawings, in which:

#FIG. 1a illustrates a traditional two-tier client-server architecture.

#FIG. 1b illustrates a prior art multi-tier client-server architecture.

#Described below is a system and method for managing session data within a multi-tiered enterprise network. Throughout the description, for the purposes of explanation, numerous specific details are set forth in order to provide a thorough understanding of the present invention. It will be apparent, however, to one skilled in the art that the present invention may be practiced without some of these specific details. In other instances, well-known structures and devices are shown in block diagram form to avoid obscuring the underlying principles of the present invention.

#A system architecture according to one embodiment of the invention is illustrated in FIG. 3. The architecture includes a plurality of application server instances 301 and 302. The application server instances 301 and 302 each include a group of worker nodes 212-314 and 315-316, respectively, and a request handler 311 and 312, respectively. The application server instances 301, 302 communicate through a central services instance 300 using message passing. In one embodiment, the central services instance 300 includes a locking service and a messaging service (described below). The combination of all of the application server instances 301 and 302 and the central services instance 300 is referred to herein as a “cluster.” Although the following description will focus solely on instance 301 for the purpose of explanation, the same principles apply to other instances within the cluster.

#The worker nodes 312-314 within instance 301 provide the business and/or presentation logic for the network applications supported by the system. Each of the worker nodes 312-314 within a particular instance may be configured with a redundant set of application logic and associated data, represented as virtual machines 321-323 in FIG. 3. In one embodiment, the request handler 311 distributes service requests from clients to one or more of the worker nodes 312-314 based on the load on each of the servers. For example, in one embodiment, the request handler maintains separate queues for each of the 312-314 in shared memory 340. The request handler 311 fills the queues with client requests and the worker nodes 312-314 consume the requests from each of their respective queues.