Patent Application
20110153717
This invention is related generally to the fields of networking, computing, and databases, and specifically to the distribution of data or operation requests to backend servers based on languages and character sets. The disclosure uses LDAP (Lightweight Data Access Protocol) as an example. However, the principles of the specification can be extended to other data structures and protocols. The disclosed, illustrative embodiment is designed to execute on a computer such as a desktop, a workstation, a laptop or general-purpose mainframe, although alternative embodiments such as special-purpose electronics are possible. LDAP is an open industry standard defining a method for accessing and updating information in a directory. A directory server is an implementation of the LDAP protocol. It is basically a read-centric repository, wherein users can store any kind of data such as names and addresses, applications, files, printers, network resources etc. Data is stored in the directory servers in the form of tree entries.
In one embodiment of the invention, a computer program product controls a proxy server to distribute client messages to backend servers based on language. The computer program product comprises program code for determining from an incoming client message what language to use. This embodiment also contains program code for determining a backend server that supports the language; and program code for transmitting the client message to the backend server that supports the language.
A second embodiment concerns a method for controlling a proxy server to distribute client messages to backend servers based on language. The method determines from an incoming client message what language to use. The method determines a backend server that supports the language and transmits the client message to that backend server.
In a third embodiment, a proxy server distributes client messages to backend servers based on language. The proxy server contains program code configured to determine from an incoming client message what language to use; program code configured to determine a backend server that supports the language; and program code configured to transmit the client message to the backend server that supports the language.
A fourth embodiment is a system comprising client workstations, a proxy server and a plurality of backend servers. The proxy server is configured to receive a client request message containing an identification of a desired language for the operation and also for the response to the client request message. The proxy server transmits the client request to a backend server based on the desired language. Additional embodiments of the invention provide the capabilities to distribute messages to backend servers based on desired character sets, to add words in different languages to appropriate ones of the backend servers and to translate words from one language to another.
In the drawings,
As will be appreciated by one skilled in the art, the present invention may be embodied as a method, system, or computer program product. Accordingly, the present invention may take the form of an entirely hardware embodiment, an entirely software embodiment (including firmware, resident software, micro-code, etc.) or an embodiment combining software and hardware aspects that may all generally be referred to herein as a “circuit,” “module” or “system.” Furthermore, the present invention may take the form of a computer program product on a computer-usable storage medium having computer-usable program code embodied in the medium.
Any suitable computer usable or computer readable medium may be utilized. The computer-usable or computer-readable medium may be, for example but not limited to, an electronic, magnetic, optical, electromagnetic, infrared, or semiconductor system, apparatus, device, or propagation medium. More specific examples (a non-exhaustive list) of the computer-readable medium would include the following: an electrical connection having one or more wires, a portable computer diskette, a hard disk, a random access memory (RAM), a read-only memory (ROM), an erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM or Flash memory), an optical fiber, a portable compact disc read-only memory (CD-ROM), an optical storage device, a transmission media such as those supporting the Internet or an intranet, or a magnetic storage device. Note that the computer-usable or computer-readable medium could even be paper or another suitable medium upon which the program is printed, as the program can be electronically captured, via, for instance, optical scanning of the paper or other medium, then compiled, interpreted, or otherwise processed in a suitable manner, if necessary, and then stored in a computer memory. In the context of this document, a computer-usable or computer-readable medium may be any medium that can contain, store, communicate, propagate, or transport the program for use by or in connection with the instruction execution system, apparatus, or device. The computer-usable medium may include a propagated data signal with the computer-usable program code embodied therewith, either in baseband or as part of a carrier wave. The computer usable program code may be transmitted using any appropriate medium, including but not limited to the Internet, wireline, optical fiber cable, RF, etc.
Computer program code for carrying out operations of the present invention may be written in an object oriented programming language such as Java, Smalltalk, C++ or the like. However, the computer program code for carrying out operations of the present invention may also be written in conventional procedural programming languages, such as the “C” programming language or similar programming languages. The program code may execute entirely on the designer's computer, partly on the designer's computer, as a stand-alone software package, partly on the designer's computer and partly on a remote computer or entirely on the remote computer or server. In the latter scenario, the remote computer may be connected to the designer's computer through a local area network (LAN) or a wide area network (WAN), or the connection may be made to an external computer (for example, through the Internet using an Internet Service Provider).
The present invention is described below with reference to flowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams of methods, apparatus (systems) and computer program products according to embodiments of the invention. It will be understood that each block of the flowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams, and combinations of blocks in the flowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams, can be implemented by computer program instructions. These computer program instructions may be provided to a processor of a general purpose computer, special purpose computer, or other programmable data processing apparatus to produce a machine, such that the instructions, which execute via the processor of the computer or other programmable data processing apparatus, create means for implementing the functions/acts specified in the flowchart and/or block diagram block or blocks.
These computer program instructions may also be stored in a computer-readable memory that can direct a computer or other programmable data processing apparatus to function in a particular manner, such that the instructions stored in the computer-readable memory produce an article of manufacture including instruction means which implement the function/act specified in the flowchart and/or block diagram block or blocks.
The computer program instructions may also be loaded onto a computer or other programmable data processing apparatus to cause a series of operational steps to be performed on the computer or other programmable apparatus to produce a computer implemented process such that the instructions which execute on the computer or other programmable apparatus provide steps for implementing the functions/acts specified in the flowchart and/or block diagram block or blocks.
With reference now to
Proxy 102A contains a backend server language map that is shown in
Read Request:
a. Client sends a search request to the language proxy, along with the language control.
b. The search base is converted to UTF-8 before sending it to the language proxy.
c. The language proxy deciphers the Language Control to understand the back-end server it is supposed to target.
d. The request is forwarded to the relevant back-end server.
At that back-end server:
e. The base DN would be converted back to the relevant locale and the search results would be fetched.
f. The search results would be converted back to UTF-8 and sent back to the language proxy.
g. The language proxy server would send the results to the client.
h. At the client, the data would be converted back from UTF-8 to the local code page before dumping the content to the console.
With reference again to
If at 502, it is determined that the incoming message contains a request to add one or more dictionary words to the backend servers, step 502 transfers to 600 shown in
Referring to
Add Word Request at Step 602 of
A client 100 sends an example add request to the language proxy for an entry with all the language tags as follows:
a. ldapadd-D cn=root-w secret
b. dn: cn=word1,o=ibm,c=us
c. objectclass: word
d. meaning; English: word
e. meaning; French: <translated form of word, in French>
f. meaning; Japanese: <translated form of word, in Japanese>
where ldapadd specifies an add operation, -D cn=root identifies the distinguished name cn=root to bind to the LDAP directory and -w identifies a password, which in this case is “secret. The three “meaning” tags identify three languages English, French and Japanese and the translations of the word in the respective languages.
All data in the input is converted to UTF-8 before sending it across.
The attribute names remain the way they are.
When this data reaches the language proxy server:
The language proxy server remembers that the first entry is for the English server, second is for the French server and third is for the Japanese server.
The language proxy sends the first entry to the English server at step 604. When the backend server adds the new word to its directory, it assigns a unique entryID to the word and returns the entryID. to proxy 102.
The back-end English server returns the entryID of the entry, using the response control. The processing of the entryID by the language proxy is shown in detain in
If say the returned entryID is 23, the proxy server (at step 903 of
The above steps in paragraphs 26 through 34 would be executed on the English back-end server to fetch the entryID. This entryID would be used as a key to pull out data for the server running in German. The value pulled out of the German server would be returned back to the client.
With reference to
At steps 901 and 903, the proxy server completes the building of add messages for the remaining backend servers, including the entryID. For example, if the returned entryID is 23, the proxy server updates the other two saved entries as follows:
If this is not an add word application, step 902 determines if this is a translation application. If yes, step 904 determines if the received message is a response to the initial message from proxy 102 to a source language backend server. If yes, then it remains to receive the translated word from the language destination server. In this event, step 905 retrieves the entryID from the response message and steps 906 and 908 transmit a message to the destination server to retrieve the correct translation of the source word using the entryID. If the answer at 904 is negative, then the received message is from the destination server and contains the desired translation of the source word. The received translated word is transmitted to the client 100 at step 909. Proxy 102 ceases operation on this transaction at step 910. If the answer at step 902 is negative, the message from the backend server is the response to a conventional query, except that it is in the requested language and potentially in a requested character set as well. In this event, the results are formatted and transmitted to the client at step 907.
Having thus described the invention of the present application in detail and by reference to preferred embodiments thereof, it will be apparent that modifications and variations are possible without departing from the scope of the invention defined in the appended claims.
