Abstract: A system and method for configuring servers in a cluster. The method may include storing one or more base configuration files associated with an application in a domain administration server, deploying the base configuration files onto one or more servers in a cluster of servers, making one or more instance-specific modifications to the base configuration files, and executing the application in accordance with the one or more modified base configuration files. In various embodiments, the base configuration files may be XML files, and the modifications may be xpath expressions. An alternate embodiment of the method may include storing one or more configuration files based on a common template and representing a platform-specific configuration of a server in a domain administration server, deploying the configuration files onto one or more servers in a cluster of servers, and configuring the servers in accordance with the configuration files.

Abstract: Various embodiments of a cluster of application servers in a networked computer system in which each application server includes a separate transaction manager instance are disclosed. In one embodiment, a separate transaction manager instance may be used to coordinate transactions initiated by an application component executing in process with the application server for a node of a cluster. If each transaction manager instance manages only transactions initiated within its own application server, then the loss of a single transaction manager instance may have no detrimental effect on transactions initiated in other nodes of the cluster. Further, if each transaction manager instance maintains its transaction logs in highly available memory accessible to all nodes of the cluster, in flight transactions of a failed node may be recovered by an instance in a different node.

Abstract: A system and method for a highly available timer service may include a timer database operable to store information on one or more timers. The system may further include a plurality of servers in a cluster, each server containing a failure detection service, a timer service and one or more applications. In one embodiment, each application may be operable to request and process one or more timer notifications from the timer service contained in the same server. Each failure detection service may also be operable to detect a failure of other servers in the cluster. In addition, each timer service may be operable to retrieve information on the one or more timers from the timer database, and to provide a timer notification to any application in the cluster in response to a notification from the failure notification service that a server has failed.

Abstract: A system and method for application deployment in a server cluster from a central domain. The method may include assembling a set of source code and related resource files on an administration server coupled to an application repository. The method may also include compiling the set of source code and related resource files into an application and storing the application in the application repository. The application may then be deployed onto a first subset of servers in a cluster of servers and executed on the subset of servers. In one embodiment, the method may further include storing a different version of the application in the application repository and deploying the different version of the application onto a second subset of servers separate from the first subset of servers. The different version of the application may then be executed on the second subset of servers.

Abstract: A generator mechanism for generating an administration framework for server systems. In one embodiment, the administration framework may be generated from meta-information that describes elements of configuration data and relationships among the elements. The mechanism may provide automatic generation of the administration framework. In one embodiment, the administration framework may be a stack on an administration server that includes several layers each including one or more generated components. In one embodiment, the generation mechanism may generate management beans of a management layer, representing business logic of the server; configuration beans of a data representation layer; and a presentation layer for accessing and administering generated components. The data representation layer may provide transparency to the persistent store for the other layers. A production generation of the administration framework may be performed and instances of generated components may be deployed on other servers.

Abstract: A dynamic administration framework for server systems. A generation mechanism may generate one or more components of the administration framework from meta-information describing persistently stored configuration information. Components providing an in-memory representation of configuration information and components representing business logic of the server may be generated. A user interface may be generated which may be used to administer the generated components. A configuration API may be provided that provides a transparent interface to the persistent store, abstracting storage format and location from clients of the configuration API. A generated administration framework may be compiled with application server or system-specific components. The compiled system may then be used at runtime. One embodiment may include an event notification mechanism that may allow changes in configuration data to be propagated to one or more servers.

Abstract: A dynamic administration framework for server systems. A generation mechanism may generate one or more components of the administration framework from meta-information describing persistently stored configuration information. Components providing an in-memory representation of configuration information and components representing business logic of the server may be generated. A user interface may be generated which may be used to administer the generated components. A configuration API may be provided that provides a transparent interface to the persistent store, abstracting storage format and location from clients of the configuration API. A generated administration framework may be compiled with application server or system-specific components. The compiled system may then be used at runtime. One embodiment may include an event notification mechanism that may allow changes in configuration data to be propagated to one or more servers.

Abstract: Embodiments of an event notification mechanism that provides change management in a distributed server system. An in-memory representation of server configuration information in one server may be modified. The changes may be tracked, and serialized objects representing the changes may be sent “across wire” to update other servers that include instances of the in-memory representation of server configuration information with the change information from these serialized objects. Thus, instead of saving changes to a persistent store and reading them back into another server, instances of the in-memory representation of server configuration information may be updated in memory without going to the persistent store. In one embodiment, only configuration data changes are propagated to the other servers.

Abstract: A generator mechanism for generating an administration framework for server systems. In one embodiment, the administration framework may be generated from meta-information that describes elements of configuration data and relationships among the elements. The mechanism may provide automatic generation of the administration framework. In one embodiment, the administration framework may be a stack on an administration server that includes several layers each including one or more generated components. In one embodiment, the generation mechanism may generate management beans of a management layer, representing business logic of the server; configuration beans of a data representation layer; and a presentation layer for accessing and administering generated components. The data representation layer may provide transparency to the persistent store for the other layers. A production generation of the administration framework may be performed and instances of generated components may be deployed on other servers.