Abstract: Methods, apparatus, and products are disclosed for reliable messaging using redundant message streams in a high speed, low latency data communications environment that include brokering, by a stream administration server, establishment of an active message stream to a subscribing client device from an active feed adapter, the active message stream capable of communicating active application messages; brokering, by the server, establishment of a backup message stream to the subscribing client device from a backup feed adapter, the backup message stream capable of communicating backup application messages representing duplicates of the active messages; receiving the active messages in messaging middleware of the subscribing client device; receiving, in response to a failover, the backup messages in the messaging middleware; and administering, by the messaging middleware, the backup messages in dependence upon an active stream source identifier, an active stream source sequence number, a backup stream source ide

Abstract: Deallocating resources allocated to a network communications session, including extrapolating an expected location of a selected node that belongs to a communications path of a network communications session, determining if the extrapolated location is beyond a predefined range from a neighboring node that belongs to the communications path of the network communications session and that immediately neighbors the selected node along the communications path, and deallocating any resources allocated to the network communications session if the extrapolated location is beyond the range.

Abstract: An advanced metering infrastructure comprises intermediate nodes. The intermediate nodes receive data from child nodes and relay a subset of the data that is not according to an expected value. The expected value may be determined based on a forecasting function computed based on past data. The expected value may be a spatial shape in an n-dimension space. A data not within the spatial shape may be considered not in accordance with the expected value. In some case, the spatial shape is defined by a centroid and a radius. The spatial shape may shift over time based on a consumption profile, such as low consumption at noon, and high consumption at evening. The consumption profiles may be determined in a learning phase, as well as shifting of spatial shapes of each group over time.

Abstract: An advanced metering infrastructure comprises intermediate nodes. The intermediate nodes receive data from child nodes and aggregate the data according to groups of child nodes. The aggregation provides for a reduced version of the data. The reduction is performed based on groups determined by clustering. The reduced version of the data comprises data describing a group of measurements over time, such as a centroid in an n-dimension space, number of customers in the group, radius of the group and the like. The centroid may shift over time based on a consumption profile, such as low consumption at noon, and high consumption at evening. The consumption profiles may be determined in a learning phase, as well as shifting of centroids of each group over time.

Abstract: A distributed method that combines both flow control and smart volume reduction means in a communication network is provided herein. The stages of the method are applied by each node in the network in a distributed way, which adapts to the evolving state of the system. The operations performed by each node in the network are adapted dynamically in a way that adjusts itself to the changes that occur in various parameters of the network. Such parameters include both local node state and also the state of different nodes in the distributed infrastructure. The state of the nodes is characterized by parameters such as transmission rates, available buffer space and the state of data in buffer. The stages are carried out in parallel by the nodes and ordered such that the equality of the data flowing in the network, in terms of delay and specified attributes, is maximized.

Abstract: A method of managing traffic over a communication link between a transmitting node and a receiving node is provided herein. The method includes: determining momentary traffic shaping constraints; accumulating incoming messages at the transmitting node into a data queue, based on the momentary traffic shaping constraints; transmitting the messages from the data queue to the receiving node over the communication link based on the momentary traffic shaping constraints; estimating a desired amount of data that needs to be discarded from messages in the data queue, based on: (a) the size of the data queue and (b) the momentary traffic shaping constraints; sorting data in the data queue by an order of importance, based on analytic objects; discarding, based on the analytic objects, the desired amount of data from the messages in the queued data, such that the discarded data is ranked lowest by the order of importance.

Abstract: A variety of techniques are disclosed for efficient liveness monitoring in a reliable publish/subscribe multicast system having at least one broker and at least one subscriber, by: at the broker, sending (310) a status request message to the subscriber, and at the subscriber, sending (350) a status response message to the broker to indicate liveness. Status responses by subscribers may be suppressed when at least a chosen minimum number (>=1) of subscribers send a response. This suppression (320-340) uses a system of “response claim” messages and random back-off timers. These provide the advantage that the efficiency of network usage is improved by reducing the number of unwanted packets that are sent.

Abstract: A publish/subscribe system includes a publisher and multiple subscribers. The published includes a packet generator to generate a packet with at least one of: a fixed length flow label labeling a message or a message bundle and a fixed length node label labeling at least one message bundle and indicating at least one of the nodes of a topic tree to which the flow label belongs. Each received includes a user selection data holder and a message selector. The data holder stores a selection of topics of interest to a user from the topic tree. The message selector receives a packet having a header and data, determines which flow and/or node labels are incorporated in the header and accepts the data if the user selection data holder indicates that the labels within the header are of interest to the user.

Abstract: A novel and useful framework, system and method of monitoring one or more performance parameters (e.g., distributed system performance), filtering the performance parameters data collected and identifying one or more performance parameters that affect one or more target performance measures. This can be achieved in the case of a delay parameter, for example, by determining the root-cause of the increased delay and taking corrective actions in order to avoid violation of the timeliness constraints. The present invention is a statistical based performance monitoring mechanism that uses statistical signal processing techniques and is applicable, for example, in soft real-time distributed systems. The monitoring framework efficiently and distributively characterizes the behavior of the varying network conditions as a stochastic process and performs root-cause analysis to detecting the parameters which affect one or more target performance measures, e.g., latency.

Abstract: Methods, systems, and products are disclosed for filtering application messages in a high speed, low latency data communications environment that include: receiving an application message in a transport engine of a message receiving device from a message transmitting device, the application message having a message contents label and a collision indicator, the message contents label representing contents of the application message, the collision indicator specifying whether the message contents label represents different contents in at least one other application message; determining, by the transport engine, whether contents of the application message satisfy a transport layer constraint in dependence upon the message contents label; providing, by the transport engine, the application message and the collision indicator to messaging middleware of the message receiving device if the contents of the application message satisfy the transport layer constraint; and administering the application message, by the me

Abstract: Buffering messages by receiving a message from a messaging client, writing the message to a logically-contiguous write-available region of a message buffer starting at a logically next write-available location within the write-available region, updating a head index to indicate a head boundary between a logically last message in the message buffer and a logically next write-available location in the message buffer, defining a packet including the message within the message buffer, transmitting a packet that includes a logically first message in the message buffer, and updating a tail index to indicate a tail boundary between a new logically last write-available location in the message buffer and a new logically first message in the message buffer.

Abstract: Deallocating resources allocated to a network communications session, including extrapolating an expected location of a selected node that belongs to a communications path of a network communications session, determining if the extrapolated location is beyond a predefined range from a neighboring node that belongs to the communications path of the network communications session and that immediately neighbors the selected node along the communications path, and deallocating any resources allocated to the network communications session if the extrapolated location is beyond the range.

Abstract: A transmission method adjusts the size of aggregated packets based at least on the congestion of a transmitting network device. The adjusting comprises includes aggregating at least two small messages, received from an upper layer, into a packet, providing the packet to a pending queue, passing packets to a network device and selecting packets from the pending queue or the buffer depending on whether or not the pending queue is empty.

Abstract: A method, system and computer program product for transmitting data entities, the method includes: receiving data entities to be transmitted over multiple channels; and preventing a transmission of data entities that are to be transmitted over congested channels while transmitting data entities that are to be are to be transmitted over non-congested channels

Abstract: A group communication service maintains synchronization limiting the group to the processing entities that receive a plurality of source message streams from sources outside the group and transmit delivery message streams to destinations that are outside the group. Synchronization of message ordering and other state synchronization directives are communicated from a leader exclusively to other group members. Once having declared themselves to be synchronized and active by a reply protocol message, which is an opaque object and is interpreted by an application layer, the processing entities independently process the source message streams in accordance with the order specified in the directives, without requiring additional sequencing information from another processing entity.

Abstract: A group communication service is adapted for multi-point to multi-point communication. Identical message streams are received by a tier of processing servers from a tier of sources. The processing servers deliver the message streams to a tier of destinations. The group communication service enables the processing servers to deal with newly added message streams and deleted message streams while preserving total ordering.

Abstract: Methods, systems, and products are disclosed for filtering application messages in a high speed, low latency data communications environment that include: receiving an application message in a transport engine of a message receiving device from a message transmitting device, the application message having a message contents label and a collision indicator, the message contents label representing contents of the application message, the collision indicator specifying whether the message contents label represents different contents in at least one other application message; determining, by the transport engine, whether contents of the application message satisfy a transport layer constraint in dependence upon the message contents label; providing, by the transport engine, the application message and the collision indicator to messaging middleware of the message receiving device if the contents of the application message satisfy the transport layer constraint; and administering the application message, by the me

Abstract: A multicast host for communicating information published about any one of a set of topics to one or more authorised subscribers to those topics, the set of topics being partitioned into one or more partition elements, each partition element having a partition element encryption key associated therewith, wherein each of the one or more partition elements is a disjoint proper subset of the set of topics, the host comprising: means for receiving information relating to a topic; means for determining a partition element for the topic; means for retrieving a partition element encryption key associated with the partition element; means for encrypting the information with the retrieved partition element encryption key; and means for communicating the information to the one or more authorised subscribers.

Abstract: Methods, apparatus, and products are disclosed for reliable messaging using message streams in a high speed, low latency data communications environment that include: receiving, in a transport engine of a message receiving device from an active message sending device, active transport packets on an active message stream established from the active message sending device to the message receiving device, the active message sending device encapsulating active application messages in the active transport packets; identifying, by the transport engine, a missing active application message from the active message sending device; and requesting, by the transport engine from a backup message sending device, transmission of a backup application message that corresponds to the missing active application message, the backup message sending device encapsulating backup application messages in backup transport packets for transmission on a backup message stream, each backup application message representing a duplicate of a

Abstract: A method for migrating data transmitted from a transmitter to a receiver over a first stream to a second stream in a reliable multicast system is provided. The method comprises transmitting a first message from the transmitter to the receiver over the first stream to notify the receiver that a first data flow transmitted on the first stream will be transmitted on the second stream. The transmitter transmits a second message to the receiver over the second stream after a second threshold has expired. The receiver tunes to the second stream based on the second message. The transmitter transmits a third message to the receiver over the first stream after a third threshold has expired to notify the receiver that transmission of the first data flow over the first stream will be terminated. The transmitter then transmits a fourth message from the transmitter to the receiver over the second stream after a fourth threshold has expired.