Abstract: A system and method for monitoring liveliness includes a management device which has an application layer where applications are executed. A connection monitor is located other than on the application layer, and the connection monitor is configured to receive requests from clients and deliver the requests to components on the application layer. The components include a generic application monitor which responds to liveliness monitor requests from the clients for all applications monitored, and one or more applications which response to requests to that application.

Abstract: An apparatus and method for distributing traffic across a group of machines using application instance statistics. In order to perform load balancing in accordance with the present invention, a method of generating weights to bias load balancing distributions is provided. The application instances to which traffic is being distributed, or the application middleware, are instrumented to establish certain metrics about the application while running. The application instance instrumentation will provide application statistics such as number of successful transactions, application response times, application topology, importance of transactions being processed, time the application is blocked waiting for resources, resource consumption data, and the like. These metrics are collected, processed, and then presented as a set of weights to the load balancing apparatus to govern its distribution of traffic.

Abstract: A system and method for monitoring liveliness includes a management device which has an application layer where applications are executed. A connection monitor is located other than on the application layer, and the connection monitor is configured to receive requests from clients and deliver the requests to components on the application layer. The components include a generic application monitor which responds to liveliness monitor requests from the clients for all applications monitored, and one or more applications which response to requests to that application.

Abstract: Methods, systems and computer program products are provided for type of service classification of a communication request for an application executing on a server. An application plug-in associated with the application is provided in an operating system kernel of the server. The application plug-in receives the communication request and obtains application level information from the received communication request. The application plug-in further assigns a type of service classification to the received communication request based on the obtained application level information and provides the assigned type of service classification information for the communication request to a process executing on the server for processing communications from the server responsive to the communication request.

Abstract: Methods, systems and computer program products are provided which communicate between client applications and a transaction server by establishing a persistent secure connection between the transaction server and a Secure Socket Layer (SSL) proxy server. A first session specific SSL connection, different from the persistent secure connection, is also established between a first client application and the SSL proxy server. Communications between the first client application and the SSL proxy server transmitted over the first session specific SSL connection are then forwarded with the client's identity preserved to the transaction server over the persistent secure connection.

Abstract: Methods, systems and articles of manufacture are provided for making system-supplied storage available to socket server applications to be used when sending data. In one embodiment, sockets interfaces for controlling socket attributes are configured with an attribute that specifies that all storage to be used on send operations will be system-supplied. Once such system-supplied storage is used on a send operation, it is considered to be “given back” to the system. The system-supplied storage can be managed and cached on behalf of any or all server applications to reduce paging rates and storage demand.

Abstract: Methods, systems and computer program products are provided for transferring a Virtual IP Address (VIPA) from a first application instance to a second application instance executing on a cluster of data processing systems having a plurality of communication protocol stacks. A list of dynamic VIPAs is distributed among the protocol stacks and a hierarchy of backup communication protocol stacks for the dynamic VIPAs is determined based on the list of dynamic VIPAs. Upon receiving notification of failure of the first stack the second stack evaluates the hierarchy of backup stacks to determine if it is the next stack in the hierarchy for the VIPA associated with the first application instance. If so, then the VIPA associated with the first application instance is transferred to the second communication protocol stack associated with the second application instance.

Abstract: Methods, systems and computer program products are provided which provide connection information about connections to communication protocol stacks in a cluster of data processing systems by distributing location information between communication protocol stacks in a group of stacks within the cluster. The distributed location information about addresses and operating system images or data processing systems of communication protocol stacks is utilized to generate a list of addresses corresponding to stacks in the group so that this information may be provided to applications requesting the information from the communication protocol stacks.

Abstract: A fault tolerant recoverable connection device and methods are disclosed that include a primary router in an active state to provide a connection between clients and servers in a network, and a backup router in a standby state. The states of the primary and backup routers are switched when the primary router fails, the backup router has a better reach-ability state than the primary router, or by an operator command. Each router has a synchronization manager which maintains synchronized tables between the active and standby routers; a monitoring manager which monitors and switch the state of the routers; a reach-ability manager which monitors, updates, and compares the reach-ability set and state of the routers; and a keep alive manager which monitors the routers to provide a status notification to the monitoring manager.

Abstract: A method for resynchronizing message traffic in a communication network following network component failure. The failing component, upon restart, establishes a second path for communicating with the still active communication network components. The alternate path is used to query status from the operational components and to inform the failed component of synchronization data. Control information for a primary virtual route is updated based upon the status query. This updated information is used to resynchronize message activity and allow resumption of message traffic without reinitializing the network.