Patents by Inventor Todd J. Little

Todd J. Little has filed for patents to protect the following inventions. This listing includes patent applications that are pending as well as patents that have already been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

  • Patent number: 10339127
    Abstract: Techniques are described for providing a guaranteed commit outcome for global transactions that are optimized by deferring the commit processing to a resource manager, such as a DBMS, using optimizations. The “Distributed Transaction Processing: The XA Specification” standard specification is ambiguous regarding commit outcomes for transactions managed by DBMS, resulting in wrong results for vendors implementing the standard. The techniques described provide a guaranteed commit outcome when using the optimizations, creating the opportunity for safe replay of global transactions when a communication error or timeout occurs between the transaction manager and the resource manager, and eliminating ambiguous transaction outcomes reaching applications and end users. Techniques described herein distinguished between global transactions in a session managed by a transaction manager, and those in the same session that are managed by the resource manager using the optimizations.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 28, 2016
    Date of Patent: July 2, 2019
    Assignee: Oracle International Corporation
    Inventors: Carol Colrain, Stefan Heinrich Roesch, Todd J. Little, Paul Parkinson
  • Patent number: 10318520
    Abstract: A system and method for reducing communications overhead in a distributed transaction processing environment such as an XA environment. In accordance with an embodiment communication overhead is reduced in a transaction by deferring a transaction end communication. The deferred transaction end communication is determined from a subsequent XA transaction communication thereby reducing the number of networks calls required for each transaction and enhancing system performance.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 31, 2016
    Date of Patent: June 11, 2019
    Assignee: ORACLE INTERNATIONAL CORPORATION
    Inventors: Paul Parkinson, Todd J. Little, Carol Colrain, Jean De Lavarene, Vivekanandhan Raja, Douglas Surber, Stefan Roesch, Nancy Ikeda, Kevin Neel
  • Patent number: 10289443
    Abstract: A system and method can support a tightly-coupled global transaction. One or more transaction servers operate to span the global transaction with a plurality of branches across a plurality of transaction domains, wherein each said branch is associated with an individual branch qualifier, and each said transaction domain is associated with a different global transaction identifier (GTRID). Furthermore, the transaction servers can configure the plurality of branches in the global transaction to share a common global transaction identifier (ID), and associate a composite branch qualifier with at least one branch of the global transaction in a transaction domain, wherein the composite branch qualifier includes a global transaction identifier (GTRID) that is associated with the transaction domain and an individual branch qualifier that is associated with the at least one branch.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 14, 2013
    Date of Patent: May 14, 2019
    Assignee: ORACLE INTERNATIONAL CORPORATION
    Inventors: Xugang Shen, Qingsheng Zhang, Todd J. Little
  • Patent number: 10133596
    Abstract: A system and method can support application interoperation in a transactional middleware environment. A first transaction server operates to initiate a global transaction, wherein the first transaction server that is associated with a first format identifier (ID), and wherein the global transaction includes a plurality of branches and each said branch is associated with an individual branch qualifier. Furthermore, the first transaction server can direct at least one branch of the global transaction from the first transaction server to a second transactional server, wherein each said transactional server is associated with a second format identifier (ID), and configure a plurality of branches in the global transaction to share a common format identifier (ID).
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 14, 2013
    Date of Patent: November 20, 2018
    Assignee: ORACLE INTERNATIONAL CORPORATION
    Inventors: Xugang Shen, Qingsheng Zhang, Todd J. Little
  • Patent number: 10097660
    Abstract: A system and method can support a transactional system in a heterogeneous computing environment. The transactional system can provide one or more buffers, wherein said one or more buffers operate to represent one or more data structures in a mainframe computing environment in the heterogeneous computing environment. Also, the transactional system can provide a transactional adaptor, which operates to convert one or more data elements between said one or more data structures in the mainframe computing environment and said one or more buffers in the transactional system.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 5, 2015
    Date of Patent: October 9, 2018
    Assignee: Oracle International Corporation
    Inventors: Jimin Cai, Xiangdong Li, Lipeng Wang, Todd J. Little
  • Patent number: 10061607
    Abstract: A system and method can provide high throughput transactions in a transactional system. A system and method can, via a transaction manager, obtain information on a plurality of resource managers. The transaction manager can further manage a plurality of transaction branches, where each of the plurality of transaction branches can be associated with a different one of the plurality of resource managers. The methods and systems can associate a transaction identifier with each of the plurality of transaction branches, which can result in a plurality of transaction identifiers, where each of the plurality of transaction identifiers can include a branch identifier for each of the plurality of transaction branches. The methods and systems can perform one or more transactional operations on the plurality of transaction branches based on the different transaction identifiers.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 12, 2015
    Date of Patent: August 28, 2018
    Assignee: ORACLE INTERNATIONAL CORPORATION
    Inventors: Qingsheng Zhang, Xugang Shen, Todd J. Little
  • Patent number: 9984096
    Abstract: A system and method for reducing communications overhead in a distributed transaction processing environment such as an XA environment. In accordance with an embodiment communication overhead is reduced in a transaction start method by deferring a transaction start communication. The deferred transaction start communication is determined from a subsequent transaction processing communication thereby reducing the number of networks calls required for each transaction and enhancing system performance.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 31, 2016
    Date of Patent: May 29, 2018
    Assignee: ORACLE INTERNATIONAL CORPORATION
    Inventors: Paul Parkinson, Todd J. Little, Carol Colrain, Jean De Lavarene, Vivekanandhan Raja, Douglas Surber, Stefan Roesch, Nancy Ikeda, Kevin Neel
  • Patent number: 9977694
    Abstract: A system and method can support transaction processing in a transactional environment. A transactional system operates to route a request to a transactional server, wherein the transactional server is connected to a resource manager (RM) instance. Furthermore, the transactional system can assign an affinity context to the transactional server, wherein the affinity context indicates the RM instance that the transactional server is associated with, and the transactional system can route one or more subsequent requests that are related to the request to the transactional server based on the affinity context.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 9, 2017
    Date of Patent: May 22, 2018
    Assignee: ORACLE INTERNATIONAL CORPORATION
    Inventors: Xugang Shen, Qingsheng Zhang, Todd J Little, Yongshun Jin
  • Patent number: 9760584
    Abstract: Systems and methods are provided for supporting transaction recovery based on inline delegation of transaction logs to a database. The system can retrieve transaction recovery information of a transaction from a persistence store, wherein the transaction recovery information is persisted on a resource manager that is associated with the persistence store during a prepare phase. Furthermore, the system can retrieve one or more in-doubt transactions from one or more participating resource managers of the transaction. Then, the system can determine whether to commit or roll back the one or more in-doubt transactions by matching the one or more in-doubt transactions to the transaction recovery information.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 14, 2013
    Date of Patent: September 12, 2017
    Assignee: ORACLE INTERNATIONAL CORPORATION
    Inventors: Paul Parkinson, Todd J. Little, Stefan Heinrich Roesch, Carol Lyndall Colrain, Edward Heeren
  • Publication number: 20170220621
    Abstract: Techniques are described for providing a guaranteed commit outcome for global transactions that are optimized by deferring the commit processing to a resource manager, such as a DBMS, using optimizations. The “Distributed Transaction Processing: The XA Specification” standard specification is ambiguous regarding commit outcomes for transactions managed by DBMS, resulting in wrong results for vendors implementing the standard. The techniques described provide a guaranteed commit outcome when using the optimizations, creating the opportunity for safe replay of global transactions when a communication error or timeout occurs between the transaction manager and the resource manager, and eliminating ambiguous transaction outcomes reaching applications and end users. Techniques described herein distinguished between global transactions in a session managed by a transaction manager, and those in the same session that are managed by the resource manager using the optimizations.
    Type: Application
    Filed: January 28, 2016
    Publication date: August 3, 2017
    Inventors: CAROL COLRAIN, STEFAN HEINRICH ROESCH, TODD J. LITTLE, PAUL PARKINSON
  • Publication number: 20170153910
    Abstract: A system and method can support transaction processing in a transactional environment. A transactional system operates to route a request to a transactional server, wherein the transactional server is connected to a resource manager (RM) instance. Furthermore, the transactional system can assign an affinity context to the transactional server, wherein the affinity context indicates the RM instance that the transactional server is associated with, and the transactional system can route one or more subsequent requests that are related to the request to the transactional server based on the affinity context.
    Type: Application
    Filed: February 9, 2017
    Publication date: June 1, 2017
    Inventors: XUGANG SHEN, QINGSHENG ZHANG, TODD J LITTLE, YONGSHUN JIN
  • Patent number: 9600324
    Abstract: A system and method can support transaction processing in a transactional environment. A transactional system operates to route a request to a transactional server, wherein the transactional server is connected to a resource manager (RM) instance. Furthermore, the transactional system can assign an affinity context to the transactional server, wherein the affinity context indicates the RM instance that the transactional server is associated with, and the transactional system can route one or more subsequent requests that are related to the request to the transactional server based on the affinity context.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 31, 2014
    Date of Patent: March 21, 2017
    Assignee: ORACLE INTERNATIONAL CORPORATION
    Inventors: Xugang Shen, Qingsheng Zhang, Todd J. Little, Yongshun Jin
  • Patent number: 9569224
    Abstract: A system and method can handle various database state notifications in a transactional middleware machine environment. The system can connect one or more transaction servers to a database service, wherein the database service is associated with a notification service. Furthermore, a notification service client that is associated with said one or more transaction servers can receive one or more events from the notification service, wherein said one or more events indicates one or more state changes in the database service. Then, one or more transaction servers operate to adaptively respond to the one or more state changes in the database service.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 22, 2015
    Date of Patent: February 14, 2017
    Assignee: ORACLE INTERNATIONAL CORPORATION
    Inventors: Todd J. Little, Qingsheng Zheng, Xugang Shen
  • Patent number: 9542220
    Abstract: A system and method can support transaction processing in a transactional environment. A transactional server operates to receive resource manager (RM) instance information from a data source that is associated with one or more RM instances, wherein the received instance information allows the transactional server to be aware of which RM instance that the transactional server is currently connected to. Furthermore, the transactional server operates to save the received instance information into one or more tables that are associated with the transactional server. Then, the transactional server can process a global transaction based on the instance information saved in the one or more tables.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 31, 2014
    Date of Patent: January 10, 2017
    Assignee: ORACLE INTERNATIONAL CORPORATION
    Inventors: Xugang Shen, Qingsheng Zhang, Todd J. Little, Yongshun Jin
  • Patent number: 9524186
    Abstract: A system and method can support transaction processing in a transactional environment. A coordinator for a global transaction operates to propagate a common transaction identifier and information for a resource manager instance to one or more participants of the global transaction in the transactional environment. The coordinator allows said one or more participants, which share resource manager instance with the coordinator, to use the common transaction identifier, and can process the global transaction for said one or more participants that share the resource manager instance using one transaction branch.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 31, 2014
    Date of Patent: December 20, 2016
    Assignee: ORACLE INTERNATIONAL CORPORATION
    Inventors: Xugang Shen, Qingsheng Zhang, Todd J. Little, Yongshun Jin
  • Publication number: 20160294723
    Abstract: A system and method for reducing communications overhead in a distributed transaction processing environment such as an XA environment. In accordance with an embodiment communication overhead is reduced in a transaction start method by deferring a transaction start communication. The deferred transaction start communication is determined from a subsequent transaction processing communication thereby reducing the number of networks calls required for each transaction and enhancing system performance.
    Type: Application
    Filed: March 31, 2016
    Publication date: October 6, 2016
    Inventors: PAUL PARKINSON, TODD J. LITTLE, CAROL COLRAIN, JEAN DE LAVARENE, VIVEKANANDHAN RAJA, DOUGLAS SURBER, STEFAN ROESCH, NANCY IKEDA, KEVIN NEEL
  • Publication number: 20160294726
    Abstract: A system and method for reducing communications overhead in a distributed transaction processing environment such as an XA environment. In accordance with an embodiment communication overhead is reduced in a transaction by deferring a transaction end communication. The deferred transaction end communication is determined from a subsequent XA transaction communication thereby reducing the number of networks calls required for each transaction and enhancing system performance.
    Type: Application
    Filed: March 31, 2016
    Publication date: October 6, 2016
    Inventors: PAUL PARKINSON, TODD J. LITTLE, CAROL COLRAIN, JEAN DE LAVARENE, VIVEKANANDHAN RAJA, DOUGLAS SURBER, STEFAN ROESCH, NANCY IKEDA, KEVIN NEEL
  • Patent number: 9389907
    Abstract: A system and method can support a distributed transaction lock in a transactional middleware machine environment. The system can use a global transaction identifier to locate a hash bucket in a transaction hash table, wherein the transaction hash table contains a plurality of hash buckets. Then, the system can lock said hash bucket in the transaction hash table, and allow only one process to access one or more global transaction entry structures in the transaction table before said hash bucket is unlocked, wherein said one or more global transaction entry structures are associated with the locked hash bucket in the transaction hash table.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 30, 2014
    Date of Patent: July 12, 2016
    Assignee: ORACLE INTERNATIONAL CORPORATION
    Inventors: Todd J. Little, Edward A. Heeren, Jimin Cai, Xiangdong Li, Yunrong Zheng
  • Patent number: 9389905
    Abstract: A system and method can support processing a transaction with a plurality of transaction branches. A transaction manager operates to send, to a resource manager, a prepare request for each said transaction branch in the plurality of transaction branches with the exception of at least one transaction branch. Furthermore, after receiving an indication from the resource manager that the received preparation requests are handled successfully (i.e. the transaction branch is read-only and has been committed), the transaction manager operates to send a commit request to commit said at least one transaction branch, which is on hold, to the resource manager.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 14, 2013
    Date of Patent: July 12, 2016
    Assignee: ORACLE INTERNATIONAL CORPORATION
    Inventors: Xugang Shen, Qingsheng Zhang, Todd J. Little
  • Publication number: 20150324222
    Abstract: A system and method can handle various database state notifications in a transactional middleware machine environment. The system can connect one or more transaction servers to a database service, wherein the database service is associated with a notification service. Furthermore, a notification service client that is associated with said one or more transaction servers can receive one or more events from the notification service, wherein said one or more events indicates one or more state changes in the database service. Then, one or more transaction servers operate to adaptively respond to the one or more state changes in the database service.
    Type: Application
    Filed: January 22, 2015
    Publication date: November 12, 2015
    Inventors: TODD J. LITTLE, QINGSHENG ZHENG, XUGANG SHEN