System and Method for Providing a Communications Service in Distributed Computing Environment

Abstract

A broker of the present invention enables distributed applications to communicate with a server in distributed computing environment. The broker receives from a client a request to execute a transaction. The broker receives input parameters including input data. The broker uses a routing service to locate the server. The broker then establishes a communications connection to the server and forwards the input data. The transaction is executed and the broker receives a response from the server. The broker forwards the response to the client. The broker can segment the input data before forwarding the input data to the server. If the response is in multiple segments, the broker can combine the multiple segments into one string before forwarding the response to the client. Further, the broker may receive requests from multiple clients via multiple communications connections. The broker then consolidates the multiple communications connections and establishes one communications connection to the server.

1 . A method for executing an IMS (Information Management System) transaction in distributed computing environment supporting multiple communications protocols comprising the steps of:
 receiving a request and input parameters from a client;   locating the IMS transaction and an IMS adapter associated with the IMS transaction;   establishing a communications connection to the IMS adapter;   receiving a response from the IMS adapter; and   forwarding the response to the client.   
     
     
         2 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the communications connection is established to an IMSraw interface of the IMS adapter. 
     
     
         3 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the method further includes the step of obtaining an object reference of the IMS adapter. 
     
     
         4 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the input parameters includes a policy, a sequence of properties, and input data. 
     
     
         5 . The method of  claim 4 , wherein the step of locating the IMS transaction and the IMS adapter associated with the IMS transaction further including the steps of:
 forwarding the policy and the sequence of properties to a mechanism that enables distributed applications to locate horizontally distributed service provider applications; and   receiving a name of the IMS adapter and a name of the IMS transaction.