Classifications

• • G—PHYSICS
  • G06—COMPUTING; CALCULATING OR COUNTING
  • G06Q—INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY [ICT] SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES; SYSTEMS OR METHODS SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES, NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR
  • G06Q10/00—Administration; Management
  • G06Q10/02—Reservations, e.g. for tickets, services or events
• • G—PHYSICS
  • G06—COMPUTING; CALCULATING OR COUNTING
  • G06F—ELECTRIC DIGITAL DATA PROCESSING
  • G06F16/00—Information retrieval; Database structures therefor; File system structures therefor
  • G06F16/20—Information retrieval; Database structures therefor; File system structures therefor of structured data, e.g. relational data
• • G—PHYSICS
  • G06—COMPUTING; CALCULATING OR COUNTING
  • G06Q—INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY [ICT] SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES; SYSTEMS OR METHODS SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL OR SUPERVISORY PURPOSES, NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR
  • G06Q50/00—Information and communication technology [ICT] specially adapted for implementation of business processes of specific business sectors, e.g. utilities or tourism
  • G06Q50/10—Services
  • G06Q50/12—Hotels or restaurants

Definitions

• the present invention firstly relates to a method of processing and accessing data in a computer reservation system.
• Computer reservation systems are currently widely used, particularly in the field of travel, air transport, or even for reservation in hotels.
• a central system provides access to the various inventory databases to process information and respond to user requests.
• the latter can indeed interrogate the central system through client applications to obtain data, in particular as regards availability, prices, and terms of the services offered.
• the central system receives multiple requests from a plurality of users and, to respond to them, directly queries one or more inventory databases.
• This operating principle has the disadvantage of weighing down and cluttering the communication networks, mainly in connection with the inventory databases.
• This document focuses mainly on the problem of the price of the services offered. Indeed, it aims to have perfectly up-to-date prices for agents or other professionals.
• the present invention overcomes the drawbacks of current techniques. It makes it possible to reduce the volume of direct access to the state inventory databases for reservations by offering a “CACHE” type database capable of answering the first questions from users. Furthermore, access to this cache has the advantage of being able to be carried out via a communication network of the wide extension type such as the Internet for which the communication cost is very reduced.
• the present invention relates to a method for processing and accessing data in a computer reservation system comprising a server part provided with a central system and at least one reservation status inventory base, and a client part comprising at least one client application, the server and client parts being connected by a communication network, characterized in that: - at least one cache is created in the server part, said cache containing reservation data;
• an interface application is created between the cache and the client application (s) so that its user can send requests to the cache and receive data in response.
• This process can be presented according to the variants set out below: * if, during a request to the cache by a client application, the cache does not contain the requested data: - the request is processed in the central system by access to the databases reservation status inventory to find the requested data;
• a data item is sought in the cache by transforming the key into a numerical value and determining the index of the storage compartment by modulating the numerical value of the key by the number of compartments, and by the fact that:
• the invention further relates to a computer reservation system comprising a server part provided with a central system and at least one reservation status inventory base, and a client part comprising at least one application. client, the server and client parts being connected by a communication network, capable of implementing the method according to the invention. Characterized by the fact that it comprises
• - at least one cache block provided with a cache and a cache management application
• At least one input management block provided with a plurality of input management modules each receiving requests from one or more client applications and managed by an input manager. - each input management module is assigned to a single client application.
• - input management modules are assigned to several client applications and their cache block includes:
• the cache (s) comprise a vector of lists comprising a series of compartments capable of containing a list of several data and to which an index is assigned, for searching for a data item by the index of the compartment where it is stored.
• Figure 1 shows an example of processing client requests according to the current state of the art.
• Figure 2 shows schematically the organs of the system of the invention in a particular embodiment.
• FIG. 3 is another embodiment of the system according to the invention which specifies certain organs.
• FIG. 4 is a block diagram of the phases of interrogation and updating of the cache in the system and according to the method of the invention.
• FIG. 5 shows an example of cleaning the data contained in the cache
• FIG. 6 illustrates an alternative arrangement of data in the cache.
• FIG. 7 is a variant of the invention in which several clients access the system by means of the same input management module.
• the client can send requests to a central system (CS) to obtain data concerning reservations, for example of airplane flights, or of availability. space in any area of service.
• CS central system
• This request can be summarized by a "GET” operation sent to the central system (CS).
• the latter is linked to one or more inventory databases (I) of reservation status in which the data sought is found.
• the central system (CS) can return a response to the client.
• the various customers send a query message to a body commonly called “FRONT END” and said “FRONT END” body transmits the customer's request to the heart of the central system called “BACK END ".
• the FRONT END organ is in fact an intermediary between the clients and the heart of the central system. It is at this level that the various messages from customers are sent before their transmission. This type of organization generates a multiplicity of communication between the various organs of the system and a significant bulk of the entire central system.
• the reservation system avoids such drawbacks.
• it is integrated into a structure comprising a client part with several client applications (19) and a server part provided with a central system (CS) and one or more inventory databases (I) .
• CS central system
• I inventory databases
• the inventory databases are generally databases made available by the service provider such as the airline and it presents an immediate update of the status of reservations. Still according to the current state of the art and possibly in the structure of the invention, the server part and the client part communicate via a communication network 5.
• the communication network 5 can include a wide area network such as the Internet.
• the system according to the invention comprises at least one cover (9a, 9b).
• the cache is located in the server part and contains reservation data.
• the covers (9 a, 9 b) are integrated in cover blocks (3 a, 3 b, 3 c) shown in FIG. 2.
• the covers (9 a, 9 b) can be constituted by a volatile RAM type memory (Random Access Memory).
• a periodic backup of the data contained in the caches (9 a, 9 b) can be carried out on a non-volatile memory, on a disk.
• the system presented here comprises interfacing applications (18). They allow the user to send requests to the cache and receive data in response.
• the system preferably comprises one or more input management blocks (2 a, 2 b).
• the input management block or blocks (2 a, 2 b) communicate with the interfacing applications (18) by means of routing means (4). Any type of routing can be implemented according to the invention which is not limited to a particular variant.
• the structure composed of input management blocks (2 a, 2 b), routing means (4), interfacing applications (18) and different cache blocks (3 a, 3 b, 3 c) allows the formation of a functional unit called cache server (1).
• the blocks are advantageously articulated as follows.
• each input management module comprises a plurality of input management modules (8 a, 8 b) in connection with the client applications (19) via the communication network (5).
• each input management module is linked to a single client application (19). There are therefore as many modules (8 a, 8 b, 8 c) as there are client applications (19) connected to the input management block (2 a, 2 b).
• each input management block (2 a, 2 b) includes an input manager (7 a, 7 b). It allows you to apply operating parameters to each input management module (8 a, 8 b).
• An input management block (2 a, 2 b) can be connected to a cache block (3 a, 3 b) or to several according to suitable routing conditions. According to the example in FIG. 3, the input management block (2 a) communicates with the cache block (3 a).
• the latter includes a cache (9a) as described above which operates via a cache management application (10a).
• This cache application (10 a) interfaces between the input management block and the cache block.
• each client application (19) corresponds to an input management module (8a, 8b). According to a variant, several clients (19) can address their requests to a single input management module.
• the modules (8 a, 8 b) are connected to a queue (16) operating according to the “first in, first out” logic capable of receiving the requests and of redistributing them in order of 'Entrance.
• FIG. 5 shows a preferred embodiment of the cleaning of the data contained in the cache (9 a, 9 b).
• the system includes a cleaning tool (11) sending cleaning commands (12) to the various caches (9 a, 9 b). The procedures used for this cleaning will be explained later.
• one or more caches (9 a, 9 b) are created in the server part to contain reservation data. Customers will be able to access it to quickly respond to requests without cluttering the rest of the central system as discussed above.
• data is added to the cache (9 a, 9 b) by transfer from at least one inventory base (I).
• FIG. 4 An example of the successive operations allowing the addition of the data in the cache (9 a, 9 b) is presented in FIG. 4.
• the client sends a request generating a “GET” operation for querying the cache (9 a, 9 b). If a positive response can be provided by the cache (9 a, 9 b) to the "GET" query, the data contained in the cache is returned to the client in response. If the cache does not contain the response to the client's request, it is sent to the central system (CS) which is able to generate the response, by linking with the inventory databases (I). The response data is returned by the central system (CS) and is added to the cache (9 a, 9 b) by a "PUT” operation. In this way, data previously not contained in the cache is stored there.
• CS central system
• This series of operations can be carried out when the system according to the invention is started from a cache containing no data but in which the data will be successively stored according to the interrogations of the customers. To prevent the cache from taking on too large a dimension and to optimize its operation, it is important to refresh the data it contains.
• the method according to the invention proposes two separate procedures but which can be used simultaneously to clean up the data.
• each data item is assigned a maximum retention period. Periodically, the data contained in the cache (9a, 9b) is scanned to distinguish those whose retention period has been exceeded. This data is then deleted from the cache.
• the update period according to this procedure is variable depending on the nature of the data contained.
• the time interval between two cleaning commands can be sixty seconds.
• a second cleaning procedure can be implemented according to the method of the invention in replacement of or in addition to the first.
• a size limit to the cache corresponding to the maximum size that we want to give to the cache. Furthermore, it is assigned a threshold size of value less than the limit size and corresponding to an admissible size for the correct operation of the cache. For example, the threshold size can be set at 80% of the limit size.
• the data contained (9 a, 9 b) are deleted in descending order of age of use until the threshold size is reached.
• a key is assigned to each datum to be stored in the cache.
• This key can be transformed into a numerical value, commonly called "HASH CODE” according to hashing algorithms commonly used.
• Each compartment (13) is able to contain one or more data.
• Each compartment (13) is assigned an entire digital index from scratch.
• a number of 20,011 compartments could be formed for a cache of size limit of 51,200 Kilo Bytes.
• a correspondence is then made between the key assigned to each item of data and the digital index of each compartment (13).
• This establishment of correspondence can be carried out by modulating the digital key of the data by the number of compartments (13) of the vector of lists (14).
• the object of this correspondence is to store the data in a compartment (13) with a particular index and to make a comparison of the data contained in the cache only for the data of a compartment (13) having the same index as that of the data sought by the client. In this way, the number of comparison operations required is greatly reduced.

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• 2001
  • 2001-01-10 FR FR0100236A patent/FR2819321B1/fr not_active Expired - Lifetime
• 2002
  • 2002-01-10 EP EP02711929A patent/EP1350208A1/de not_active Withdrawn
  • 2002-01-10 JP JP2002556801A patent/JP2004527820A/ja active Pending
  • 2002-01-10 US US10/250,980 patent/US20040054751A1/en not_active Abandoned
  • 2002-01-10 KR KR10-2003-7009266A patent/KR20030091963A/ko not_active Application Discontinuation
  • 2002-01-10 CA CA002433429A patent/CA2433429A1/fr not_active Abandoned
  • 2002-01-10 WO PCT/FR2002/000067 patent/WO2002056212A1/fr active Application Filing

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