Web service syndication system

• US 20020143819A1
• Filed: 04/12/2002
• Published: 10/03/2002
• Est. Priority Date: 05/31/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Oracle International Corporation (Oracle Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Oracle International Corporation (Oracle Corporation)
• Inventors: Srivastava, Alok, Lin, Paul, Carrer, Marco, Han, Cheng, Lee, Wai-Kwong (Sam)
• Granted Patent: US 7,496,637 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/513
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/958 Organisation or management of web site content, e.g. publishing, maintaining pages or automatic linking

Abstract

A syndicator for disseminating Web services and other resources from service and content providers to service consumers and for establishing and implementing a subscription agreement which specifies the terms upon which digital assets are provided to the subscribing consumers. A registration database stores a service description for each of a plurality of different Web services and other resources. Each stored service description contains an input processing specification, an output processing specification, and the specification of the business terms upon which the described service or resource is offered by its provider to subscribers. A subscription manager conducts a negotiation with a prospective subscriber and recieves from the subscriber an acceptance of the business terms upon which a specified Web service or resource is offered to establish a subscription agreement. Event tracking is employed to record information describing the performance of said selected service on behalf of said subscriber to perform subscription accounting functions.

Claims

1. An information delivery system comprising, in combination,

a data communications network,

a plurality of network services connected to said network,

a plurality of service consumers connected to said network, and

a syndicator connected to said network, said syndicator comprising, in combination,

a service registry for storing a plurality of service descriptions each of which describes a particular one of said network services and each of which comprises, in combination:

the network address to which a request message may be to sent via said network to invoke the performance of said particular one of said network services,

an input description specifying one or more characteristics of said request message,

an output description specifying one or more characteristics of the output information produced by the performance of said particular one of said network services in response to said request message, and

business information describing the terms upon which said output information may be provided to service consumers by said particular one of said network services,

a subscription manager for receiving an acceptance from a specific one of said service consumers of the terms upon which output information may be provided as specified by the business information describing a specific one of said network services to thereby establish a subscription relationship between said specific one of said service consumers and said specific one of said network services,

a message handler for receiving a service request via said network designating said specific one of said network services from said specific one of said service consumers,

a subscription validator responsive to the receipt of said service request for verifying that a subscription relationship has been established between said specific one of said service consumers and said specific one of said network services,

means responsive to the verification of said subscription relationship by said subscription validator for transmitting a request message to the network address specified in the service description for said specific one of said network services to invoke the performance thereof, and

means responsive to the performance of said specific one of said network services for returning information produced by said performance to said specific one of said network consumers.

2. An information delivery system as set forth in claim 1 wherein said syndicator further includes a catalog distributor for transmitting a listing of available services to one or more of said service consumers.

3. An information delivery system as set forth in claim 1 wherein said syndicator further includes registration means for accepting from a participating network service the transmission of at least a portion of the information contained in the service description describing said participating network service.

4. An information delivery system as set forth in claim 1 wherein said means for transmitting a request message to the network address specified in said service description includes means for insuring that said request message conforms to the input description contained in said service description.

5. An information delivery system as set forth in claim 1 further including means for insuring that said information produced by said performance conforms to said output description describing said specific one of said network services.

6. The method of obtaining information from each of a plurality of diverse network services having different characteristics and providing said information to at least one authorized subscriber, which comprises, in combination, the steps of:

storing a separate service description for each given one of said network services in a service registry, said service description including;

the network address to which a performance request directed to said given one of said network services may be transmitted,

a specification of the nature of the input information to be supplied to said given one of said network services as part of said performance request,

a specification of the nature of the output information to be returned by said given one of said network services in response to the receipt of said performance request, and

business information containing the terms upon which said output information may be provided to subscribers,

receiving from said authorized subscriber an acceptance of said terms contained in said service description of a selected one of said network services to establish a subscription agreement between said authorized subscriber and said selected one of said network services,

executing a service interface program in response to a service request from said authorized subscriber requesting output information from a particular network service, said service interface program performing the steps of;

obtaining the particular service description for said particular network service from said service registry,

verifying that a subscription agreement exists between said authorized subscriber and said particular network service,

transmitting a a performance request to the address specified in said particular service description,

supplying input information meeting the specification contained in said particular service description to said particular network service, and

routing output information provided by said particular resource in response to said output information request to said authorized subscriber.

7. The method as set forth in claim 6 wherein said step of storing a separate service description for each given one of said network services further comprises the step of accepting service description information in a predetermined format via said network from the provider of said given one of said network services.

8. The method as set forth in claim 7 wherein said predetermined format is the Extensible Markup Language.

9. The method as set forth in claim 6 wherein said service interface program further performs the step of recording information describing the delivery of information under said subscription

10. A syndicator connected to a communications network for establishing subscription agreements between subscribers and network service providers and for distributing information via said network in accordance with said subscription agreements, said syndicator comprising, in combination,

a registration database coupled to said network for storing a plurality of service descriptions, each of which specifies:

the network address to which a request for the performance of a specific network service should be directed, the input information which should accompany said request, the output information produced by the performance of said specific network service, and the business terms upon which said specific network service is offered to prospective subscribers,

a subscription manager for receiving from an individual subscriber an acceptance of the business terms upon which a particular one of said network services is offered to establish a subscription agreement between said individual subscriber and the provider of said particular one of said network services,

a message handler for receiving a service request from said individual subscriber seeking output information produced by the performance of said particular one of said network services,

transaction validation means for confirming that a subscription agreement has been established between said individual subscriber and said the provider of said particular one of said network services,

execution means for invoking said particular one of said network services on behalf of said individual subscriber in accordance with said subscription agreement, and

accounting means for recording information describing the delivery of information to said individual describer in accordance with said subscription agreement.

11. A syndicator as set forth in claim 10 further including means coupled to said registration database for transmitting a catalog listing of available network services in response to a request from a prospective subscriber.

12. A syndicator as set forth in claim 10 wherein said registration database further includes registration means for accepting at least a portion of the service description for an offered network service from the provider of said offered network service.

13. A syndicator as set forth in claim 12 wherein said portion of the service description expressed in the Extensible Markup Language.

14. A syndicator as set forth in claim 13 wherein said communications network is the Internet, wherein at least some of said network services are Web services.

16. A syndicator as set forth in claim 15 wherein said registration database further includes registration means for accepting descriptive data via the Internet from one or more providers of available Web services and for processing said descriptive data to service descriptions stored in said registration database.

17. A syndicator as set forth in claim 15 wherein in said input processing specification includes the designation of an input adaptor program which, when executed, processes the message received by said input message handler.

18. A syndicator as set forth in claim 17 wherein said output processing specification includes the designation of an output adaptor program which, when executed, performs some of the processing performed by said output message handler.

15. A syndicator for processing a request received from a subscriber via the Internet for information from a selected Web service which comprises, in combination,

a registration database for storing a service description for each of a plurality of different Web services, said service description comprising an input processing specification, an output processing specification, and the specification of the business terms upon which said Web service is offered by its provider to subscribers,

a subscription manager for receiving from said subscriber an acceptance of the business terms upon which said selected Web service is offered to establish a subscription agreement,

an input message handler for receiving said request from said subscriber,

a transaction validator for verifying that a subscription agreement has been established between said subscriber and the provider of said selected Web service,

execution means for invoking the performance of said selected Web service in accordance with the input processing specification contained in the service description for said selected Web service,

an output message handler for receiving output information produced by the performance of said selected Web service in accordance with said output processing specification contained in the service description for said selected Web service and for transmitting at least a portion of said output information to said subscriber, and

accounting means for recording information describing the performance of said selected service on behalf of said subscriber.