Programmatic management of software resources in a content framework environment

• US 20030055878A1
• Filed: 09/19/2001
• Published: 03/20/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 09/19/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Fletcher, James C., Lindquist, David B., Wanderski, Michael C., Wesley, Ajamu A.
• Granted Patent: US 7,035,944 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/203
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2209/5015 Service provider selection
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/465 Distributed object oriented systems remote method invocation [RMI] G06F9/548
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5038 considering the execution order of a plurality of tasks, e.g. taking priority or time dependency constraints into consideration scheduling strategies G06F9/4881 and subgroups
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/541 via adapters, e.g. between incompatible applications
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling

Abstract

Methods, systems, and computer program products are disclosed for dynamically integrating software resources (such as web services and other back-end software resources) using the services of a content framework (such as a portal platform). A portlet model is leveraged to allow programmatic portlets to serve as proxies for web services, thereby extending portlets beyond their traditional visual role. A deployment interface and a system interface are described for these portlet proxies. The deployment interface is used for composing new web services, and a composition tool is described. The system interface allows for run-time management of the web services by the portal platform. The service provider for a particular finction may be bound to the portlet proxy at development time or at run-time.

Claims

1. A method of enabling programmatic management of software resources in a content framework environment, comprising steps of:

defining a system interface for a collection of one or more software resources;

populating the system interface with one or more management functions;

specifying the populated system interface in a service description document; and

registering the service description document in a network-accessible registry.

2. The method according to claim 1, further comprising the step of using the populated system interface at run-time to manage the collection of software resources.

3. The method according to claim 2, wherein the using step further comprises the steps of:

retrieving, by a first retriever, the registered service description document for a selected service from the registry;

binding, by the first retriever, to the populated system interface of the selected service using the retrieved service description document;

programmatically notifying the selected service of an identifier of the first retriever; and

establishing 2-way communications, by the selected service, using the identifier of the first retriever.

4. The method according to claim 3, wherein the establishing step further comprises the steps of:

retrieving, by the selected service, the registered service description document of the first retriever from the registry;

binding, by the selected service, to the populated system interface of the first retriever using the retrieved service description document of the first retriever.

5. The method according to claim 3, wherein the first retriever has the defined system interface.

6. The method according to claim 2, wherein the using step further comprises the step of invoking life cycle events implemented by the collection of software resources.

7. The method according to claim 3, further comprising the step of using the 2-way communications to send auditing information to the first retriever.

8. The method according to claim 7, wherein the auditing information comprises quality of service information.

9. The method according to claim 7, wherein the auditing information comprises billing information.

10. The method according to claim 7, wherein the auditing information comprises events for logging.

11. The method according to claim 7, wherein the auditing information comprises operational messages.

12. The method according to claim 1, wherein the collection is modeled as a portlet.

13. The method according to claim 3, wherein the first retriever is a portal platform.

14. The method according to claim 1, wherein the collection comprises a web service.

15. A system for enabling programmatic management of software resources in a content framework environment, comprising:

means for defining a system interface for a collection of one or more software resources;

means for populating the system interface with one or more management functions;

means for specifying the populated system interface in a service description document; and

means for registering the service description document in a network-accessible registry.

16. The system according to claim 15, further comprising means for using the populated system interface at run-time to manage the collection of software resources.

17. The system according to claim 16, wherein the means for using the populated system further comprises:

means for retrieving, by a first retriever, the registered service description document for a selected service from the registry;

means for binding, by the first retriever, to the populated system interface of the selected service using the retrieved service description document;

means for programmatically notifying the selected service of an identifier of the first retriever; and

means for establishing 2-way communications, by the selected service, using the identifier of the first retriever.

18. The system according to claim 17, wherein the means for establishing further comprises:

means for retrieving, by the selected service, the registered service description document of the first retriever from the registry;

means for binding, by the selected service, to the populated system interface of the first retriever using the retrieved service description document of the first retriever.

19. The system according to claim 17, further comprising means for using the 2-way communications to send auditing information to the first retriever, wherein the auditing information comprises at least one of (1) quality of service information, (2) billing information, (3) events for logging, and (4) operational messages.

20. The system according to claim 15, wherein the collection comprises a web service modeled as a portlet, and wherein the first retriever is a portal platform.

21. A computer program product for enabling programmatic management of software resources in a content framework environment, the computer program product embodied on one or more computer-readable media and comprising:

computer-readable program code means for defining a system interface for a collection of one or more software resources;

computer-readable program code means for populating the system interface with one or more management functions;

computer-readable program code means for specifying the populated system interface in a service description document; and

computer-readable program code means for registering the service description document in a network-accessible registry.

22. The computer program product according to claim 21, further comprising computer-readable program code means for using the populated system interface at run-time to manage the collection of software resources.

23. The computer program product according to claim 22, wherein the computer-readable program code means for using the populated system further comprises:

computer-readable program code means for retrieving, by a first retriever, the registered service description document for a selected service from the registry;

computer-readable program code means for binding, by the first retriever, to the populated system interface of the selected service using the retrieved service description document;

computer-readable program code means for programmatically notifying the selected service of an identifier of the first retriever; and

computer-readable program code means for establishing 2-way communications, by the selected service, using the identifier of the first retriever.

24. The computer program product according to claim 23, wherein the computer-readable program code means for establishing further comprises:

computer-readable program code means for retrieving, by the selected service, the registered service description document of the first retriever from the registry;

computer-readable program code means for binding, by the selected service, to the populated system interface of the first retriever using the retrieved service description document of the first retriever.

25. The computer program product according to claim 23, further comprising computer-readable program code means for using the 2-way communications to send auditing information to the first retriever, wherein the auditing information comprises at least one of (1) quality of service information, (2) billing information, (3) events for logging, and (4) operational messages.

26. The computer program product according to claim 21, wherein the collection comprises a web service modeled as a portlet, and wherein the first retriever is a portal platform.