Generic connector between vitria and an EJB compliant API for an application

• US 20030195997A1
• Filed: 10/21/2002
• Published: 10/16/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 10/29/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Accenture Global Services Limited (Accenture PLC)
• Original Assignee: Accenture Global Services GmbH (Accenture PLC)
• Inventors: Ibert, Terence Winfield, Morais, Henrique Miguel da Silva
• Granted Patent: US 7,627,853 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 719/318
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2209/544 Remote
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/542 Event management; Broadcasting; Multicasting; Notifications

Abstract

A method is described for constructing a generalized connector for use in an object-oriented program system, the connector being a middleware service logic mechanism between an event monitor and transmission sub-system and an application system having an application system API, wherein the connector can recognize events provided by the event monitor as event objects and can automatically determine which corresponding EJB is associated with the event object, and can invoke methods on the EJB in a specified order, and can collect the results of the method invocations for return to the event monitor. A connector for performing these functions is also described.

Claims

1. A method for constructing a generalized connector for use in an object-oriented program system comprising the acts of:

a. providing a definition of EJBs used in the program system;

b. defining business events that map to each EJB;

c. defining for each business event, methods which must be invoked on an EJB and the order in which the methods must be invoked;

d. creating an IDL definition structure that describes the business events and that describes data that is passed with each event;

e. creating a connection model;

f. adding EJB connector flow to the connection model; and

g. configuring parameters of the connection model for connecting to an application system environment.

2. The method of claim 1 further configuring the parameters of the connection model to indicate options desired in connector flow behavior.

3. The method of claim 2 comprising the additional act of completing the connection model with other source, target and target/source flows.

4. The method of claim 3 comprising the additional act of completing the connection model with error handling instructions.

5. A method for constructing a generalized connector for use in an object-oriented program system, the connector being a middleware service between an event monitor and transmission sub-system and an application system having an application system API, the method comprising the acts of:

a. providing a definition of EJBs used in the program system;

b. defining business events that map to each EJB;

c. defining for each business event, methods which must be invoked on an EJB and the order in which the methods must be invoked;

d. creating an IDL definition structure that describes the business events and that describes data that is passed with each event;

e. creating a connection model;

f. adding EJB connector flow to the connection model; and

g. configuring parameters of the connection model for connecting to an application system environment.

6. The method of claim 5 further configuring the parameters of the connection model to indicate options desired in connector flow behavior.

7. The method of claim 6 comprising the additional act of completing the connection model with other source, target and target/source flows.

8. The method of claim 7 comprising the additional act of completing the connection model with error handling instructions.

9. The method of claim 5 wherein the event monitor and transmission sub-system is a Vitria sub-system.

10. The method of claim 5 wherein the application system is an Amdocs sub-system.

11. The method of claim 9 wherein the application system is an Amdocs sub-system.

12. A connector for use in an object-oriented program system, the connector being a middleware service logic mechanism between an event monitor and transmission sub-system and an application system having an application system API, the connector comprising;

a. means for receiving an event object from the event monitor and transmission sub-system;

b. means for causing an EJB to be associated with the event object;

c. means for causing methods to be invoked on the EJB in a particular order;

d. means for recognizing a result of a method invocation which itself requires the connector to invoke another method on the EJB; and

e. means for collecting results of the method invocations from the application system and passing the results to the event monitor and transmission sub-system.

13. The connector of claim 12 wherein the event monitor and transmission sub-system is a Vitria sub-system.

14. The connector of claim 12 wherein the application system is an Amdocs sub-system.

15. The connector of claim 13 wherein the application system is an Amdocs sub-system.

16. A connector for use in an object-oriented program system, the connector being a middleware service logic mechanism between an event monitor and transmission sub-system and an application system having an application system API, the connector comprising;

a first logic mechanism for dynamic bridging of a middleware application to an EJB API, without knowledge of the underlying procedural functionality of the middleware application;

a second logic mechanism for determining an interfacing signature of an EJB, and determining new data structures; and

a third logic mechanism connected to the first logic mechanism and to the second logic mechanism for matching an interfacing signature with the data structures using Java Reflection capabilities.

17. Apparatus for use in a computer system having a memory, a display screen and an input device which generates a plurality of input signals, the apparatus operating as a connector between an event monitor and transmission sub-system and an application system having an application system API, the connector comprising;

a. connector class information stored in the memory, the connector class information including connector program logic for processing an incoming event object and returning an object containing data representing results of the event processing by the application system; and

b. event-to-bean class information stored in the memory, the event-to-bean class including;

first program logic to use a Java Reflection API to parse data from the incoming event object and to invoke methods on a selected EJB in a pre-defined order as defined in a structure of IDL for an event in the incoming event object; and

second program logic to collect results from the invoked methods and to create data structures on the object containing data representing results that will hold the results.

18. A connector framework for use in a computer system having a memory, an application program having an application program API stored in a program address space in the memory, an operating system stored in a system address space in the memory, the connector framework operating as a connector between an event monitor and transmission sub-system and the application program and comprising:

a. a connector object stored in the memory, the connector object including connector program logic for processing an incoming event object and returning an object containing data representing results of the event processing by the application system; and

b. a mechanism stored in the memory, for instantiating an event-to-bean object in the program address space, the event-to-bean object including;

first program logic to use a Java Reflection API to parse data from the incoming event object and to invoke methods on a selected EJB in a pre-defined order as defined in a structure of IDL for an event in the incoming event object; and

second program logic to collect results from the invoked methods and to create data structures on the object containing data representing results that will hold the results.