System and method for modeling subscriptions and subscribers as data

• US 20040002988A1
• Filed: 06/26/2002
• Published: 01/01/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 06/26/2002
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Inventors: Knight, Holly, Seshadri, Praveen, Dievendorff, Richard, Blanch, Robert F., Garrett, Phil, Sundaresan, Prakash
• Application Number:
  US10/180,159
• Publication Number:
  US 20040002988A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/102
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/24568 Data stream processing; Continuous queries
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/04 Trading; Exchange, e.g. stocks, commodities, derivatives or currency exchange
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/32 Post and telecommunications franking apparatus G07B17/00
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/60 Business processes related to postal services shipping G06Q10/083; franking apparatus G07B17/00

Abstract

The present invention relates to a system and methodology for modeling subscription information and/or subscriber information as data. An interface provides for developers of subscription applications to enter subscription queries and subscriber information. The interface includes an application definition file (ADF) by which the developers can specify subscription application specific information; and an execution engine that processes the ADF by reading contents thereof and building application specific databases from schema information corresponding to the processed ADF.

Claims

1. A subscription services programming model, comprising:

an interface that provides for developers of subscription applications to enter subscription queries and subscriber information, the interface comprising;

an application definition file (ADF) by which the developers can specify subscription application specific information; and

an execution engine that processes the ADF by reading contents thereof and building application specific databases from schema information corresponding to the processed ADF.

2. The model of claim 1, the subscription application comprising an event provider that submits new events.

3. The model of claim 1, the subscription application comprising match logic that match events with subscriptions.

4. The model of claim 1, the subscription application comprising a notification formatter that transforms raw notification data into a form presentable to an end recipient.

5. The model of claim 1, the subscription application comprising a delivery protocol that delivers a formatted notification to an intended recipient.

6. The model of claim 1, the ADF comprising subscription schema.

7. The model of claim 1, the ADF comprising event schema.

8. The model of claim 1, the ADF comprising an event source which is a location from which events should be read.

9. The model of claim 1, the ADF comprising match rules that match events with subscriptions.

10. The model of claim 9, the match rules specified in T-SQL.

11. The model of claim 1, the ADF comprising formatting transforms that format raw notification data.

12. The model of claim 11, the formatting transforms comprising a set of XSL transforms.

13. A subscription services programming methodology, comprising:

receiving subscription queries and subscriber information;

abstracting the subscription queries and subscriber information into data classes;

propagating databases of the data classes with respective query and subscriber information; and

upon a notification event occurring, performing a join operation to join subsets of the databases to generate notification data.

14. An interface that provides for a subscription provider to enter the subscription queries and subscriber information of claim 13.

15. The method of claim 13 further comprising employing an application definition file (ADF) that holds subscription specific information.

16. The method of claim 13 further comprising representing the data classes with a schema.

17. The method of claim 16, the schema being in XML format.

18. The method of claim 13, the join operation comprising employing SQL database join functions.

19. A computer readable medium having stored thereon computer executable components for carrying out the method of claim 13.

20. A subscription services programming methodology, comprising:

generating a first set of data fields that represent subscription information;

generating a second set of data fields that represent subscriber information; and

generating a third set of data fields that represent event information.

21. The method of claim 20 further comprising:

generating a fourth set of data fields that represent notification data.

22. The method of claim 21, the fourth set of data fields being derived from performing a join operation on the first, second and third sets of data fields.

23. The method of claim 22 further comprising propagating databases storing the data fields with respective information.

24. A subscription services programming system, comprising:

means for abstracting at least a subset of subscriber information, subscription information and event information into schema; and

means for propagating databases with information corresponding to the respective schemas; and

means for performing a join operation on a subset of the databases to generate notification data.

25. A subscription services programming system, comprising:

a subscription data store that stores abstractions of subscription queries and subscriber information; and

a notification engine that performs a join operation on subsets of the abstractions to generate notifications.

26. The system of claim 25 further comprising an event table that stores event information.

27. The system of claim 25 further comprising a chronicle table.

28. The system of claim 25, the notification engine propagating a notification table as part of the join operation.

29. The system of claim 25, the abstractions comprising data classes.

30. The system of claim 25, the abstractions comprising data fields.

31. The system of claim 25, the abstractions comprising XML schema.