Enterprise application platform

• US 20040068568A1
• Filed: 05/01/2003
• Published: 04/08/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 05/01/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Oracle International Corporation (Oracle Corporation)
• Original Assignee: BEA Systems Incorporated (Oracle Corporation)
• Inventors: Lin, Andy C., Posner, Brad, Sengupta, Somenath, Griffin, Philip B., Devgan, Manish, Gupta, Jitendra, Hallock, Troy, Ma, Hung T., Rohra, Ravi, Libouban, Olivier, Osborne, Patrick
• Granted Patent: US 7,496,687 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/227
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0481 based on specific properties of the displayed interaction object or a metaphor-based environment, e.g. interaction with desktop elements like windows or icons, or assisted by a cursor's changing behaviour or appearance
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/188 Electronic negotiation

Abstract

A business platform can provide access to applications and provide for the integration of resources with other applications, including internal and external applications, services and systems. A portal framework included within the platform can render portals including graphical user interfaces for displaying and receiving content that can be used by various applications. A portal framework can provide an interface to various resources such that information received and displayed by the portal framework can be exchanged with internal and external resources using standards-based transport protocols, messaging systems, and document types. An integration framework can be invoked to exchange this information among applications and services. An integration framework can provide access to resources by integrating the resources with an application server. The portal framework and integration framework can be implemented on an application server which can support enterprise applications.

This description is not intended to be a complete description of, or limit the scope of, the invention. Other features, aspects, and objects of the invention can be obtained from a review of the specification, the figures, and the claims.

Claims

1. A system for accessing a resource, comprising:

an integration framework, the integration framework adapted to provide access to the resource; and

a portal framework, the portal framework adapted to generate a portal providing an interface to the resource.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the portal framework comprises:

a portal manager, the portal manager adapted to manage content used in rendering the portal.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the portal framework comprises:

a webflow, the webflow adapted to execute logic to render content for the portal;

4. The system of claim 3, wherein the webflow tracks and modifies the portal based upon at least one of information received through the portal, information received from an external service, and information received from the integration framework.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the portal framework comprises:

a pipeline component, the pipeline component adapted to communicate with resources external to the portal framework;

6. The system of claim 5, wherein the pipeline component is adapted to communicate with at least one of a web service, an event queue, and the integration framework.

7. The system of claim 5, wherein the pipeline component is adapted to execute operations using at least one of information received through the portal, information received from an external service, and information received from the integration framework.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the integration framework comprises:

a management component, the management component adapted to manage the flow of information within the integration framework.

9. The system of claim 1, further comprising:

an application server;

wherein the integration framework comprises;

an application integration component, the application integration component adapted to integrate at least one application with the application server.

10. The system of claim 1, further comprising:

an application server;

wherein the integration framework comprises;

a business integration component, the business integration component adapted to integrate at least one business system with the application server.

11. The system of claim 1, further comprising:

an event queue, the event queue adapted to queue messages for exchange between the portal framework and the integration framework.

12. The system of claim 1, wherein the integration framework and the portal framework can communicate using a standards-compliant communication protocol.

13. The system of claim 12, wherein the standards-compliant communication protocol is a Java enabled standards-compliant communication protocol.

14. The system of claim 13, wherein the Java enabled standards-compliant communication protocol is Java messaging service.

15. The system of claim 13, wherein the Java enabled standards-compliant communication protocol is Java connector architecture.

16. The system of claim 1, wherein the integration framework and the portal framework can communicate using a Java enabled communication protocol.

17. The system of claim 1, wherein the integration framework and the portal framework can communicate using Java connector architecture.

18. The system of claim 1, wherein the integration framework and the portal framework can communicate using Java messaging service.

19. The system of claim 1, wherein the integration framework and the portal framework are implemented on an application server.

20. The system of claim 1, wherein the portal framework is adapted to:

receive information through the portal; and

convert the information to an eXtensible markup language (XML) based document.

21. The system of claim 20, wherein the integration framework and portal framework can communicate by passing the XML based document.

22. The system of claim 1, wherein the resource includes at least one of an enterprise application, a legacy system, a database, and a web service.

23. A system for accessing an application through an application server, comprising:

an integration framework, the integration framework adapted to provide access to the application; and

a portal framework, the portal framework adapted to generate a portal providing an interface to the application through the application server.

24. A system for accessing a resource, comprising:

an application server;

an integration framework, the integration framework adapted to provide the application server with access to the resource;

a portal framework, the portal framework adapted to generate a portal providing an interface to the resource through the application server; and

wherein the portal framework and the integration framework can communicate using a standards-compliant communication protocol.

28. The method of claim 24, further comprising:

converting the information to an XML-based document prior to passing the information to the integration framework.

25. A method for accessing a resource, comprising:

providing access to the resource through an integration framework; and

providing an interface to the resource through a portal generated by a portal framework.

26. The method of claim 25, further comprising:

receiving information from a user through the portal;

passing the information to the integration framework; and

providing the information to the resource using the integration framework.

27. The method of claim 26, wherein the information is provided to the resource using Simple Object Access Protocol.

29. A computer-readable medium for accessing a resource, comprising:

means for providing access to the resource through an integration framework; and

means for providing an interface to the resource through a portal generated by a portal framework.

30. A computer program product for accessing a resource, comprising:

a computer usable medium having computer readable program code embodied therein for accessing the resource, the computer readable medium program code having;

computer readable program code for providing access to the resource through an integration framework; and

computer readable program code for providing an interface to the resource through a portal generated by a portal framework.

31. A computer program product for accessing a resource, comprising:

computer code for providing access to the resource through an integration framework; and

computer code for providing an interface to the resource through a portal generated by a portal framework.

32. A system, comprising:

an application server;

a portal framework implemented on the application server, the portal framework including;

a portal manager, the portal manager adapted to render a portal providing an interface to the resource through the application server;

a webflow, the webflow adapted to execute logic to render content for the portal;

a pipeline component, the pipeline component adapted to execute logic used in communicating with resources external to the portal framework;

an integration framework implemented on the application server, the integration framework including;

a management component, the management component adapted to manage the flow of information within the integration framework;

an application integration component, the application integration component adapted to integrate at least one application with the application server;

a business integration component, the business integration component adapted to integrate at least one business system with the application server.

33. The system of claim 32, wherein the pipeline component is further adapted to execute operations on at least one of information received through the portal, information received from an external service, and information received from the integration framework.

34. A method for performing an electronic business transaction, comprising:

receiving user information through a portal, the portal generated using a portal framework;

calling an application integration service with the information received through the portal;

formulating a query using the information;

querying a management system through the application integration service;

receiving a response from the management system through the application integration service;

passing the response to the portal framework; and

updating the portal using the response received from the management system.

35. The method of claim 34, wherein the application integration service is an application integration adapter.

36. The method of claim 34, wherein the user information is a request for an availability of a product.

37. The method of claim 35, wherein the management system is a database with inventory information regarding the product.

38. The method of claim 34, wherein the response from the management system is an XML-based response, further comprising:

parsing the XML-based response prior to passing the response to the portal framework.

39. A method for performing an electronic business transaction, comprising:

receiving a request for the availability of a product through a portal, the portal generated using a portal framework;

converting the request to an XML-based document;

passing the XML-based document to an integration framework;

placing the XML-based document into a request message configured for communication using a predetermined protocol;

passing the request message using the predetermined protocol to at least one supplier system;

receiving a response message from the at least one supplier system containing an XML-based response document;

extracting the XML-based response document from the response message;

passing the XML-based response document to the portal framework; and

updating the portal with information from the XML-based response document.