Creating web services programs from other web services programs

• US 20040199896A1
• Filed: 10/06/2003
• Published: 10/07/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 04/02/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Lagarde, Konrad C., Goodman, Brian D., Shu, Chen, Kebinger, James K., Rogers, Richard M.
• Granted Patent: US 7,543,299 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 717/100
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/34 Graphical or visual programming
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/451 Execution arrangements for user interfaces

Abstract

A computer program capsule is created from programs that include at least one other web service program. The programs are interconnected and saved as an encapsulated program for use as an encapsulated program or a web service program. The encapsulated program is created and interconnected from a local or remote computer.

Claims

1. A method for creating a first computer program at a first computer system in a web services environment, the method comprising the steps of:

moving a first representation of a first web service program into a common storage partition of the first computer system, the first web service program stored at a second computer system remote from the first computer system;

moving a second representation of a second program into the common storage partition of the first computer system;

interconnecting the first representation of the first web service program with the second representation of the second program in the common storage partition of the first computer system wherein the first web service program and the second program cooperate to perform a desired function by way of the interconnection;

saving to storage an interconnected representation of the first web service program and second representation of the second program as a first encapsulated program;

saving to storage identifying information identifying the first encapsulated program;

saving to storage invoking information for invoking the first encapsulated program; and

providing the identifying information and invoking information to a third computer system remote from the first computer system.

2. The method according to claim 1 wherein the storage of any one of the saving to storage steps is any one of local storage or remote storage.

3. The method according to claim 1 wherein the identifying information further comprises descriptive information describing function of the first encapsulated program.

4. The method according to claim 1 wherein the first encapsulated program comprises a web service program.

5. The method according to claim 1 wherein any one of the identifying information or the invoking information are provided in WSDL.

6. The method according to claim 1 wherein the identifying information and invoking information is provided to the third computer system in a list of a plurality of encapsulated programs.

7. The method according to claim 1 comprising the further steps of:

receiving a call request from a remote computer system, the call request invoking the first encapsulated program as a web service;

executing the first encapsulated program; and

returning results of the execution of the first encapsulated program to the remote computer system.

8. The method according to claim 7 wherein the call request is received by way of any one of a local application interface or a network protocol, the network protocol comprising any one of Soap, RPC, hyper-sockets or HTTP.

9. The method according to claim 1 wherein the encapsulated program is any one of visually designed, visually configured, visually managed or visually created using GUI techniques.

10. The method according to claim 1 wherein any of the steps are performed by a Drag and Drop operation on a GUI display on any one of the first computer system or a remote computer system.

11. The method according to claim 1 wherein any one of the identifying information or the invoking information is dynamically generated.

12. A method for creating a first computer program at a first computer system in a web service environment, the method comprising the steps of:

moving a first representation of a first web service program into a common storage partition of the first computer system, the first web service program stored at a computer system remote from the first computer system;

moving a second representation of a second program into the common storage partition of the first computer system;

moving a modifier representation of an interconnection function into the common storage partition of the first computer system;

interconnecting the first representation of the first web service program with the second representation of the second program in the common storage partition of the first computer system wherein the first web service program and the second program cooperate to perform a desired function by way of the interconnection;

interconnecting any one of the first representation or the second representation with the modifier representation; and

saving to storage an interconnected representation of the first web service program and second representation of the second program as a first encapsulated program.

13. The method according to claim 12 wherein the modifier function comprises any one of a parallel execution connection, a serial execution connection, a data normalizer function, an algebraic function, a Boolean function, a one to many interconnection function, a many to one interconnection function, a many to many interconnection function, a switching function, a filtering function, or a monitoring function.

14. The method according to claim 12 wherein the modifier function determines an input to output path through the modifier wherein the path is determined by a value of an input to the modifier.

15. the method according to claim 12 wherein the modifier function determines an input to output path according to predetermined criteria.

16. The method according to claim 12 wherein any of the steps are performed by a Drag and Drop operation on a GUI display on any one of the first computer system or a remote computer system.

17. The method according to claim 12 wherein the storage of the saving to storage step is any one of local storage or remote storage.

18. The method according to claim 12 wherein the first encapsulated program comprises a web service program.

23. The computer program product according to claim 13 wherein any one of the identifying information or the invoking information are provided in WSDL.

19. A computer program product for creating a first computer program at a first computer system in a web services environment, the computer program product comprising:

a storage medium readable by a processing circuit and storing instructions for execution by a processing circuit for performing a method comprising the steps of;

moving a first representation of a first web service program into a common storage partition of the first computer system, the first web service program stored at a second computer system remote from the first computer system;

moving a second representation of a second program into the common storage partition of the first computer system;

interconnecting the first representation of the first web service program with the second representation of the second program in the common storage partition of the first computer system wherein the first web service program and the second program cooperate to perform a desired function by way of the interconnection;

saving to storage an interconnected representation of the first web service program and second representation of the second program as a first encapsulated program;

saving to storage identifying information identifying the first encapsulated program;

saving to storage invoking information for invoking the first encapsulated program; and

providing the identifying information and invoking information to a third computer system remote from the first computer system.

20. The computer program product according to claim 19 wherein the storage of any one of the saving to storage steps is any one of local storage or remote storage.

21. The computer program product according to claim 19 wherein the identifying information further comprises descriptive information describing function of the first encapsulated program.

22. The computer program product according to claim 19 wherein the first encapsulated program comprises a web service program.

24. The computer program product according to claim 19 wherein the identifying information and invoking information is provided to the third computer system in a list of a plurality of encapsulated programs.

25. The computer program product according to claim 19 comprising the further steps of:

receiving a call request from a remote computer system, the call request invoking the first encapsulated program as a web service;

executing the first encapsulated program; and

returning results of the execution of the first encapsulated program to the remote computer system.

26. The computer program product according to claim 25 wherein the call request is received by way of any one of a local application interface or a network protocol, the network protocol comprising any one of Soap, RPC, hyper-sockets or HTTP.

27. The computer program product according to claim 19 wherein the encapsulated program is any one of visually designed, visually configured, visually managed or visually created using GUI techniques.

28. The computer program product according to claim 19 wherein any of the steps are performed by a Drag and Drop operation on a GUI display on any one of the first computer system or a remote computer system.

29. The computer program product according to claim 19 wherein any one of the identifying information or the invoking information is dynamically generated.

30. A computer program product for creating a first computer program at a first computer system in a web service environment, the computer program product comprising:

a storage medium readable by a processing circuit and storing instructions for execution by a processing circuit for performing a method comprising the steps of;

moving a first representation of a first web service program into a common storage partition of the first computer system, the first web service program stored at a computer system remote from the first computer system;

moving a second representation of a second program into the common storage partition of the first computer system;

moving a modifier representation of an interconnection function into the common storage partition of the first computer system;

interconnecting the first representation of the first web service program with the second representation of the second program in the common storage partition of the first computer system wherein the first web service program and the second program cooperate to perform a desired function by way of the interconnection;

interconnecting any one of the first representation or the second representation with the modifier representation; and

saving to storage an interconnected representation of the first web service program and second representation of the second program as a first encapsulated program.

31. The computer program product according to claim 30 wherein the modifier function comprises any one of a parallel execution connection, a serial execution connection, a data normalizer function, an algebraic function, a Boolean function, a one to many interconnection function, a many to one interconnection function, a many to many interconnection function, a switching function, a filtering function, or a monitoring function.

32. The computer program product according to claim 30 wherein the modifier function determines an input to output path through the modifier wherein the path is determined by a value of an input to the modifier.

33. the computer program product according to claim 30 wherein the modifier function determines an input to output path according to predetermined criteria.

34. The computer program product according to claim 30 wherein any of the steps are performed by a Drag and Drop operation on a GUI display on any one of the first computer system or a remote computer system.

35. The computer program product according to claim 30 wherein the storage of the saving to storage step is any one of local storage or remote storage.

36. The computer program product according to claim 30 wherein the first encapsulated program comprises a web service program.

37. A system for creating a first computer program at a first computer system in a web services environment, the system comprising:

a network;

a first computer system in communication with the network wheren the computer system includes instructions to execute a method comprising;

moving a first representation of a first web service program into a common storage partition of the first computer system, the first web service program stored at a second computer system remote from the first computer system;

moving a second representation of a second program into the common storage partition of the first computer system;

interconnecting the first representation of the first web service program with the second representation of the second program in the common storage partition of the first computer system wherein the first web service program and the second program cooperate to perform a desired function by way of the interconnection;

saving to storage an interconnected representation of the first web service program and second representation of the second program as a first encapsulated program;

saving to storage identifying information identifying the first encapsulated program;

saving to storage invoking information for invoking the first encapsulated program; and

providing the identifying information and invoking information to a third computer system remote from the first computer system.

38. The system according to claim 37 comprising the further steps of:

receiving a call request from a remote computer system, the call request invoking the first encapsulated program as a web service;

executing the first encapsulated program; and

returning results of the execution of the first encapsulated program to the remote computer system.

39. A system for creating a first computer program at a first computer system in a web service environment, the system comprising:

a network;

a first computer system in communication with the network wheren the computer system includes instructions to execute a method comprising;

moving a first representation of a first web service program into a common storage partition of the first computer system, the first web service program stored at a computer system remote from the first computer system;

moving a second representation of a second program into the common storage partition of the first computer system;

moving a modifier representation of an interconnection function into the common storage partition of the first computer system;

interconnecting the first representation of the first web service program with the second representation of the second program in the common storage partition of the first computer system wherein the first web service program and the second program cooperate to perform a desired function by way of the interconnection;

interconnecting any one of the first representation or the second representation with the modifier representation; and

saving to storage an interconnected representation of the first web service program and second representation of the second program as a first encapsulated program.