System and method for accessing non-compatible content repositories

• US 20040215635A1
• Filed: 12/23/2003
• Published: 10/28/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 01/17/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Whelan, Daniel S., Fridman, Vladimir, Mills, Scott P., Mayes, Lauren, Chang, Mann
• Granted Patent: US 7,483,879 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/100
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management

Abstract

Systems and methods access non-compatible content repositories that are not natively accessible to a content management system. A metadata registry maintains metadata about content stored in both compatible and non-compatible repositories. For content in a non-compatible repository, the metadata indicates a repository interface capable of accessing the non-compatible repository. The content manager communicates with the repository interfaces to access the content in non-compatible repositories. The content manager may receive a request for content in a non-compatible repository, refer to the metadata registry to select a repository interface to employ, transmit a request for the requested content to the selected repository interface, and receive the requested content from the repository interface. A repository interface registry maintains information about available repository interfaces. Entries may be added to either the metadata registry and the repository interface registry, thus allowing the systems and methods to be extended to be able to access additional non-compatible repositories.

Claims

1. A content manager that fills requests for requested content by accessing repositories storing the requested content when the repositories may not be compatible with one or more requesting systems, the content manager comprising:

a request for content stored in a repository employing a protocol inaccessible to an originator of the request;

a metadata registry including metadata describing the requested content stored in the repository, where the metadata includes an identification of a particular external service capable of communicating with the repository using the protocol to acquire the requested content; and

an external service registry listing the particular external service among a plurality of external services, wherein the external service registry associates information for interacting with the protocol for the particular external service, and for each of the other external services, associates information for interacting with appropriate protocols for that other external service.

2. The content manager of claim 1, wherein the identification included in the metadata registry is one of a direct identification and an indirect identification.

3. The content manager of claim 2, wherein at least a portion of the metadata and at least a portion of information in the external service registry is combined into a unique identifier that uniquely identifies the requested content to the particular external service.

4. The content manager of claim 3, wherein the unique identifier is combined dynamically at run-time.

5. The content manager of claim 4, wherein the metadata registry and external service registry comprise entries in one or more tables or files.

6. The content manager of claim 5, wherein the information for interacting with the protocol for the particular external service includes one or more methods executable by the particular external service against the repository to access the requested content.

7. The content manager of claim 3, wherein the originator of the request comprises a workflow process engine.

8. The content manager of claim 7, wherein the workflow process engine uses the metadata as a proxy for the requested content in one or more workflow processes.

9. The content manager of claim 3, wherein the originator of the request comprises an application.

10. The content manager of claim 3, wherein a legacy application that can directly access the protocol can continue to access the requested content.

11. The content manager of claim 10, wherein the access comprises the actions of retrieval, addition, modification, and deletion.

12. The content manager of claim 3, wherein the information maintained by the external services registry additionally defines an identifier template.

13. The content manager of claim 12, wherein the identifier template defines a format for a unique identifier employed by the repository for uniquely identifying the requested content.

14. The content manager of claim 13, wherein the identifier template comprises parameter placeholders configured to receive parameter values.

15. The content manager of claim 14, wherein the metadata further includes parameter values sufficient to fill in the parameter placeholders such that filling in the parameter placeholders with the parameter values results in a unique identifier of the requested content.

16. A method of accessing content stored within a content storage system, the method comprising:

receiving a request for content stored in a storage system inaccessible to a requesting process;

retrieving metadata about the requested content, wherein the metadata includes parameter values;

generating an identifier using an identifier template including parameter placeholders and using parameter values, wherein the identifier uniquely identifies the requested content;

transmitting the generated identifier to one or more external services of a plurality of external services, wherein the one or more external services are capable of accessing the requested content in the storage system based on the identifier; and

receiving the requested content from the one or more external services.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein generating the identifier includes dynamically combining at least a portion of the metadata with at least a portion of information contained within an external service registry.

18. The method of claim 16, wherein generating the identifier further comprises extracting the identifier template from the external service registry.

19. The method of claim 18, further comprising selecting, based on the metadata, the one or more external services.

20. The method of claim 19, further comprising loading an application configured to further process the requested content.

21. The method of claim 20, further comprising providing the requested content to a workflow process engine.

22. The method of claim 21, further comprising displaying the requested content on a display device.

23. The method of claim 21, further comprising providing the requested data to a human user via a software application appropriate to the data type.

24. A system capable of extending an amount of content available to at least one of a workflow processing engine and a content engine, the system comprising:

at least one of a workflow engine and a content engine;

an add content module including a user selection corresponding to selecting a repository interface capable of accessing inaccessible content, wherein the inaccessible content corresponds to content stored in a repository system governed by a protocol unknown to the at least one of the workflow engine and the content engine, and corresponding to selecting identification information capable of uniquely identifying the inaccessible content to the repository system, wherein the add content module encodes the user selection in metadata; and

a repository interface registry storing parameters expected by the protocol, wherein the parameters can be filled using the encoded metadata.