System and method for external override of annotations

• US 20050262499A1
• Filed: 05/20/2005
• Published: 11/24/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 05/21/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Oracle International Corporation (Oracle Corporation)
• Original Assignee: BEA Systems Incorporated (Oracle Corporation)
• Inventors: Read, David
• Granted Patent: US 7,607,126 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 717/172
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/656 while running

Abstract

In various embodiments of the present invention, a deployable application component can be configured via external annotation overrides at runtime without having to restart the component. An annotation/manifest can be populated to the corresponding application component at build time. The application component can then be configured and changes can be saved as annotation override into an external descriptor in XML format at deploy time. Such external descriptor can then be distributed, parsed, and validated at runtime to configure/update the deployed application component upon receiving notification of deployment changes. 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 to provide an external configuration framework, comprising:

a manifest operable to define a plurality of annotations and their constraints;

an application component configurable via the plurality of annotations at build time;

a deployment configuration manager operable to;

configure values of the plurality of annotations under their constraints; and

save the values as overrides of the plurality of annotations in an external descriptor at configure or deploy time;

a deployment manager operable to distribute, start, stop, or update the application component at runtime;

a descriptor framework operable to parse and/or validate the external descriptor at runtime; and

a container operable to configure and/or update the application component externally at runtime with the overrides of the plurality of annotations upon receiving a notification of deployment and/or deployment change without restarting or redeploying the application component.

2. The system according to claim 1, further comprising:

a custom module operable to;

listen to deployment and/or update event at runtime;

respond to the event by invoking the descriptor framework to parse and/or validate the external descriptor if it is changed; and

generate the notification of deployment changes to be delivered to the container.

3. The system according to claim 1, further comprising:

an administrative application operable to present and/or edit values of the plurality of annotations under their constraints, wherein the administrative application can be a console, an IDE or a web-based administrative tooling environment such as Jython scripting.

4. The system according to claim 1 wherein:

the external configuration framework can be implemented in one of Java, C++, and C# via one of a Java®

bean, an enterprise Java®

bean (EJB), and a class.

5. The system according to claim 1, wherein:

the application component can be deployed under J2EE environment.

6. The system according to claim 1, wherein:

each constraint on the plurality of the annotations can be one of;

a data type, a range, an optional/required tag, and a membership rule.

7. The system according to claim 1, wherein:

the plurality of annotations can have a structural or a collapsed form of representation.

8. The system according to claim 1, wherein:

values of the plurality of annotations can be in clear text or encrypted.

9. The system according to claim 1, wherein:

the deployment configuration manager is further operable to perform at least one of the following operations;

identifying a subset of the plurality of annotations to be externally configurable;

setting values of the subset of the plurality of annotations identified as externally configurable;

replacing/removing the existing values of the subset of the plurality of annotations identified as externally configurable;

supporting dynamic setting of the subset of the plurality of annotations; and

creating an external representation of overrides of the subset of the plurality of annotations by serializing them to an XML file.

10. The system according to claim 1, wherein:

the deployment manager and/or the deployment configuration manager can be integrated with JSR88 configuration process.

11. The system according to claim 1, wherein:

the external descriptor can be in XML format.

12. The system according to claim 1, wherein:

a deployment plan can be distributed to the descriptor framework and the custom module in addition to the external descriptor.

13. The system according to claim 1, wherein:

the container is operable to access the overrides of the plurality of annotations from the descriptor network.

14. The system according to claim 1, wherein:

the type of the container can be a control or an EJB.

15. A method to provide an external configuration framework, comprising:

defining and populating a plurality of annotations and their constraints specified at build time to an application component;

configuring the application component via the plurality of annotations of under their constraints;

saving values of the plurality of annotations as overrides into an external descriptor at configure or deploy time;

distributing, starting, stopping, or updating the application component at runtime;

distributing, parsing and/or validating the external descriptor at runtime; and

configuring and/or updating the application component with the overrides of the plurality of annotations externally at runtime upon receiving a notification of deployment and/or deployment change without restarting or redeploying the application component.

16. The method according to claim 15, further comprising:

listening to deployment and/or update event at runtime;

responding to the event by invoking the parsing and/or validating the external descriptor if it is changed; and

generating the notification of deployment changes.

17. The method according to claim 15, further comprising:

presenting and/or editing the plurality of annotations under their constraints via an administrative application, which can be one of can be a console, an IDE or an administrative tooling environment such as Jython scripting.

18. The method according to claim 15, further comprising at least one of:

identifying a subset of the plurality of annotations to be externally configurable;

setting values of the subset of the plurality of annotations identified as externally configurable;

replacing/removing the existing values of the subset of the plurality of annotations identified as externally configurable;

supporting dynamic setting of the subset of the plurality of annotations; and

creating an external representation of overrides of the subset of the plurality of annotations by serializing them to an XML file.

19. The method according to claim 15, further comprising:

distributing a deployment plan at runtime in addition to the external descriptor.

20. A machine readable medium having instructions stored thereon that when executed cause a system to:

define and populate a plurality of annotations and their constraints specified at build time to an application component;

configure the application component via the plurality of annotations of under their constraints;

save values of the plurality of annotations as overrides into an external descriptor at configure or deploy time;

distribute, start, stop, or update the application component at runtime;

distribute, parse and/or validate the external descriptor at runtime; and

configure and/or update the application component with the overrides of the plurality of annotations externally at runtime upon receiving a notification of deployment and/or deployment change without restarting or redeploying the application component.

21. A system to provide an architecture for external control configuration, comprising:

means for defining and populating a plurality of annotations and their constraints specified at build time to an application component;

means for configuring the application component via the plurality of annotations of under their constraints;

means for defining saving values of the plurality of annotations as overrides into an external descriptor at configure or deploy time;

means for defining distributing, starting, stopping, or updating the application component at runtime;

means for defining distributing, parsing and/or validating the external descriptor at runtime; and

means for defining configuring and/or updating the application component with the overrides of the plurality of annotations externally at runtime upon receiving a notification of deployment and/or deployment change without restarting or redeploying the application component.