System and method for configurable trading system

• US 20060075396A1
• Filed: 09/30/2005
• Published: 04/06/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 09/30/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Millennium IT (USA), Inc. (London Stock Exchange Group PLC)
• Original Assignee: Millennium IT (USA), Inc. (London Stock Exchange Group PLC)
• Inventors: Surasinghe, Lakshitha C.
• Granted Patent: US 8,099,441 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 717/168
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/22 Indexing; Data structures therefor; Storage structures
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/70 Software maintenance or management
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/44505 Configuring for program initiating, e.g. using registry, configuration files
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/04 Billing or invoicing
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/04 Trading; Exchange, e.g. stocks, commodities, derivatives or currency exchange
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 15/43 Billing software details
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 15/51 for resellers, retailers or service providers
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2215/54 Resellers-retail or service providers billing, e.g. agreements with telephone service operator, activation, charging/recharging of accounts

Abstract

A system dynamically integrates into an application program that implements rules for controlling business operations changes in the parameters and parameter groupings that are used by or in conjunction with the rules. The system includes a dynamic business logic rule integrator that provides business logic rules to the application software as executable routines, and a dynamic parameter manager that organizes and manages the parameters. The manager integrates changes to the parameters, groups and/or links the parameters, and makes the parameters available to the rules through a dynamically configurable system database—using a set of static database tables and related dynamically configurable database tables, in which certain database fields or sub-fields correspond to parameters that are used in the rules. The respective database tables and the various fields and sub-fields are established and linked together in accordance with user-defined categories and sub-categories, or “instances.” When parameters are added, edited, grouped, re-grouped, or deleted, the dynamic parameter manager updates, creates and/or removes database tables. The revised set of tables is then made available to the rules, and rules utilize the information in the various fields and sub-fields of the tables to control appropriate trading and associated reporting activities.

Claims

1. A system for dynamically managing parameters for use in business logic rules in an application program, the system including:

an application program for executing the business logic rules using system hardware and software;

a dynamically configurable database that includes fields and sub-fields that correspond to parameters that are associated with the business logic rules;

a dynamic parameter manager module for

providing to a user a mechanism to define the parameters using the fields and sub-fields of the dynamically configurable database and define groupings of parameters to define base entities,

making the groupings of the parameters available to the business logic rules, and

providing the parameters to the application program.

2. The system of claim 1 wherein the dynamic parameter manager provides to a user a mechanism to add new fields and sub-fields to the dynamically configurable database to add parameters.

3. The system of claim 2 wherein the dynamic parameter manager provides to a user a mechanism to define attributes of the new fields and sub-fields.

4. The system of claim 1 wherein the groupings of the parameters are dynamically updated to correspond to changes in the business logic rules.

5. The system of claim 1 wherein

the base entities include categories that are associated with the respective groupings of the parameters,

the categories correspond to respective rows in static database tables that are associated with the base entities, and

the columns of the tables correspond to the fields and sub-fields that correspond to the groupings of the parameters that are associated with the respective base entities.

6. The system of claim 5 wherein

the dynamic parameter manager creates dynamically configurable database tables for the respective categories, and

the dynamically configurable database tables include columns for the parameters that are included in the definitions of the respective categories.

7. The system of claim 6 wherein the dynamically configurable database tables include rows for respective instances of the categories.

8. The system of claim 7 wherein the dynamically configurable database tables further include pointers to the tables for related categories created within other base entities.

9. The system of claim 6 wherein the dynamic parameter manager module

associates the fields and sub-fields required for the definition of a new category of a given base entity with columns in the associated dynamically configurable database table,

incorporates into the dynamically configurable database table changes to the required fields and sub-fields,

associates additional fields and sub-fields with the new category definition by including new columns in the dynamically configurable database table,

incorporates the new category in the given base entity by adding a new row to the static database table associated with the base entity, and

links the new category to related categories in other base entities.

10. The system of claim 9 wherein the dynamic parameter manager module further provides, for selection of the fields and sub-fields to associate with the category, a list of all parameters that are defined under the associated base entity.

11. The system of claim 10 wherein the dynamic parameter manager module lists for the respective fields the associated attributes.

12. The system of claim 7 wherein the dynamic parameter manger module creates instances of the categories by adding rows to the associated dynamically configurable database tables and entering associated information in the columns of the added rows.

13. A system for dynamically managing parameters that are utilized by business logic rules incorporated into an application program, the system including:

a rule-based engine for controlling business operations in accordance with an organized set of business logic rules;

an application program for executing the business logic rules using system hardware and software;

a dynamically configurable database that includes fields and sub-fields that correspond to parameters that are associated with base entities that are used in the business logic rules; and

a dynamic parameter manager sub-system for providing to a user one or more interfaces through which the database fields and sub-fields are available for creating, editing and grouping the parameters associated with the base entities, the sub-system providing the groupings of the parameters for use by the business logic rules.

14. The system of claim 13 wherein the dynamic parameter manager sub-system further provides to a user one or more interfaces through which the fields and sub-fields are created and edited by assigning to the fields and sub-fields one or more attributes.

15. The system of claim 13 wherein the dynamic parameter manager sub-system includes one or more interfaces through which a user defines the categories by associating groupings of the parameters with the respective categories of the base entities.

16. The system of claim 13 wherein the dynamic parameter manager sub-system

produces static database tables that associate the groupings of the parameters with the base entities and dynamically configurable database tables that associate various parameters within the groups with respective categories of the base entities, the tables including for the parameters columns that are associated with the fields and sub-fields that correspond to the parameters, and

associates the groupings of the parameters with respective business logic rules.

17. The system of claim 16 wherein the dynamic parameter manager sub-system newly associates parameters with the base entities by adding columns for the corresponding fields and sub-fields to the static database tables.

18. The system of claim 17 wherein the dynamic parameter manager sub-system adds or deletes columns of the static database tables and dynamically configurable database tables to add or delete corresponding parameters from the definitions of the base entities and categories in accordance with changes in the business logic rules.

19. The system of claim 18 wherein the dynamic parameter manager sub-system provides to a user one or more interfaces through which the fields and sub-fields associated with a given category are available for associating corresponding parameter values to define respective instances of the category.

20. The system of claim 19 wherein the dynamic parameter manager sub-system creates rows in the dynamically configurage database table for the respective instances and fills the corresponding columns with the values to define the instances.

21. The system of claim 19 wherein the dynamic parameter manager sub-system links the category with categories of other base entities by including associated pointers in the table.

22. A method for dynamically managing parameters for use in business logic rules in an application program, the method comprising the steps of:

stating the business logic rules as expressions in a functional language that utilizes parameters that correspond to lookup fields in an associated dynamically configurable database;

creating static and related dynamically configurable database tables for user-defined parameters and groups of parameters using the fields and sub-fields of the dynamically configurable database to define base entities, categories of base entities and instances of the categories for use with the business logic rule, and providing the database tables to the application.

23. The method of claim 22 further including adding new parameters by adding new fields and sub-fields to a dynamically configurable database that incorporates the database tables.

24. The method of claim 23 further including assigning attributes to define the new fields and sub-fields.

25. The method of claim 24 wherein the step of creating the database tables includes adding to the database tables the new fields and sub-fields of the dynamically configurable database.

26. The method of claim 25 wherein the step of creating the database tables further includes re-grouping the parameters to correspond to changes in the business logic rules by changing the fields and sub-fields associated with respective database tables.

27. The method of claim 26 wherein the step of creating the database tables includes creating rows of the base entity database table for the respective categories, with the columns of the base entity table corresponding to the groupings of the fields and sub-fields that are associated with the respective base entities.

28. The method of claim 27 wherein the step of creating the database tables includes creating dynamically configurable database tables for the respective categories, the dynamically configurable database tables including columns for the parameters that are included in the definitions of the respective categories.

29. The method of claim 28 wherein the dynamically configurable database tables include rows for respective instances of the categories.

30. The method of claim 29 wherein the dynamically configurable database tables further include pointers to the tables for related categories created within other base entities.

31. The method of claim 28 wherein the step of creating the dynamically configurable database tables further includes

associating the fields and sub-fields required for the definition of a new category of a given base entity with columns in the associated dynamically configurable database table,

incorporating into the dynamically configurable database table changes to the required fields and sub-fields,

associating additional fields and sub-fields with the category definitions by including new columns in the dynamically configurable database table,

incorporating the new category in the given base entity by adding a new row to the database table associated with the base entity, and

linking the new category to related categories in other base entity data base tables.

32. The method of claim 31 further including providing, for selection of the fields and sub-fields to include in the category, a list of all parameters that are defined under the associated base entity.

33. The method of claim 32 further including listing for the respective the fields the associated attributes.

34. The method of claim 29 further including creating instances of the categories by adding rows to the associated dynamically configurable database tables and entering associated information in the columns of the added rows.

35. The method of claim 22 wherein the business logic rules access parameter values using the tables.