Storage API for a common data platform

• US 20060195477A1
• Filed: 08/02/2005
• Published: 08/31/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 02/28/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Nagarajan, Ramesh, Pizzo, Michael J., Albahari, Benjamin, Deem, Michael E., Whitten, Arthur T., Sheppard, Edward G.
• Granted Patent: US 7,685,561 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/252 between a Database Management System and a front-end application

Abstract

An application program interface (API) for a data platform. The API includes a generic data access component that exposes at least one of stores, sessions, transactions, and query services of the data platform, which data platform is associated with a data store. A data classes component of the API provides canonical, application-independent classes that expose types and relationships of a data model of the data platform. The API includes a domain data classes component of application-specific and framework-specific classes that expose domain-specific properties and behaviors of the data platform. The data platform can be a common data platform that interfaces to the data store to provide data services accessible by a plurality of disparate application frameworks, which data services allow a corresponding application of the different frameworks to access the data store.

Claims

1. An application program interface (API) for a data platform, comprising:

a generic data access component that exposes at least one of stores, sessions, transactions, and query services of the data platform, the data platform is associated with a data store;

a data classes component of canonical, application-independent classes that expose types and relationships of a data model of the data platform; and

a domain data classes component of application-specific and framework-specific classes that expose domain-specific properties and behaviors of the data platform.

2. The interface of claim 1, wherein the data platform is a common data platform that interfaces to the data store to provide data services accessible by a plurality of disparate application frameworks, the data services allow a corresponding application of the different frameworks to access the data store.

3. The interface of claim 1, wherein the domain data classes component includes a domain class that defines a store over which other classes operate.

4. The interface of claim 1, wherein the data classes component includes a context class that provides a context for a session.

5. The interface of claim 4, wherein the context class defines a scope for identity management, change tracking, and concurrency conflict handling, with methods for refreshing or saving changes to objects within a current context.

6. The interface of claim 1, wherein the data classes component includes a searcher class employed to build a composable object-based query against the data store.

7. The interface of claim 1, further comprising a view class that provides a view over a result set.

8. The interface of claim 1, further comprising a schema class that provides access to tables of the schema.

9. The interface of claim 8, wherein the schema class is a strongly typed schema class that is derived from an untyped schema class based on a target schema.

10. A computer-readable medium having stored thereon computer-executable instructions for carrying out the interface of claim 1.

11. A computer-implemented method of exposing a data platform, comprising:

exposing at least one of stores, sessions, transactions, and query services of the data platform, the data platform associated with a data store;

exposing types and relationships of a data model of the data platform; and

exposing domain-specific properties and behaviors of the data platform.

12. The method of claim 11, further comprising encapsulating stores information of the stores, the stores information includes server information, authentication information and mapping information.

13. The method of claim 11, further comprising an act of building a storage view via a storage searcher.

14. The method of claim 11, further comprising an act of querying a storage domain via a storage searcher.

15. The method of claim 11, further comprising an act of providing a class that encapsulates a connection between a client and one or more of the stores.

16. The method of claim 11, wherein the act of exposing at least one of stores is via a generic data access component.

17. The method of claim 11, wherein the act of exposing types and relationships is via a canonical application-independent class.

18. The method of claim 11, wherein the act of exposing domain-specific properties is via a domain data classes component of application-specific and framework-specific classes.

19. A system that facilitates a data platform API, comprising:

means for exposing at least one of stores, sessions, transactions, and query services of the data platform, the data platform associated with a data store;

means for exposing types and relationships of a data model of the data platform;

means for exposing domain-specific properties and behaviors of the data platform;

means for building composable object-based queries against the stores; and

means for providing a view over a set of results of the queries.

20. The system of claim 19, further comprising means for representing a strongly-typed collection of objects.