Technique for platform-independent service modeling

• US 20060242195A1
• Filed: 04/21/2006
• Published: 10/26/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 04/22/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: UBS Business Solutions AG (UBS Ag)
• Original Assignee: UBS Ag
• Inventors: Loacker, Hansbeat, Bove, Aniello
• Granted Patent: US 7,761,844 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/35 model driven
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/36 Software reuse

Abstract

A template-driven system for generating platform-specific artifacts, such as program code, from platform-independent service models is described. The system comprises a template storage (102) with platform-specific templates, each template including platform-specific model transformation information; a repository (104) with a plurality of at least essentially platform-independent service model elements and one or more service models modeled from the model elements; and a generator (106) adapted to generate platform-specific artifacts by applying the transformation information included in the templates to the service models.

Claims

1. A template-driven system (100) for generating platform-specific artifacts, such as program code, from platform-independent service models, the system comprising:

a template storage (102) with platform-specific templates, each template including platform-specific model transformation information;

a repository (104) with

i. a plurality of at least essentially platform-independent service model elements and

ii. one or more service models modeled from the model elements; and

a generator (106) adapted to generate platform-specific artifacts by applying the transformation information included in the templates to the service models.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein at least some of the service-model elements are shared by two or more service models.

3. The system of claim 1, further comprising a service model creator for creating at least one of service model elements and platform-independent service models from the service model elements.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the service model elements included in the repository are hierarchically structured.

5. The system of claim 4, wherein each service is modeled from one or more first model elements of a higher hierarchy level and one or more second model elements of a lower hierarchy level.

6. The system of claim 5, wherein in the service model each first model element is associated with one or more second model elements, the one or more second model elements constituting attributes of the first model element.

7. The system of claim 5, wherein the first model elements define at least one of one or more service input parameters and one or more service output parameters.

8. The system of claim 5, wherein the second model elements constitute leaf fields in at least one of a service input parameter tree and a service output parameter tree.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein the service models in the repository are associated with mappings between two or more model elements or between model elements and database tables.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein the mappings define transfer operations between model elements belonging to the same hierarchy level.

11. The system of claim 9, wherein the mappings defines transfer operations between one or more service input parameters and one or more service output parameters.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the input parameters and output parameters belong to different services.

13. The system of claim 1, wherein predefined service types are selectable for service modeling.

14. The system of claim 13, wherein the service types include one or more of a process service, an entity service, a presentation service, a technical service, a batch job and a view.

15. The system of claim 13, wherein the template storage includes at least one dedicated template for each service type.

16. The system of claim 1, wherein there exists a plurality of predefined platform types.

17. The system of claim 16, wherein the template storage includes at least one dedicated template for each platform type.

18. The system of claim 16, wherein the template storage includes for various combinations of service type and platform type at least one dedicated template.

19. The system of claim 3, wherein the model creator allows for a selection of at least one of a service type and a service publicity.

20. The system of claim 1, wherein the generator allows for a selection of a platform type.

21. The system of claim 5, wherein specific kinds of first model elements are defined and selectable via the service model creator for service modeling.

22. The system of claim 1, wherein the generated artifacts include at least one of Java code, Cobol code, HTML code and XML code.

23. A repository database (302) comprising at least essentially platform-independent model elements and service models modeled from the model elements, the service models forming the basis for the generation of platform-specific artifacts under the control of platform-specific templates, each template including platform-specific model transformation information.

24. A method for generating platform-specific artifacts, such as program code, from platform-independent service models, the method comprising:

providing platform-specific templates, each template including platform-specific model transformation information;

providing

i. a plurality of at least essentially platform-independent service model elements and

ii. one or more service models modeled from the model elements; and

generating platform-specific artifacts by applying the transformation information included in the templates to the service models.

25. A computer program product comprising program code portions for performing the steps of claim 24 when the computer program product is run on one or more computing devices.

26. The computer program product of claim 25, stored on a computer-readable recording medium.