Apparatus, system, and method for facilitating communication between an enterprise information system and a client

• US 20060282524A1
• Filed: 06/10/2005
• Published: 12/14/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 06/10/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Vidyarthi, Suraksha, Lacombe, Jason Nathaniel, Nelson, Travis Eli
• Granted Patent: US 8,301,750 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/224
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/542 Event management; Broadcasting; Multicasting; Notifications

Abstract

An apparatus, system, and method are disclosed for assuring delivery of an Enterprise Information System (EIS) event to a client. An adapter apparatus polls at least one EIS for an event. The event is staged to a staging table, consisting of an XA-compliant database, in preparation for delivery to the client. The status of the event is marked and the event is delivered to the client. Events delivered to clients that are unresponsive or otherwise unavailable are held until the clients become responsive and then the events are delivered. Delivery of events is confirmed using a transaction service.

Claims

1. A computer program product comprising a computer readable medium having:

computer usable program code for facilitating communication between an Enterprise Information System (EIS) and a client, the computer program product including;

computer usable code for polling at least one EIS for an event;

computer usable code for staging the event for delivery to at least one client;

computer usable code for delivering the event to the at least one client; and

computer usable code for confirming whether or not the event was delivered to the at least one client.

2. The computer program product of claim 1, wherein polling the EIS comprises determining whether clients are available to receive events.

3. The computer program product of claim 1, wherein polling the EIS comprises periodically querying the EIS for new events based on a user-configured parameter.

4. The computer program product of claim 1, wherein staging the event further comprises marking a delivery status for each event within the EIS.

5. The computer program product of claim 1, wherein staging the event comprises writing a reference to the event to a staging table for each of the at least one clients registered to receive events.

6. The computer program product of claim 5, wherein the instructions further comprise an operation to remove the reference in the staging table to a staged event, upon confirmation of completed delivery of the event to a particular client.

7. The computer program product of claim 5, wherein the instructions further comprise an operation to remove the reference to an event from the staging table upon consumption of the event by the client, the removal and consumption comprising an atomic operation.

8. The computer program product of claim 5, wherein the instructions further comprise an operation to delete an event from the EIS in response to references to the event being removed from the staging table as an atomic operation.

9. The computer program product of claim 1, wherein delivering the event further comprises transmitting and storing the event using a transaction service.

10. The computer program product of claim 1, wherein the instructions further comprise an operation to hold an event for clients that are unavailable.

11. The computer program product of claim 10, wherein the operation to hold an event for an unavailable client is user-configurable.

12. The computer program product of claim 10, wherein delivering the event further comprises delivering one or more held events to a client that becomes available, in response to an indicator obtained during polling that a client has become available.

13. The computer program product of claim 12, wherein the delivery of held events to clients that have become available for the delivery of events is completed before the delivery of new events to other clients.

14. The computer program product of claim 1, wherein confirming event delivery is accomplished using a transaction service.

15. The computer program product of claim 1, wherein the instructions further comprise an operation to delete the event from the EIS upon confirmation that all clients registered to receive the event have received the event.

16. A method to integrate an EIS with a plurality of software clients for a customer, the method comprising:

receiving a set of integration requirements;

building an integration adapter configured to connect an EIS and plurality of software clients such that the software clients receive EIS events, the integration adapter configured to,

poll at least one EIS for an event;

stage the event for delivery to at least one client;

deliver the event to the at least one client; and

confirm that only one instance of the event is delivered to each of the at least one client; and

delivering the integration adapter to the customer.

17. The method of claim 16, comprising registering each client to receive events from the EIS.

18. The method of claim 16, comprising determining the frequency of polling the at least one EIS for an event.

19. The method of claim 16, comprising determining the quantity of events to stage before delivery.

20. The method of claim 16, further comprising integrating a transaction service with the integration adapter.

21. The method of claim 16, comprising determining whether events are to be held for an unavailable client until the client becomes available.

22. A method to facilitate communication between an Enterprise Information System (EIS) and a client, the method comprising:

polling at least one EIS for an event;

staging the event for delivery to at least one client;

delivering the event to the at least one client; and

confirming that only one instance of the event was delivered to each of the at least one client.

23. The method of claim 22, wherein staging the event further comprises writing a reference to the event to a staging table for each of the at least one clients registered to receive events.

24. The method of claim 23, further comprising removing the reference in the staging table to a staged event, upon confirmation of completed delivery of the event to a particular client.

25. The method of claim 24, wherein removing the event reference from the staging table comprises an atomic operation with the consumption of the event by the client.

26. The method of claim 22, wherein staging the event further comprises marking a delivery status for each event within the EIS.

27. The method of claim 26, wherein delivering an event comprises determining the delivery status for the event.

28. The method of claim 22, wherein delivering the event further comprises temporarily holding events for clients that are unavailable.

29. The method of claim 28, wherein delivering the event further comprises delivering one or more held events to a client that becomes available, in response to an indicator produced during polling.

30. The method of claim 22, wherein delivering the event comprises sending events to clients designated as durable subscribers.

31. The method of claim 22, further comprising deleting the event from the EIS upon confirmation that all intended clients have received the event.

32. An apparatus to facilitate communication between an Enterprise Information System (EIS) and a client, the apparatus comprising:

a polling module configured to poll at least one EIS for an event;

a staging module configured to stage the event for delivery to at least one client;

a delivery module configured to deliver the event to the at least one client; and

a confirmation module configured to confirm that only one instance of the event is delivered to each of the at least one client.

33. The apparatus of claim 32, wherein the polling module is configured to periodically query the EIS for new events based on a user-configured parameter.

34. The apparatus of claim 32, wherein the staging module is further configured to write a reference to the event to a staging table for each of the at least one clients registered to receive events.

35. The apparatus of claim 32, further comprising a removal module configured to remove the reference to a staged event from the staging table, upon confirmation of completed delivery of the event corresponding to the reference to a client.

36. The apparatus of claim 35, wherein the removal module is further configured to remove the event reference from the staging table upon consumption of the event by the client, the removal of the event reference and the consumption of the event comprising an atomic operation.

37. The apparatus of claim 32, wherein the staging module is further configured to mark a delivery status for each event.

38. The apparatus of claim 32, wherein the confirmation module confirms event delivery using a distributed transaction service.

39. A method for deploying computing infrastructure configured to integrate an Enterprise Information System (EIS) with a plurality of software clients that assures once-and-only-once event delivery to the clients, the method comprising:

developing a software toolkit comprising a plurality of extendable modules, the modules configured to,

poll at least one EIS for an event;

stage the event for delivery to at least one client;

deliver the event to the at least one client; and

confirm that only one instance of the event is delivered to each of the at least one client;

integrating a transaction service with the software tool kit; and

publishing the software tool kit.

40. The method of claim 39, wherein the transaction service supports distributed transactions supported by an XA specification.