Cross-reference service

• US 20070209041A1
• Filed: 08/28/2003
• Published: 09/06/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 08/28/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Oracle America, Inc. (Oracle Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Siebel Systems Inc. (Oracle Corporation)
• Inventors: Wang, Chaochin, Exley, Richard
• Granted Patent: US 7,716,675 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 719/328
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/541 via adapters, e.g. between incompatible applications

Abstract

A method and system for providing an integration environment in which integration processes can be developed independent of integration servers and applications. The integration environment provides an application service interface for each application that is independent of the integration servers. An integration process that is developed to use the application service interface is compatible with any integration server that supports the applications that the integration process accesses. The integration environment provides a common service interface for each type of application. The common service interface is independent of the application that is providing the service and is also independent of the integration server. Thus, an integration process developed to use the common service interface is compatible with any application of the appropriate type and any integration server.

Claims

1. A method in a computer system for mapping identifiers of different applications representing the same underlying information, the method comprising:

receiving an identifier from a first application;

generating a common identifier for the received identifier;

mapping the received identifier to the common identifier;

providing the common identifier for use when indicating that an identifier of a second application is equivalent to the identifier of the first application;

receiving an identifier from the second application along with the common identifier; and

mapping the identifier of the second application to the common identifier.

2. The method of claim 1 including:

receiving a request to provide the common identifier for an identifier of an application;

retrieving the common identifier for the identifier based on the mapping; and

providing the retrieved common identifier.

3. The method of claim 1 including:

receiving a request to provide the identifier of an application for a common identifier;

retrieving the identifier for the application for the common identifier based on the mapping; and

providing the retrieved identifier of the application.

4. The method of claim 3 wherein the identifier is a key to a record.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the receiving of an identifier includes receiving an indication of the type of identifier.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein the receiving of an identifier includes receiving an indication of the application.

7. The method of claim 6 wherein the indication of the application identifies an instance of the application.

8. The method of claim 1 wherein identifiers are dynamically generated by applications.

9. The method of claim 1 wherein identifiers are statically generated.

10. The method of claim 1 wherein the identifiers are keys to records.

11. The method of claim 1 wherein the identifiers represent values of static data.

12. The method of claim 1 wherein the common identifier is an identifier received from an application.

13. A computer-readable medium containing a data structure for mapping data between applications, each application having a different identifier to identify the same information, the data having a type, the data structure comprising:

for each type, a list of applications that use data of that type;

for each application that uses that type of data, a list of identifiers used by the application to identify data of that type; and

for each data of each type, a mapping between a common identifier and the identifier used by each application to identify the data.

14. The computer-readable medium of claim 13 wherein the list of applications includes a list of each instance of each application.

15. The computer-readable medium of claim 13 wherein the data comprises records and the identifiers are keys.

16. The computer-readable medium of claim 13 wherein each application accesses its own copy of the data.

17. The computer-readable medium of claim 16 wherein each copy of the data is in a different format.

18. A system for mapping equivalent data used by different applications, comprising:

means for receiving the data used by a first application;

means for generating a common identifier for the received data;

means for mapping the received data to the common data;

means for providing the common data for use when indicating that data of a second application is equivalent to the received data of the first application;

means for receiving data from the second application along with the common data; and

means for mapping the data of the second application to the provided common identifier.

19. The system of claim 18 including:

means for receiving a request to provide the common data for data of an application;

means for retrieving the common data for the data using the mapping; and

means for providing the retrieved common data.

20. The system of claim 18 including:

means for receiving a request to provide the data of an application that maps to the common data;

means for retrieving the data for the application using the common data based on the mapping; and

means for providing the retrieved data of the application.

21. A method for mapping data between applications, the method comprising:

receiving data from a first application;

requesting that a common identifier be associated with the data of the first application;

receiving the common identifier;

receiving data from a second application;

requesting that the common identifier be assigned to data of the second application; and

when data is received from the first application, requesting the data of the second application that is assigned to the same common identifier.

22. The method of claim 21 wherein the data is a key.

23. The method of claim 21 wherein the data is static.

24. The method of claim 21 wherein the data is dynamically generated by the applications.

25. The method of claim 21 wherein the data is an identifier of the same information stored separately by each application.

26. A method for mapping values used by different applications to represent the same information, the method comprising:

providing a mapping between the values used by each application to represent the same information;

receiving a request to provide a value of a second application, the request including a value of a first application and an identification of the second application; and

retrieving from the mapping the value of the second application that is used to represent the same information.

27. The method of claim 26 wherein the request includes a common identifier assigned to the values of the first and second applications.

28. The method of claim 27 wherein one of the values of the first application or the second application is the common identifier.

29. The method of claim 27 wherein the value is static.

30. The method of claim 26 including providing a response to the request that includes the value of the second application.