Programmatic Management of Software Resources in a Content Framework Environment

• US 20070233871A1
• Filed: 06/07/2007
• Published: 10/04/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 09/19/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Wanderski, Michael, Wesley, Ajamu, Lindquist, David, Fletcher, James
• Granted Patent: US 8,335,862 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/226
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2209/5015 Service provider selection
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/465 Distributed object oriented systems remote method invocation [RMI] G06F9/548
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5038 considering the execution order of a plurality of tasks, e.g. taking priority or time dependency constraints into consideration scheduling strategies G06F9/4881 and subgroups
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/541 via adapters, e.g. between incompatible applications
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling

Abstract

Methods, systems, and computer program products are disclosed for dynamically integrating software resources (such as web services and other back-end software resources) using the services of a content framework (such as a portal platform). A portlet model is leveraged to allow programmatic portlets to serve as proxies for web services, thereby extending portlets beyond their traditional visual role. A deployment interface and a system interface are described for these portlet proxies. The deployment interface is used for composing new web services, and a composition tool is described. The system interface allows for run-time management of the web services by the portal platform. The service provider for a particular function may be bound to the portlet proxy at development time or at run-time.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method of enabling two-way communication in a portal framework, comprising:

locating in a registry, by a portal, a registered interface specification for a portlet, the interface specification defining one or more operations available from the portlet; and

invoking, by the portal, one of the defined operations of the located interface specification to inform the portlet of an identifier of the portal, such that the portlet can use the identifier of the portal to locate a registered interface specification that defines one or more operations available from the portal and then invoke one of the defined operations of the portal.

2. A computer-implemented method of enabling two-way communication in a portal framework comprising a portal and at least one portlet, comprising:

registering, in a registry, an interface specification for a portlet, the interface specification defining one or more operations available from the portlet;

receiving, by the portlet, an invocation by the portal of one of the defined operations, wherein the invocation provides an identifier of the portal;

using the identifier of the portal, by the portlet, to locate a registered interface specification of the portal, wherein the interface specification of the portal defines one or more operations available from the portal; and

invoking, by the portlet, one or more of the defined operations of the located interface specification of the portal.

3. The computer-implemented method according to claim 2, wherein the invoking further comprises initiating communication of auditing information from the portlet to the portal.

4. The computer-implemented method according to claim 3, wherein the auditing information comprises at least one of (1) quality of service information, (2) billing information, (3) events for logging, and (4) operational messages.

5. A method of enabling programmatic management of software resources in a content aggregation framework, comprising:

defining, for a software resource that is not adapted for execution in a content aggregation framework, a functional interface and a management interface, the functional interface specifying operations available from the software resource and the management interface specifying management operations available from the software resource; and

enabling access to, and management of, the software resource from the content aggregation framework by providing a proxying component for the software resource and defining the functional interface of the software resource as the functional interface of the proxying component and the management interface of the software resource as the management interface of the proxying component, the proxying component adapted for execution in the content aggregation framework.

6. The method according to claim 5, wherein the software resource is a network-accessible service.

7. The method according to claim 5, further comprising invoking one or more operations of the management interface of the proxying component, by the content aggregation framework at run time, to manage the software resource, wherein each of the invocations causes the proxying component to invoke a corresponding operation of the management interface of the software resource.