Dynamic, Real-Time Integration of Software Resources through Services of a Content Framework

• US 20070271554A1
• Filed: 08/08/2007
• Published: 11/22/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 09/19/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Ajamu Wesley, David Lindquist, James Fletcher, Michael Wanderski
• Original Assignee: Ajamu Wesley, David Lindquist, James Fletcher, Michael Wanderski
• Inventors: Wanderski, Michael, Wesley, Ajamu, Lindquist, David, Fletcher, James
• Granted Patent: US 7,937,500 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 717/147
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2209/5015 Service provider selection
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5055 considering software capabilities, i.e. software resources associated or available to the machine
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/06 Buying, selling or leasing transactions
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/10 in which an application is distributed across nodes in the network software deployment G06F8/60; multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/46
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/306 User profiles
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/34 involving the movement of software or configuration parameters network booting or remote initial program loading [RIPL] G06F9/4416
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/56 Provisioning of proxy services store-and-forward switching systems in data switching networks H04L12/54
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/565 Conversion or adaptation of application format or content adding application control or application functional data H04L67/561
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/567 Integrating service provisioning from a plurality of service providers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/329 in the application layer [OSI layer 7]

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 program product for dynamically integrating software resources in a computing network, the computer program product embodied on one or more computer-readable media and comprising:

computer-readable program code for specifying, in a service description document, a functional interface of a proxying component, wherein the proxying component is adapted for plugging in to a content aggregation framework and serves, when plugged in to the content aggregation framework, as a proxy for a collection comprising a plurality of software resources that are thereby accessible from the content aggregation framework, wherein the functional interface specifies operations that are invocable from the collection of software resources as operations that are invocable from the plugged-in component;

computer-readable program code for registering the service description document in a network-accessible registry;

computer-readable program code for using the registered service description document to locate the proxying component when subsequently searching the network-accessible registry;

computer-readable program code for plugging the located proxying component in to the content aggregation framework; and

computer-readable program code means for using the content aggregation framework to programmatically and dynamically integrate the collection of software resources at run-time to carry out a software service, via the plugged-in proxying component, by invoking at least one of the operations that are invocable from the plugged-in proxying component.

2. The computer program product according to claim 1, wherein each of the at least one invocations causes the plugged-in proxying component to invoke a corresponding one of the operations that are invocable from the collection of software resources.

3. The computer program product according to claim 1, wherein the computer-readable program code for plugging the located proxying component in to the content aggregation framework further comprises computer-readable program code for programmatically binding, by the content aggregation framework, to the functional interface of the located proxying component using the functional interface specified in the registered service description document.

4. The computer program product according to claim 1, wherein the proxying component is a portlet, and wherein the software resources comprise at least one of other portlets and non-portlets.