Policy-Based Data Manager

• US 20080120685A1
• Filed: 11/17/2006
• Published: 05/22/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 11/17/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Comstock, Jeff, Budrys, Edvardas V.
• Granted Patent: US 8,265,969 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 726/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/606 by securing the transmission between two devices or processes
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling

Abstract

A framework and method for managing business data transactions resides outside individual business systems and allows creation of a policy for classification of each data element for all data schema in transit between processes. The framework allows identification of data sets by document type and endpoint, so that individual data elements of a schema can be validated, and edited or deleted if necessary, during their transit between endpoints, such as between trading partners. Because the policy is built and enforced outside the individual endpoint business systems, expensive customizations within each transactional system are avoided.

Claims

1. A method of establishing and enforcing compliance for data transactions comprising:

establishing a data policy for data corresponding to an associated document type and an endpoint;

examining all data crossing a boundary to determine the associated document type and endpoint; and

managing compliance to the data policy when the associated document type and endpoint are covered by the data policy.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the data policy is an XML schema and examining all the data crossing the boundary comprises using a data policy engine to examine the data crossing the boundary using the XML schema.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein managing compliance comprises the data policy engine editing the data for compliance with the data policy.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein managing compliance comprises removing data elements not allowed by the data policy and removing named types for references having no data after removing data elements not allowed by the data policy.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein managing compliance to the data policy comprises checking inbound data to determine that information required by the data policy for the associated document type and endpoint are present.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein managing compliance comprises checking that data corresponding to the associated document type and endpoint are allowed to cross the boundary.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein managing compliance comprises checking that outbound data associated with the associated document type and endpoint includes only data allowable according to the data policy.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein managing compliance comprises determining that data transactions with a given endpoint are not allowed.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein managing compliance comprises determining when a data transaction using a first document type is not allowed with a predetermined endpoint.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein establishing the data policy for data comprises establishing a data policy for every combination of document type and endpoint having allowable transactions.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein establishing the data policy comprises identifying data elements in an XML schema associated with a first document type and presenting a user interface with information corresponding to the XML schema for determining rules for each of the data elements.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein the boundary corresponds to a data gateway between a first business entity and a second business entity.

13. A business integration framework for managing business document flow between processing endpoints comprising:

a first computer-readable medium having computer-executable instructions for implementing a source process;

a second computer-readable medium having computer-executable instructions for implementing a destination process;

a third computer-readable medium having computer-executable instructions for implementing a data policy engine functioning on a network coupling the source and destination processes comprising;

a bidirectional port for communication with the network;

a policy development tool including a user interface; and

a policy enforcement tool for enforcing a policy corresponding to a business document in transit between the source process and the destination process via the network.

14. The business integration framework of claim 13, wherein first computer-readable medium includes computer-executable instructions for formatting the business document into an XML schema according to a predetermined document type.

15. The business integration framework of claim 13, wherein the third computer-readable medium includes computer-executable instructions for the user interface of the policy development tool to present each data element corresponding to an XML schema of document type and associated input fields for data element requirements corresponding to at least one source or destination endpoint.

16. A method of operating a data policy engine for use in establishing and enforcing at least one policy for managing data flow between a first endpoint supporting a first business process and a second endpoint supporting a second business process comprising:

determining classification information for each data element associated with an XML schema valid for transmission between the first and second endpoints;

storing the classification information collected associated with the XML schema as a policy for the XML schema;

examining all data flowing between the first and second endpoints for traffic corresponding to the XML schema;

for traffic corresponding to the XML schema, validating each data element in accordance with the policy for the XML schema.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein classifying each data element comprises classifying each data element as one of mandatory data, optional data, and prohibited data.

18. The method of claim 16, wherein classifying each data element comprises requiring each data element to be from a set of acceptable selections.

19. The method of claim 16, wherein classifying each data element comprises requiring each data element to be within an acceptable range.

20. The method of claim 16, wherein validating each data element comprises editing or deleting each data element not in compliance with the policy for the XML schema.