State transition controlled attributes

• US 20080201333A1
• Filed: 02/16/2007
• Published: 08/21/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 02/16/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Red Hat, Inc. (International Business Machines Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Red Hat, Inc. (International Business Machines Corporation)
• Inventors: Rowley, Peter A.
• Granted Patent: US 7,937,432 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/10
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling

Abstract

Some embodiments of managing data using state transition controlled attributes have been presented. In one embodiment, a workflow management policy and a set of states are defined at a server coupled to one or more client machines, each of the states corresponding to a distinct value of a set of values of an attribute of data. The method may further include implementing a state machine on the server to manage state transitions initiated by the one or more client machines operating on the data according to the workflow management policy.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

defining a workflow management policy and a plurality of states at a server coupled to one or more client machines, each of the plurality of states corresponding to a distinct value of a plurality of values of an attribute of data; and

implementing a state machine on the server to manage state transitions initiated by the one or more client machines operating on the data according to the workflow management policy.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein implementing the state machine on the server comprises:

creating business logic for the state machine on the server based on relationships between the plurality of states.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving at the server configuration data, wherein the management policy is defined according to the configuration data.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

extracting relationships between the plurality of states from configuration data to define the workflow management policy.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

assigning an ordering value to each of the plurality of states based on a corresponding value of the attribute of the data.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein each of the plurality of states corresponds to one or more events, which trigger an operation attempting to change a corresponding value of the attribute of the data.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

storing the attribute in a lightweight directory access protocol (LDAP) directory.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein implementing the state machine on the server to manage state transitions comprises:

in response to a request from the one or more client machines to transition from a first state to a second state, verifying if a transition from the first state to the second state conforms with the workflow management policy;

allowing the request if the transition conforms with the workflow management policy; and

denying the request if the transition violates the workflow management policy.

9. An apparatus comprising:

a network interface to couple a server to at least one client machine; and

a state machine on the server to manage state transitions according to a workflow management policy, the state transitions initiated by the at least one client machine while processing data, wherein the management policy defines a plurality of states and each of the plurality of states corresponds to a distinct combination of values of a plurality of attributes of the data.

10. The apparatus of claim 9, wherein each of the plurality of states is associated with an ordering value.

11. The apparatus of claim 9, wherein each of the plurality of states corresponds to an event, which causes a corresponding attribute of the data to change.

12. The apparatus of claim 9, further comprising:

a user interface on the server to receive configuration data; and

a processing device to define the workflow management policy based on the configuration data and to implement the state machine based on the workflow management policy.

13. The apparatus of claim 9, wherein the state machine is operable to verify if a transition from a first state to a second state violates the workflow management policy in response to a request from the at least one client machine to transition from the first state to the second state, and the state machine is operable to deny the request if the transition violates the management policy.

14. A system comprising:

a repository to store a plurality of attributes of data; and

a server operatively coupled to the repository and a plurality of client machines, the server comprising

a state machine to manage state transitions initiated by the plurality of client machines according to a workflow management policy, wherein the management policy defines a plurality of states and each of the plurality of states corresponds to a distinct combination of values of the plurality of attributes.

15. The system of claim 14, wherein the repository is a lightweight directory access protocol (LDAP) directory.

16. The system of claim 14, further comprising:

a database operatively coupled to the server to store the workflow management policy, wherein the server further comprises

a database accessing module to retrieve the workflow management policy from the database; and

a processing device to implement the state machine based on the workflow management policy.

17. The system of claim 14, wherein the server further comprises:

a user interface to allow an administrator to modify the workflow management policy; and

a processing device to modify the state machine in response to a change in the workflow management policy.

18. A machine-readable medium that provides instructions that, if executed by a processor, will cause the processor to perform operations comprising:

defining a workflow management policy and a plurality of states at a server coupled to one or more client machines, each of the plurality of states corresponding to a distinct value of a plurality of values of an attribute of data; and

implementing a state machine on the server to manage state transitions initiated by the one or more client machines operating on the data according to the workflow management policy.

19. The machine-readable medium of claim 18, wherein implementing the state machine comprises:

creating business logic for the state machine on the server based on relationships between the plurality of states.

20. The machine-readable medium of claim 18, wherein the operations further comprise:

receiving at the server configuration data, wherein the management policy is defined according to the configuration data.

21. The machine-readable medium of claim 18, wherein the operations further comprise:

extracting relationships between the plurality of states from configuration data to define the workflow management policy.

22. The machine-readable medium of claim 18, wherein the operations further comprise:

assigning an ordering value to each of the plurality of states based on a corresponding value of the attribute of the data.

23. The machine-readable medium of claim 18, wherein each of the plurality of states corresponds to one or more events, which trigger an operation attempting to change a corresponding value of the attribute of the data.

24. The machine-readable medium of claim 18, wherein the operations further comprise:

storing the attribute in a lightweight directory access protocol (LDAP) directory.

25. The machine-readable medium of claim 18, wherein implementing the state machine on the server to manage state transitions comprises:

in response to a request from the one or more client machines to transition from a first state to a second state, verifying if a transition from the first state to the second state conforms with the workflow management policy;

allowing the request if the transition conforms with the workflow management policy; and

denying the request if the transition violates the workflow management policy.