METHOD AND APPROACH TO HOSTING VERSIONED WEB SERVICES

• US 20090013010A1
• Filed: 07/06/2007
• Published: 01/08/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 07/06/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: GlobalFoundries, Inc.
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Frank, David C., Fong, Liana Liyow, Lam, Linh Hue, Fang, Ru, Vignola, Christopher P.
• Granted Patent: US 7,720,800 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/02 based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]

Abstract

A method for hosting versioned web services includes steps of: receiving a request from a service requester, the request comprising version metadata; parsing the request; extracting the version metadata from the parsing step; and locating a target implementation version using the version metadata. If the target implementation version is located, the method proceeds by dynamically routing the versioned request to the target implementation version.

Claims

1. A method for hosting versioned web services, comprising steps of:

receiving a request from a service requester, the request comprising version metadata;

parsing the request;

extracting the version metadata from the parsing step;

locating a target implementation version using the version metadata; and

if the target implementation version is located, dynamically routing the versioned request to the target implementation version.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the locating step comprises:

invoking a version selection algorithm to select the target implementation version; and

receiving from the version selection algorithm a service context and the implementation version corresponding to the request.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the step of dynamically routing comprises routing the request through a service bus to an endpoint of the target implementation version.

4. The method of claim 2 further comprising steps of:

creating a new version group member when a new implementation version of a service is installed; and

adding its version metadata to an existing hosting configuration to preserve configuration settings, wherein said configuration settings are used for mapping.

5. The method of claim 4 further comprising a step of

adding attributes comprising a contract version, an implementation version, and its associated implementation endpoint, and tunable parameters comprising an active interface set, a version state, and a default indicator to the version metadata.

6. The method of claim 5 wherein the version metadata can be extended to comprise other attributes.

7. The method of claim 6 wherein the version metadata comprises time-based version routing parameters.

8. The method of claim 6 wherein the attributes can be modified to control system version selection behavior.

9. The method of claim 1 further comprising a step of:

returning an error to the service requestor if the target implementation version is not located.

10. The method of claim 1 wherein the steps are performed at runtime.

11. A system for hosting versioned web services, the system comprising:

a deployable module for implementing a service, the deployable module comprising an implementation version for supporting a particular interface version;

a versioned implementation module for supporting concurrent deployment of multiple versions of the service; and

;

a service proxy for a version group, the version group comprising at least one implementation version, wherein the service proxy is a local gateway to the collection of implementation versions of the service and provides a single destination for service requests for all versions of the service;

wherein the service proxy is configured to;

receive a request from the version group, the request comprising version metadata;

parse the request;

extract the version metadata from the parsing step; and

dynamically route the versioned request to the single destination.

12. The system of claim 11 wherein each implementation version supports a contract version and comprises a set of other compatible contract versions.

13. The system of claim 11 wherein each implementation version is individually addressable.

14. The system of claim 11 wherein the implementation version is individually addressable and multiple implementation versions can be deployed concurrently at the service provider without conflict.

15. The system of claim 14 wherein each implementation version comprises service interface versioning metadata, the versioning metadata comprising:

the service interface version, the set of other service interface versions with which this particular implementation version is compatible, and the implementation address for directing a service request to this implementation version.

16. The system of claim 11 further comprising:

a version management controller operatively connected to the service proxy, said version management controller comprising a version selection algorithm for mapping the single destination using the version metadata.

17. A computer program product tangibly embodied on a computer readable medium and comprising code that, when executed, enables a computer to:

receive a request from a service requestor, the request comprising version metadata;

parse the request;

extract the version metadata from the parsing step;

locate a target implementation version using the version metadata; and

dynamically route the versioned request to the target implementation version.

18. A service for routing versioned service requests, the service comprising steps of:

receiving a request from a service requester, the request comprising version metadata;

parsing the request;

extracting the version metadata from the parsing step; and

locating a target implementation version using the version metadata.

19. The service of claim 18 further comprising a step of:

dynamically routing the versioned request to the target implementation version.