METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR SIMPLIFIED ASSEMBLY OF INFORMATION PROCESSING APPLICATIONS

• US 20090100407A1
• Filed: 10/15/2007
• Published: 04/16/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 10/15/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Riabov, Anton V., Liu, Zhen, Bouillet, Eric
• Granted Patent: US 8,484,611 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 717/105
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/34 Graphical or visual programming
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling

Abstract

A method for automatic composition of an information processing flow based on a user-specified processing goal, includes: selecting tags from a first plurality of tags, wherein the selected tags specify a processing goal; composing a processing graph in accordance with the processing goal; and displaying a second plurality of tags, wherein the second plurality of tags includes tags that are only relevant to the selected tags.

Claims

1. A method for automatic composition of an information processing flow based on a user-specified processing goal, comprising:

selecting tags from a first plurality of tags, wherein the selected tags specify a processing goal;

composing a processing graph in accordance with the processing goal; and

displaying a second plurality of tags, wherein the second plurality of tags includes tags that are only relevant to the selected tags.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

displaying the first plurality of tags, wherein the tags are selected by clicking on individual tags in the first plurality of tags.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the tags are selected by inputting individual tags into a search string.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the processing graph is composed by using primal data feeds and processing modules described in a planning language.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein descriptions of the primal data feeds and processing modules are represented as actions, with preconditions and effects of the actions corresponding to annotations on inputs and outputs of the primal data feeds and processing modules.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein composing the processing graph comprises:

generating a description of the processing goal, wherein the processing goal is represented using predicates;

invoking a planner to generate a plan for the actions that satisfy the processing goal; and

translating the plan into the processing graph.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

deploying the processing graph in a deployment environment; and

displaying an output data feed produced by the processing graph in the deployment environment.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the processing graph is deployed as a web service, wherein the web service responds to requests by returning an RSS feed or an Atom feed.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

displaying the processing graph.

10. A method for automatic composition of information processing flows based on user-specified processing goals, comprising:

receiving a processing goal, wherein the processing goal corresponds to a set of tags selected from a tag cloud;

wherein after the processing goal is received;

displaying the set of tags corresponding to the processing goal;

generating a processing graph that produces an output feed with annotation containing all tags corresponding to the goal; and

generating a next tag cloud;

wherein after the processing graph is generated;

generating a preview of results of the output feed and displaying the preview of results;

displaying implied and guessed tags corresponding to the processing graph; and

displaying a text description of the processing graph;

wherein after the next tag cloud is generated;

displaying the next tag cloud.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the next tag cloud is pre-computed or dynamically computed.

12. The method of claim 10, wherein the preview of results is generated by:

deploying the processing graph as a web service in an execution environment;

invoking the web service to retrieve a response; and

displaying the retrieved response from the web service as the preview of results produced by the processing graph.

13. The method of claim 10, further comprising:

modifying the processing goal by selecting tags in the next tag cloud and repeating the steps performed after the processing goal is received.

14. A computer-user interface for displaying information processing flows based on user-specified processing goals, comprising:

a first display area for displaying a first plurality of tags, wherein individual tags can be selected and added to a processing goal;

a second display area for displaying a processing graph, the processing graph being composed in accordance with the processing goal; and

a third display area for displaying a preview of an output feed produced by the processing graph after the processing graph has been deployed in a deployment environment.

15. The computer-user interface of claim 14, further comprising:

a fourth display area for displaying the selected tags, implied tags and guessed tags, wherein the implied tags are tags that always appear together with the selected tags, and the guessed tags are tags that are assigned to the output feed.

16. The computer-user interface of claim 15, further comprising:

a fifth display area for displaying a text description of the output feed.

17. The computer-user interface of claim 14, further comprising:

a search string for receiving individually input tags that are to be added to the processing goal.

18. The computer-user interface of claim 14, wherein the first plurality of tags is displayed as a tag cloud.

19. The computer-user interface of claim 14, wherein after individual tags have been selected and added to the processing goal, the first display area displays a second plurality of tags, wherein the second plurality of tags includes tags that are only relevant to the selected tags.

20. A computer program product comprising a computer useable medium having computer program logic recorded thereon for automatic composition of an information processing flow based on a user-specified processing goal, the computer program logic comprising:

program code for receiving selected tags that specify a processing goal, wherein the tags were selected from a first plurality of tags;

program code for composing a processing graph in accordance with the processing goal; and

program code for displaying a second plurality of tags, wherein the second plurality of tags includes tags that are only relevant to the selected tags.