SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR SOFTWARE PRODUCT VERSIONING PACKAGING, DISTRIBUTION, AND PATCHING

• US 20090183150A1
• Filed: 01/16/2009
• Published: 07/16/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 01/16/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Oracle International Corporation (Oracle Corporation)
• Original Assignee: BEA Systems Incorporated (Oracle Corporation)
• Inventors: Felts, David
• Granted Patent: US 9,477,462 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 717/173
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/60 Software deployment
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/71 Version control security arrangements therefor G06F21/57; Configuration management
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/44505 Configuring for program initiating, e.g. using registry, configuration files

Abstract

A system and method for software product versioning, packaging, distribution, and patching. The system provides for convergence of registry models, adding critical information to a home registry and simplifying processing algorithms in the install framework. In accordance with an embodiment, a product alias element is added to a Product Provisioning model, referencing one or more products. This provides a loose coupling between the external market-oriented product name and version, and the internal product names and versions. The internal product names and versions are captured in the registry and used for all code-based decisions during installation and other provisioning related activities. In accordance with an embodiment, a Feature Model is also added to the Product Provisioning model, and modules are grouped under features.

Claims

1. A system for software product packaging, distribution, and patching, comprising:

a product registry for use in storing and distributing information about one or more different versions of a software product, the product registry further comprising

install metadata, that defines software components for a plurality of products including a name and a version information for each product and which, for each product, hierarchically links that product to the software components that form that product,

feature reference data, which, for each of the software components, hierarchically defines one or more features of that software component, and

runtime metadata, that defines modules that can be provisioned at runtime and which, for each feature, hierarchically links that feature to the modules that provide that feature; and

wherein the information in the product registry can be changed to include information about a new version of the software product, and wherein the new version of the software product can then be distributed to a customer according to the information in the product registry.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the product registry further comprises:

a product alias element that can be optionally used to reference a name and version of a software product by an alias.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein each of the features has a version information associated therewith, and wherein the version information specifies one or a plurality of versions of the modules that are defined to be compatible with one another.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein each of the one or more different versions of a software product are defined by a feature definition file that is used by an installer process in creating a build of the software product to populate a JAR or other archive with information about modules in the feature definition file.

5. The system of claim 4, wherein the feature definition file further defines feature dependencies, including any requirement that other modules be present in the build.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein each of the modules is one or more of an OSGi-compliant module, OSGi bundle, Java archive (JAR), shared library, or other archive that can be directly loaded and used by the system.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the product registry is provided as a schema that can be parsed to determine the configuration of the new version of the software product.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein products are defined in the product registry, and wherein the product registry contains a separate section for each version of a given product, including service/maintenance pack versions, and patches installed or available for that version.

9. A method for software product packaging, distribution, and patching, comprising the steps of:

providing a product registry for use in storing and distributing information about one or more different versions of a software product, the product registry further comprising

install metadata, that defines software components for a plurality of products including a name and a version information for each product and which, for each product, hierarchically links that product to the software components that form that product,

feature reference data, which, for each of the software components, hierarchically defines one or more features of that software component, and

runtime metadata, that defines modules that can be provisioned at runtime and which, for each feature, hierarchically links that feature to the modules that provide that feature; and

wherein the information in the product registry can be changed to include information about a new version of the software product, and wherein the new version of the software product can then be distributed to a customer according to the information in the product registry.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the product registry further comprises:

a product alias element that can be optionally used to reference a name and version of a software product by an alias.

11. The method of claim 9, wherein each of the features has a version information associated therewith, and wherein the version information specifies one or a plurality of versions of the modules that are defined to be compatible with one another.

12. The method of claim 9, wherein each of the one or more different versions of a software product are defined by a feature definition file that is used by an installer process in creating a build of the software product to populate a JAR or other archive with information about modules in the feature definition file.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the feature definition file further defines feature dependencies, including any requirement that other modules be present in the build.

14. The method of claim 9, wherein each of the modules is one or more of an OSGi-compliant module, OSGi bundle, Java archive (JAR), shared library, or other archive that can be directly loaded and used.

15. The method of claim 9, wherein the product registry is provided as a schema that can be parsed to determine the configuration of the new version of the software product.

16. The method of claim 9, wherein products are defined in the product registry, and wherein the product registry contains a separate section for each version of a given product, including service/maintenance pack versions, and patches installed or available for that version.

17. A computer readable medium including instructions stored thereon, which when read and executed by a computer cause the computer to perform the steps comprising:

providing a product registry for use in storing and distributing information about one or more different versions of a software product, the product registry further comprising

install metadata, that defines software components for a plurality of products including a name and a version information for each product and which, for each product, hierarchically links that product to the software components that form that product,

feature reference data, which, for each of the software components, hierarchically defines one or more features of that software component, and

runtime metadata, that defines modules that can be provisioned at runtime and which, for each feature, hierarchically links that feature to the modules that provide that feature; and

wherein the information in the product registry can be changed to include information about a new version of the software product, and wherein the new version of the software product can then be distributed to a customer according to the information in the product registry.