REPRESENTING MODELS IN SYSTEMS DEVELOPMENT LIFECYCLE (SDLC) TOOLS USING A NETWORK OF INTERNET RESOURCES

• US 20090187573A1
• Filed: 01/17/2008
• Published: 07/23/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 01/17/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: NALLY, MARTIN P., JOHNSTON, SIMON K.
• Granted Patent: US 9,122,422 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/10 Requirements analysis; Specification techniques

Abstract

In the present solution, as set of SDLC resources can be established, where each is separately addressable through a unique URL and is able to be managed through a simple set of operations. For example, a set of RESTful operations (GET, POST, PUT, and DELETE) can be used for the operations. Database management technologies can be leveraged for storing and indexing resources, but the underlying database schema for the solution can operate on a resource level, which results in the resources being stored as-is. Thus, storage (even when database based) of resources for the solution can be considered an Internet server exposing a space of URL addressable objects. Because the solution leverages Internet technologies and standards, it is scalable, standards based, extensible, and traceable.

Claims

1. A method for specifying IT assets comprising:

storing and managing a set of Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC) artifacts as a network of individual resources, each individual resource having a unique and addressable Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) associated with it, wherein each of the SDLC artifacts represents at least one of a physical and logical information technology asset, wherein each of the individual resources utilizes a standardized markup language to specify asset details, wherein the individual resources are linked to one another using messages conforming to at least one standard network messaging protocol.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

managing the set of SDLC artifacts using a set of stateless Representational State Transfer (REST) based commands.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

establishing a repository comprising a plurality of said individual resources, wherein said repository is managed by a repository server, wherein within the repository each of the individual resources is stored in a data store at a granularity unit level of one of said individual resources, and wherein communications to and from the repository server occur through a Representational State Transfer (REST) based Application Program Interface (API).

4. The method of claim 3, wherein said communications to and from the repository server occurring through the REST API include communications based upon an HTTP GET command, upon an HTTP POST command, upon an HTTP PUT command, and upon an HTTP DELETE command.

5. The method of claim 3, wherein said repository server comprises a set of indexes related to the individual resources of the repository, said indexes permitting database queries to be executed against the individual resources.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein said repository server comprises:

an audit component configured to provide traceability capabilities for the individual resources of the repository,

a report component configured to execute a set of SQL based reports involving the individual resources of the repository; and

a search component configured to permit cross-repository text searches for the individual resources of the repository.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the standardized markup language is an XML language, and wherein the standard network messaging protocol is a Hyper Text Transfer Protocol (HTTP).

8. The method of claim 1, wherein said step of claim 1 is performed by at least one machine in accordance with at least one computer program stored in a computer readable media, said computer programming having a plurality of code sections that are executable by the at least one machine.

9. A software object representing a information technology asset from which models are able to be built comprising:

a software object representing at least one of a physical and logical information technology asset;

an addressable uniform resource identifier (URI) that is uniquely associated with said asset; and

at least one attribute used to specify a value for said represented asset, wherein said software object is able to be linked to other software objects having unique URI addresses using HTTP based links, wherein said software object is digitally encrypted and stored in a machine readable medium.

10. The software object of claim 9, wherein the software object is one of a plurality of said software objects, which together form a Software Development Lifecycle (SDLM) model.

11. The software object of claim 10, wherein said SDLM model, which is able to be built from the software objects is a Unified Modeling Language (UML) model.

12. The software object of claim 9, wherein the software object is written in XML.

13. The software object of claim 9, wherein a set of Representational State Transfer (REST) based commands exist for utilizing and modifying said software object.

14. The software object of claim 9, wherein said software object is able to be retrieved, viewed, edited, deleted, and added to a software model constructed from a set of said software objects via a Representational State Transfer (REST) based interface using a set of REST based commands.

15. The software object of claim 9, wherein the software object is part of a repository comprising a network of individual resources each of which is one of said software objects, wherein said repository is managed by a repository server, wherein each of the individual resources is stored in a data store at a granularity unit level of one of the individual resources, and wherein communications to and from the repository server occur through a Representational State Transfer (REST) based Application Program Interface (API).

16. A repository server for managing a network of individual resources, each of which is associated with an IT asset comprising:

a data store storing a plurality of Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC) resources, each SDLC resource having a unique addressable Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) associated with it, wherein each of the SDLC resources represents at least one of a physical and logical information technology asset, wherein each of the SDLC resources is configured to utilize a standardized markup language to specify asset details, wherein said SDLC resources are linked to one another using messages conforming to at least one standard network messaging protocol; and

Representational State Transfer (REST API) for submitting SDLC resource related requests to the data store, wherein said REST API is able to receive and respond to an HTTP GET command, an HTTP PUT command, an HTTP POST command, and an HTTP DELETE command.

17. The repository server of claim 16, further comprising:

an index data store comprising a set of indexes related to said SDLC resources, which permit database queries to be executed against the SDLC resources, wherein when the HTTP GET command is received a corresponding SQL SELECT query is executed against entries of the data store of SDLC resources, wherein when the HTTP POST command is received a corresponding SQL INSERT command is executed that results in a new resource being added to the data store of the SDLC resources and that results in an update of the indexes of the index data store, wherein when the HTTP PUT command is received a corresponding SQL UPDATE command is executed against entries of the data store of the SDLC resources and that results in an update of the indexes of the index data store, wherein when the HTTP DELETE command is received a corresponding SQL DELETE query is executed against entries of the data store of the SDLC resources and that results in an set of indexes related to the deleted resource being removed from the index data store.

18. The repository of claim 16, further comprising:

an audit component configured to provide traceability capabilities for the SDLC resources;

a report component configured to execute a set of SQL based reports involving the SDLC resources; and

a search component configured to permit cross-repository text searches for the SDLC resources.

19. The repository of claim 18, wherein the standardized markup language is an XML language, and wherein the standard network messaging protocol is a Hyper Text Transfer Protocol (HTTP).

20. The repository of claim 17, wherein said SDLC resources are able to be linked together to form a plurality of Software Development Lifecycle (SDLM) models, where said SDLM models comprise at least one Unified Modeling Language (UML) model.