SERVICE ORIENTED ARCHITECTURE INFRASTRUCTURE FOR BUSINESS PROCESS VERIFICATION AND SYSTEMS INTEGRATED TESTING

• US 20120266185A1
• Filed: 04/17/2012
• Published: 10/18/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 06/17/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: DAVIS, Stephen M., HO, Philip T., PARIMI, Rakesh K.
• Granted Patent: US 10,528,455 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 719/317
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/2294 by remote test
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3006 where the computing system is distributed, e.g. networked systems, clusters, multiprocessor systems multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/46; allocation of resources G06F9/50
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3089 Monitoring arrangements determined by the means or processing involved in sensing the monitored data, e.g. interfaces, connectors, sensors, probes, agents software debugging using additional hardware using a specific debug interface G06F11/3656; performance evaluation by tracing or monitoring G06F11/3466
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3664 Environments for testing or debugging software
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3688 for test execution, e.g. scheduling of test suites
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/3674 involving authentication

Abstract

A service oriented architecture (SOA) infrastructure is provided for business process verification and systems integrated testing. The system includes one or more primary agents each dedicated to detecting a particular business process. The system further includes one or more action agents each configured to provide a verification function for the particular business process. Additionally, the system includes a service manager configured to provide context look-up services for the one or more primary agents to determine which action agent of the one or more action agents is responsible for a particular verification function of the particular business process.

Claims

1. A computer system for verifying a particular function of a particular business process, the system comprising:

a CPU, a computer readable memory and a computer readable storage media;

first program instructions to detect, by one or more primary agents, a start of the particular business process;

second program instructions to provide, by one or more action agents, a verification function of the particular business process;

third program instructions to provide, by a service manager, context look-up services for one or more primary agents;

fourth program instructions to determine, by the service manager, an action agent which is responsible for a particular verification function of the particular business process, based on the context look-up services;

fifth program instructions to forward a reference of the action agent which is responsible for the particular verification function of the particular business process to a requesting primary agent;

sixth program instructions to invoke an action agent which performs the particular verification function of the particular business process;

seventh program instructions to aggregate reports in a central repository; and

eight program instructions to consolidate the reports in the central repository, wherein the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, and eight program instructions are stored on the computer readable storage media for execution by the CPU via the computer readable memory.

2. The computer system of claim 1, wherein the service manager is a platform independent framework which provides a reference of the action agent to the primary agent.

3. The computer system of claim 1, wherein:

the one or more primary agents each monitor and detect the particular business process asynchronously; and

the one or more action agents each verify the particular business process asynchronously.

4. The computer system of claim 1, wherein the aggregated reports are generated asynchronously by at least one of the service manager, the one or more primary agents and the one or more action agents.

5. The computer system of claim 1, wherein the one or more primary agents is configured to detect asynchronous execution of a respective business process in order to initialize the verification function.

6. The computer system of claim 1, wherein the one or more primary agents is implemented using a common interface and attached to a trigger that initiates a business process.

7. The computer system of claim 1, wherein the service manager is configured to de-couple the one or more primary agents from the one or more action agents.

8. The computer system of claim 1, further comprising a storage system that includes a look-up table accessible by the service manager for matching a particular primary agent with a respective action agent, wherein the look up table includes at least a description of functionality of the one or more action agents.

9. The computer system of claim 1, wherein the service manager is configured to provide an ability to add at least one of a new primary agent, new action agent and new business processes without disrupting an existing test run.

10. The computer system of claim 1, wherein the one or more primary agents invoke the one or more action agents outside of the service manager.

11. The computer system of claim 1, wherein the service manager is configured to provide services for inter action agent communication in order to request execution of a subset of a scenario verification.

12. The computer system of claim 11, wherein the subset of the scenario verification is a task within the verification function of the particular business process which cannot be performed by the invoked action agent.

13. The computer system of claim 1, wherein the one or more action agents are standalone agents configured to execute business process verification on-demand as requested by the one or more primary agents.

14. The computer system of claim 1, wherein each of the one or more action agents provide performance metrics which are provided to a performance analysis system.

15. The computer system of claim 1, further comprising:

ninth program instructions to identify a second action agent which performs a subset of the particular verification function; and

tenth program instructions to invoke, by a requesting action agent, the second action agent to perform the subset of the particular verification function.

16. The computer system of claim 1, further comprising ninth program instructions to invoke a second action agent when it is determined that the business process is a complex business process which cannot be completely verified by the action agent which is responsible for the particular verification function.

17. The computer system of claim 16, wherein the complex business process is a set of greater than two business processes which cannot be verified by a single action agent.