METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR RANKING AFFINITY DEGREE AMONG FUNCTIONAL BLOCKS

• US 20120330940A1
• Filed: 12/30/2009
• Published: 12/27/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 12/30/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Telecom Italia S.p.A.
• Original Assignee: Telecom Italia S.p.A.
• Inventors: Caire, Giovanni, Gotta, Danilo, Pinnola, Andrea, Sacchi, Giovanna
• Granted Patent: US 9,020,907 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/723
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling

Abstract

A methodology for assisting a user in a combination of functional blocks by defining a value representative of an affinity degree among the functional blocks. Such affinity degree is influenced by available historic data derived by previous uses of the functional blocks which had been recorded into a repository.

Claims

1-15. -15. (canceled)

16. A method of evaluating an affinity degree between a first functional block of a plurality of functional blocks in a computer implemented workflow execution environment, and at least a second functional block of the plurality of functional blocks, the workflow execution environment allowing a combination of functional blocks in order to create workflow processing applications, wherein functional blocks exchange information data through input/output interface parameters, the affinity degree being indicative of likelihood that a combination of the first and the second functional blocks is successful, comprising:

maintaining a repository of historic data representing a plurality of previously executed combinations of a set of functional blocks of the plurality of functional blocks, wherein a data record is associated with previously executed combinations, the data record comprising information on successfulness of previously executed combinations;

responsive to a user selecting a first and a second functional blocks of the plurality of functional blocks, searching in the repository of historic data occurrences of previously executed combinations comprising the first and the second functional blocks; and

determining the affinity degree between the first and the second functional blocks according to the historic data.

17. The method of claim 16, further comprising:

before searching in the repository, evaluating a syntactic compatibility value between the first and the second functional blocks, indicative of the output interface parameters of the first functional block being compatible with the input interface parameters of the second functional block; and

responsive to the syntactic compatibility value not reaching a predetermined threshold, assigning a negative value to the affinity degree.

18. The method of claim 16, further comprising:

providing a feedback to a user, through a user interface, according to a determined affinity degree.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein, responsive to the affinity degree not reaching a predetermined threshold, preventing the combination between the first and the second functional blocks.

20. The method of claim 16, wherein data records associated with each previously executed combination comprise information on a number of times a set of functional blocks has been combined.

21. The method of claim 16, wherein data records associated with previously executed combinations comprise information on a number of times the previously executed combinations were successful.

22. The method of claim 17, wherein evaluating the syntactic compatibility value comprises verifying that the output and corresponding input parameters have a same data structure.

23. The method of claim 17, wherein the syntactic compatibility value is a Boolean value.

24. The method of claim 16, wherein the affinity degree is corrected with a weight value which is proportional to a number of times the selected combination has been previously executed.

25. The method of claim 16, wherein the affinity degree comprises a static element, indicative of a number of times the selected functional blocks were combined together, and a dynamic element indicative of a success rate of previously executed occurrences of a selected combination.

26. The method of claim 16, further comprising:

assigning to at least a set of the plurality of functional blocks a social affinity value, indicative of a semantic meaning assigned by a user; and

responsive to the first and second functional blocks having a matching social affinity value, modifying a determined affinity degree between the first and the second functional blocks accordingly.

27. The method of claim 16, wherein the functional blocks represent web services.

28. A computer program comprising instructions for carrying out the method according to claim 16, when said computer program is executed on a computer.

29. A data processing system for evaluating an affinity degree between a first functional block of a plurality of functional blocks in a computer implemented workflow execution environment, and at least a second functional block of the plurality of functional blocks, the workflow execution environment allowing a combination of functional blocks in order to create workflow processing applications wherein functional blocks exchange information data through input/output interface parameters, the affinity degree being indicative of a likelihood that a combination of the first and the second functional blocks is successful, wherein the system comprises one or more components capable of being adapted to perform the method of claim 16.

30. A service deployed in a data processing system and comprising a data processing system capable of implementing the method of claim 16.