System and method for dynamically mapping dynamic multi-sourced persisted EJBs

• US 6,996,565 B2
• Filed: 09/04/2002
• Issued: 02/07/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 09/06/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: Initiate Systems, Inc. (International Business Machines Corporation)
• Inventors: Smith, David, Skufca, Jim, Bugh, Rob, Buslawski, John
• Primary Examiner(s): Mofiz, Apu M.
• Application Number:
  US10/064,965
• Publication Number:
  US 20030051063A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,252 Days
• Field of Search: 707/3, 707/10, 707/100, 707/104.1, 705/1, 705/8, 705/36, 709/201, 709/202, 709/223, 709/246, 711/209, 715/513, 719/310, 719/315
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/972 Access to data in other repository systems, e.g. legacy data or dynamic Web page generation
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99945 Object-oriented database structure processing

Abstract

Dynamic Multi-sourced Persisted Enterprise Java Bean (EJB) instances are dynamically created on a J2EE compliant Application Server to access data contained in multiple data source systems. This Dynamic Multi-sourced Persisted EJB is a general class responsible for dynamically aggregating source system information and it to data in the source systems based on a Context definition. Individual EJB attributes that include mapping, caching and security definitions are mapped to individual pieces of data in source systems by the Context definition. A mapping definition can be reloaded during execution as desired. Applications can access the Dynamic Multi-sourced Persisted Entity EJB directly, or use a Session EJB to create a static interface to the dynamically mapped, cached and secured data. Dynamic mapping of Context definition attributes to source system data for transferring data between client and source systems and for modifying data attributes are achieved without recoding, recompiling and redeploying of custom coded solutions.

Claims

1. A method for dynamically mapping Dynamic Multi-sourced Persisted EJB attributes to source system resources, comprising:

creating a context definition containing attributes representing collections of source system data;

specifying in an attribute mapping element whether each attribute in the context definition is mapped to a field in a data source;

storing the context definition in a persistent data cache;

creating an instance of a Dynamic Multi-sourced Persisted EJB;

applying the attributes in the context definition to the created instance of the Dynamic Multi-sourced Persisted EJB for mapping the specified attributes to source system data fields;

accessing mapped source system data by the Dynamic Multi-sourced Persisted EJB instance without requiring EJB compilation and deployment; and

sending mapped attribute data from source systems to clients and from clients to source systems in response to client queries.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

identifying a data source system table where the attribute value is located if the attribute is mapped;

specifying whether each attribute in the context definition is cached; and

specifying access security requirements for each attribute in the context definition.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising reloading the context definition during execution on demand.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising reloading the context definition during execution on a schedule.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of storing the context definition comprises creating a persistent cache table for managing context attributes during EJB Bean Managed Persistence lifecycle.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising defining a key attribute to enable accessing mapped source system data through adapters.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising specifying whether each mapped attribute in the context definition is mapped to a single field in a data source.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

designating an attribute in the context definition to be mapped as a primary field in a data source; and

writing data from the primary field in the data source to other multiple mapped secondary fields in a data source.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising creating, reading, updating, and deleting data from clients to source systems, and from source systems to clients, and updating attribute mapping elements.

10. The method of claim 9, further comprising keeping data in the cache synchronized and updated with the most recent data from clients to source systems, and from source systems to clients.

11. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

creating and loading a new context definition containing new attributes;

applying the new attributes to the Dynamic Multi-sourced Persisted EJB instance for mapping the new attributes to source system data fields during runtime;

recreating the persistent data cache; and

immediately sending new attribute data to clients.

12. The method of claim 1, further comprising representing the context definition as an XML document.

13. The method of claim 1, further comprising storing selected source and client data in the persistent data cache.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of creating an instance of a Dynamic Multi-sourced Persisted EJB comprises creating and accessing an instance of a Dynamic Multi-sourced Persisted EJB from an external application using generic method calls of an application programming interface selected from the group consisting of create( ), find( ), getAttr( ), getAttrs( ), getGuid( ), setAttr( ), setAttrs( ) and retrieveNewAndDeletedContexts( ).

15. The method of claim 14, further comprising performing runtime checks prior to executing a method call including querying a security engine to determine if the method call is authorized and querying back-end adapters to determine if there are pending back-end mapped data updates for keeping cache data synchronized and updated with back-end mapped data.

16. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of creating an instance of a Dynamic Multi-sourced Persisted EJB comprises creating and accessing an instance of a Dynamic Multi-sourced Persisted EJB from an external application through a Session EJB Wrapper using traditional method calls of an application programming interface selected from the group consisting of create( ), getAttributeName( ) and setAttributeName( ).