Run-time architecture for enterprise integration with transformation generation

• US 7,146,399 B2
• Filed: 03/22/2002
• Issued: 12/05/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 05/25/2001
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: 2006 Trident Company, Inc.
• Inventors: Fox, Joshua, Meir, Rannen, Hellman, Ziv Z., Schreiber, Marcel Zvi, Israel, Eliezer, Yuval, Tom Y., Yitzhaki, Guy
• Primary Examiner(s): VU, THONG H
• Application Number:
  US10/104,785
• Publication Number:
  US 20030120665A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,719 Days
• Field of Search: 709/226, 709/227, 709/203, 709/200, 709/218, 709/206, 709/246, 709/219, 707/10.3, 707/2, 707/102, 707/100, 707/107, 717/127, 717/118, 717/148, 715/513, 715/500, 705/38
• US Class Current: 709/203
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/25 Integrating or interfacing systems involving database management systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/288 Entity relationship models
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/84 Mapping; Conversion
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99943 Generating database or data structure, e.g. via user interface

Abstract

An enterprise application system including a run-time transformation server, and a message broker for routing and transforming data in the form of messages between a source application and a target application, including a plug-in for preparing requests to the run-time transformation server and for processing responses from the run-time transformation server. A method is also described and claimed.

Claims

1. An enterprise integration system comprising:

a run-time transformation generation server, comprising a transformation generator which accepts as input a first data schema, a second data schema, and mappings of the first and second data schemas into a common ontology model, the first and second data schemas being different, and automatically infers at run-time, responsive to the received first and second data schemas and mappings, a transformation that is able to directly transform data that conforms to the first data schema into corresponding data that conforms to the second data schema without requiring an intermediate transformation of data that conforms to the first data schema to data that conforms to the common ontology model and without requiring a direct mapping of the first data schema to the second data schema; and

a message broker for routing and transforming data in the form of messages between a source application and a target application, comprising a plug-in for preparing requests to said run-time transformation generation server and for processing responses from said run-time transformation generation server.

2. The enterprise integration system of claim 1 wherein messages received by said message broker from the source application conform to a source data schema, and wherein messages sent by said message broker to the target application conform to a target data schema.

3. The enterprise integration system of claim 2 wherein said message broker transforms messages from the source data schema to the target data schema using a transformation provided by said plug-in, and wherein said plug-in infers an appropriate transformation for transforming messages from the source data schema directly to the target data schema.

4. The enterprise integration system of claim 3 wherein said plug-in caches inferred transformations, thereby obviating the need to re-infer them.

5. The enterprise integration system of claim 3 wherein the messages are XML documents, wherein the source and target data schema are source and target XML schema, respectively, and wherein the plug-in infers an XSLT transformation.

6. The enterprise integration system of claim 2 wherein said message broker transforms messages from the source data schema directly to the target data schema using the transformation provided by said plug-in, wherein said, plug-in requests and receives the transformation from said run-time transformation generation server.

7. The enterprise integration system of claim 6 wherein said plug-in caches inferred transformations, thereby obviating the need to re-request them.

8. The enterprise integration system of claim 6 wherein said run-time transformation generation server caches inferred transformations, thereby obviating the need to re-infer them.

9. The enterprise integration system of claim 6 wherein the messages are XML documents, wherein the source and target data schema are source and target XML schema, respectively, and wherein the run-time transformation generation server infers an XSLT transformation.

10. The enterprise integration system of claim 2 wherein said plug-in requests and receives transformed messages from said run-time transformation generation server, and wherein said run-time transformation generation server transforms messages from the source data schema directly to the target data schema using the generated transformation.

11. The enterprise integration system of claim 10 wherein said run-time transformation generation server caches inferred transformations, thereby obviating the need to re-infer them.

12. The enterprise integration system of claim 10 wherein the messages are XML documents, wherein the source and target data schema are source and target XML schema, respectively, and wherein the run-time transformation generation server infers an XSLT transformation.

13. The enterprise integration system of claim 1 wherein said message broker is an IBM WebsphereMQ integrator.

14. The enterprise integration system of claim 1 wherein said message broker is a component of Tibco Active Enterprise.

15. The enterprise integration system of claim 1 wherein said message broker further comprises an adapter for communicating between said message broker and said run-time transformation generation server.

16. The enterprise integration system of claim 15 including at least one protocol bridge between said adapter and said run-time transformation generation server for translating among network protocols.

17. The enterprise integration system of claim 16 wherein the at least one protocol bridge uses Remote Method Invocation (RMI)) for forward communication.

18. The enterprise integration system of claim 17 wherein the at least one protocol bridge includes a Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) Web Services server.

19. The enterprise integration system of claim 18 wherein the SOAP Web Services server is an Apache Jakarta Tomcat server with Apache Axis.

20. A method for transforming data within an enterprise integration product, comprising:

receiving a message from a source application, the message conforming to a source data schema;

receiving a mapping of the source data schema to a common ontology model;

receiving a mapping of a target data schema to a common ontology model;

automatically inferring at run-time a transformation for transforming messages conforming to the source data schema directly to corresponding messages conforming to the target data schema, based on the received mappings of the source and target data schemas into the common ontology model, the source and target data schemas being different;

transforming the message from the source data schema directly to the target data schema using the inferred transformation; and

sending the transformed message to a target application.

21. The method of claim 20 wherein the message is an XML document and wherein the source and target data schema are source and target XML schema, respectively.

22. The method of claim 20 further comprising:

providing the source data schema and the target data schema; and

requesting a transformation for transforming messages conforming to the source data schema to corresponding messages conforming to the target data schema.

23. The method of claim 20 further comprising:

providing the message and the target data schema; and

requesting a transformed message.

24. The method of claim 20 further comprising caching the inferred transformation.