Entity projection

• US 7,720,904 B2
• Filed: 05/27/2005
• Issued: 05/18/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 05/27/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Munson, Ryan A., Healy, John A., Honeyman, Josh W., Anderson, Jeffrey R.
• Primary Examiner(s): Najjar; Saleh
• Assistant Examiner(s): SHAW, ROBERT A
• Application Number:
  US11/139,746
• Publication Number:
  US 20060271382A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,817 Days
• Field of Search: 705/1
• US Class Current: 709/201
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/945 Contract negotiation

Abstract

The present invention provides an entity projection in a client. The entity projection is an encapsulation of data, from an owning service, and residing on a consumer of that service. The entity projection provides an abstraction that conforms to an entity programming model on the consumer. The entity projection may illustratively include a subset of the properties of an entity in the owning service, the subset being only those properties required by the entity and those properties desired by the consumer.

Claims

1. A consumer service, which is a consumer of data from an owning service that owns the data, the owning service owning the data by creating an owned entity which is an encapsulation of the data and originating changes to the data, the consumer comprising:

an entity projection, being a read-only encapsulation of desired and required data from the owning service, the desired data being data which are used by the consumer service, and the required data being data required to access the entity in the owning service

a computer processor, being a functional component of the consumer service, receiving the entity projection generated by an entity projection generation tool and storing the entity projection on a data store local to the consumer, wherein the entity protection is read-only

the computer processor receiving changes to the desired data, originated at the owning service, and applying the changes to the entity projection on the consumer service,

the computer processor accessing the desired data in the entity projection, for use by the consuming service, using read only portions of an entity programming model defining how data is manipulated and maintained;

wherein the data is represented by an internal entity, with corresponding properties, in the owning service, and wherein the properties in the entity projection comprise a desired subset of the properties of the internal entity in the owning service, the desired subset being specified by the consumer service.

2. The consumer service of claim 1 wherein the entity projection includes properties corresponding to data required by the entity projection and wherein said properties comprise an identity of the internal entity in the owning service.

3. The consumer service of claim 1 wherein the entity projection conforms to the entity programming model that is used on the consumer.

4. The consumer service of claim 1 further comprising:

a plurality of entity projections, each including properties representing desired data from a different one of a plurality of services.

5. The consumer service of claim 1 further comprising:

a plurality of associated entity projections, associated with one another and stored on a data store local to the consumer.

6. The consumer service of claim 1 wherein the consumer service consumes the desired data and creates data that is consumed by other consumer services.

7. A first service, comprising:

a plurality of entities having data accessed in accordance with an entity programming model, an entity being an encapsulation of the data;

at least one of the entities being an entity projection and having a subset of data from an entity in a second service, the entity projection being a read-only encapsulation of desired and required data from the entity in the second service, the desired data being data used by the first service and a subset of the data in the entity in the second service, the subset specified by the first service, and the required data being data required to access the entity in the second service, wherein the desired and required data in the entity projection are stored in a data store local to the first service and a computer processor, being a functional component of the first service, receiving the entity projection generated by an entity projection generation tool using read-only portions of the entity programming model and storing the entity projection on the data store, in a read-only form so only changes originated by the second service are applied to the entity projection.