Method, system and program product for recording and replaying target service interaction data

• US 7,752,604 B2
• Filed: 09/02/2004
• Issued: 07/06/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 09/02/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Starkey, Michael, Genkin, Mikhail B.
• Primary Examiner(s): Zhen; Wei Y
• Assistant Examiner(s): CHOW, CHIH CHING
• Application Number:
  US10/933,107
• Publication Number:
  US 20060047496A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,133 Days
• Field of Search: 717/125, 717/127, 715/704, 703/22
• US Class Current: 717/125
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/145 involving simulating, designing, planning or modelling of a network

Abstract

An architecture that allows target service interactions to be realistically simulated in a development environment. The architecture includes a proxy service, an interaction recorder, an interaction store and an emulator service. The proxy service delegates service requests received from a client component to a target service. If it is in “record” mode, the proxy service routes any interaction data corresponding to the interaction (between the target service and the client component) to the interaction recorder. Upon receipt, the interaction recorder records the interaction data in the interaction store. Later, the proxy service can be placed in “replay” mode so that a subsequent service request for the target service is delegated to the emulator service. Upon receipt, the emulator service retrieves the corresponding interaction data from the data store and replays the same to emulate/simulate the target service.

Claims

1. A method for simulating a target service in a development environment comprising:

receiving a service request for a target service in a proxy service executing in memory by a processor of a computer;

determining whether a mode for the proxy service is selected to be either a normal mode, a record mode or an emulate mode;

delegating the service request to the target service through the proxy service if in the normal mode, to a recorder service wrapping the target service and configured to record interactions with the target service if in the record mode; and

retrieving the corresponding interaction data from interaction store and replaying the recorded interactions with the target service previously recorded while in the record mode, and

emulating the functionality of the target service in emulator service instead of delegating the service request to the target service.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein delegating the service request to the emulator service in lieu of the target service if in the emulate mode further comprises emulating the functionality of the target service in the emulator service by playing back recorded interactions with the target service previously recorded while in the record mode.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the proxy service, the target service and the emulator service each implement a common target interface.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the recorded interactions comprise invocation semantics of an interaction with the target service, input data for the interaction, output data for the interaction, a time taken to complete the interaction, a transaction context of the interaction, and a security context of the interaction.