Autodiscovery of business services

• US 8,069,181 B1
• Filed: 06/20/2006
• Issued: 11/29/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 04/18/2006
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Trunick, Joel, Laxminarayan, Chaitanya, Saxena, Manoj, Krishnan, Gopal, Sanchez, Matthew
• Primary Examiner(s): Vo; Tim T
• Assistant Examiner(s): Mobin; Hasanul
• Application Number:
  US11/455,957
• Time in Patent Office: 1,988 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 707/769
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/00 Administration; Management

Abstract

An autodiscovery feature with an easy-to-use interface is provided to automatically collect metadata about electronic services for use within a business enterprise and to store that metadata in a metadata repository. The autodiscovery feature is used to create autodiscovery queries that are sent to electronic services to collect from the services'"'"' digests specified metadata useful for identifying the functionality of those services and integrating the services into business processes. Digests, such as RSS feeds and Atom feeds, are typically created by services to include useful metadata, such as the title of a service, the URL link to a description of the service, a brief description of the service, the publication date of the service, and other data. Autodiscovery queries can thus collect services'"'"' relevant metadata and store it in a business enterprise'"'"'s metadata repository, so that the services'"'"' functionality can be quickly identified and used for business processes.

Claims

1. A method to integrate services into business processes comprising:

providing a user interface for use by a user to create autodiscovery queries, which, when executed on a computer, automatically collect metadata about corresponding electronic services and store query results in a metadata storage, wherein;

the metadata storage is accessible by a first server computer and stores files containing metadata about queried electronic services hosted by one or more remote servers including requirements of the electronic services for interoperability with other services; and

whereupon execution, each created autodiscovery query implemented within the user interface obtains metadata about a corresponding service by;

obtaining a manually entered feed uniform resource locator to a target site associated with the corresponding service; and

querying the corresponding service using the obtained feed uniform resource locator to collect digest feed metadata from a digest of the corresponding service, the digest comprising at least one syndication format for content and information required to enable sharing of content among different services or sites;

programmably reading a digest feed of the digest using the obtained feed uniform resource locator;

automatically obtaining only metadata items that were previously determined to be relevant to enable sharing of content among the different services or sites from the digest; and

storing the collected metadata information in the metadata storage.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein automatically obtaining only metadata items that were previously determined to be relevant to enable sharing of content comprises collecting metadata information regarding at least one of:

the title of the service;

a URL link to a description of the service;

the organization hierarchy of the service; and

the user level of the service.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein storing the collected metadata information in the metadata storage further comprises storing the metadata information as a metadata file in a metadata repository.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein querying the corresponding service comprises querying at least one service that is implemented as multiple software assets.

5. The method of claim 4 wherein the multiple software assets exists in multiple locations comprising at least one of source repositories, UDDI registries, Access™

databases, Excel™

sheets, file systems, application servers, mainframes, and handheld devices.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein automatically obtaining only metadata items that were previously determined to be relevant to enable sharing of content comprises obtaining a plurality of references such that each reference is a link to a metadata element.

7. The method of claim 6 wherein obtaining a plurality of references such that each reference is a link to a metadata element comprises obtaining metadata elements including at least one of:

the title of the service;

the URL link to a description of the service;

a description that briefly describes the service;

a publication date of the service; and

a format of the metadata.

8. The method of claim 7 wherein obtaining metadata elements further comprises obtaining metadata elements where the format of the metadata is selected from the group consisting of Web Services Description Language, Business Process Execution Language, and Web Ontology Language.

9. The method of claim 1 wherein querying the corresponding service further comprises querying the selected service for a feed with a format of RSS feeds or Atom feeds.

10. The method of claim 1 wherein querying the corresponding service comprises querying at least one service that is implemented as at least one of:

a health care insurance business process, a casualty insurance business process, a banking business process, and a telecommunications industry business process.

11. The method of claim 10 wherein querying at least one service comprises querying a service that transforms the format of a claim file.

14. The method according to claim 1, further comprising:

recalling metadata for a desired service from the metadata storage in response to implementing a business process;

using the recalled metadata to identify the functionality of the desired service; and

integrating the desired service into the business process.

12. A computer program product to integrate services into business processes comprising:

a computer-readable storage medium for storing instructions defining computer usable program code embodied therewith, the computer usable program code comprising;

computer usable program code configured to implement a user interface for use by a user to create autodiscovery queries, which, when executed on a computer, automatically collect metadata about corresponding electronic services and store query results in a metadata storage,

computer usable program code configured to interact with the metadata storage where the metadata storage is provided to store files, accessible by a first server computer, where the files contain metadata about electronic services hosted by one or more remote servers including requirements of the electronic services for interoperability with other services; and

computer usable program code configured execute each created autodiscovery query implemented within the user interface to obtain metadata about a corresponding service by;

obtaining a manually entered feed uniform resource locator to a target site associated with the corresponding service; and

querying the corresponding service using the obtained feed uniform resource locator to collect digest feed metadata from a digest of the corresponding service, the digest comprising at least one syndication format for content and information required to enable sharing of content among different services or sites;

programmably reading a digest feed of the digest using the obtained feed uniform resource locator;

 

programmably obtaining only metadata items that were previously determined to be relevant to enable sharing of content among the different services or sites from the digest; and

storing the collected metadata information in the metadata storage.

15. The computer program product according to claim 12, further comprising:

computer usable program code configured to recall metadata for a desired service from the metadata storage in response to implementing a business process;

computer usable program code configured to use the recalled metadata to identify the functionality of the desired service; and

computer usable program code configured to integrate the desired service into the business process.

16. The computer program product of claim 12, wherein querying the corresponding service further comprises querying the selected service for a feed with a format of RSS feeds or Atom feeds.

18. The computer program product of claim 12, wherein programmably obtaining only metadata items that were previously determined to be relevant further comprises obtaining metadata elements where the format of the metadata is selected from the group consisting of Web Services Description Language, Business Process Execution Language, and Web Ontology Language.

13. A system to integrate services into business processes comprising:

a first server computer; and

a metadata storage accessible by the first server computer where the metadata storage is provided for storing files containing metadata about electronic services hosted by one or more remote servers including requirements of the electronic services for interoperability with other services;

a user interface for use by a user to create autodiscovery queries, which, when executed by the first server computer, automatically collect metadata about corresponding electronic services and store query results in the metadata storage;

whereupon execution, each created autodiscovery query implemented within the user interface obtains metadata about a corresponding service by performing operations configured to;

obtain a manually entered feed uniform resource locator to a target site associated with the corresponding service; and

query the corresponding service using the obtained feed uniform resource locator to collect digest feed metadata from a digest of the corresponding service, the digest comprising at least one syndication format for content and information required to enable sharing of content among different services or sites;

programmably read a digest feed of the digest using the obtained feed uniform resource locator;

programmably obtain only metadata items that were previously determined to be relevant to enable sharing of content among different services or sites from the digest; and

store the collected metadata information in the metadata storage;

wherein a selected server computer is used to;

recall metadata for a desired service from the metadata storage in response to implementing a business process;

use the recalled metadata to identify the functionality of the desired service; and

integrate the desired service into the business process.

17. The system of claim 13, wherein the query of the corresponding service further comprises a query to the selected service for a feed with a format of RSS feeds or Atom feeds.

19. The system of claim 13, wherein execution of the autodiscovery query to obtain only metadata items that were previously determined to be relevant further comprises obtaining metadata elements where the format of the metadata is selected from the group consisting of Web Services Description Language, Business Process Execution Language, and Web Ontology Language.