Managing relationships of heterogeneous objects

• US 8,090,754 B2
• Filed: 12/07/2007
• Issued: 01/03/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 12/07/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: SAP SE
• Original Assignee: SAP AG (SAP SE)
• Inventors: Schmidt, Olaf, Fischer, Martin P.
• Primary Examiner(s): LY, CHEYNE D
• Application Number:
  US12/001,032
• Publication Number:
  US 20090150431A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,488 Days
• Field of Search: 707/942, 707/955, 715/200
• US Class Current: 707/942
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/284 Relational databases
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/942 Legal/academic
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/955 Object-oriented

Abstract

Software for managing relationships between heterogeneous objects is operable to identify a target object. The software automatically determines related objects using at least one object type application programming interface (API) for an object type associated with the target object. The software is further operable to populate a relationship data structure based on the determined relationships. The software can then provide the relationship data structure to a requesting module.

Claims

1. An apparatus comprising instructions encoded on a non-transitory tangible machine readable medium, the instructions operable when executed by one or more processors to:

receive a request to add an active target object to a legal hold different from a document retention policy for an enterprise, wherein the legal hold substantially prevents spoliation of information associated with at least a potential litigation;

identifying a centralized lookup table based, at least in part, on the request, the centralized lookup table configured to identify objects with a unique key and associated access parameters;

automatically determine relationships between heterogeneous active objects using the centralized lookup table and a plurality of application programming interfaces (APIs) associated with the target object the plurality of APIs accessible by a plurality of different types of applications and includes an object type API configured to integrate a new object type into the centralized lookup table and a legal hold definition API configured to update access parameters in the centralized lookup table for the active target object, wherein automatically determining related objects using at least one object type API for an object type associated with the target object comprises;

adding an identifier of the target object to a stack; and

while the stack is not empty,

a) popping a top identifier off of the stack;

b) adding identifiers of objects related to target object to stack; and

c) extending relationship information with related objects;

populate a relationship data structure based on the determined relationships;

provide the relationship data structure to a requesting module; and

automatically execute the legal hold on the target object and the related heterogeneous objects, wherein the document retention policy is subordinate to the legal hold.

2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein automatically determining related objects using at least one object type API for an object type associated with the target object comprises:

adding an identifier of the target object to a stack; and

while the stack is not empty,

a) popping a top identifier off of the stack;

b) adding identifiers of objects related to target object to stack; and

c) extending relationship information with related objects.

3. The apparatus of claim 1, the target object identified by a request from the requesting module via an exposed framework API.

4. The apparatus of claim 1, the related objects comprising at least a first related object of a first object type and a second related object of a second object type.

5. The apparatus of claim 4, the first related object associated with a first application and the second related object associated with a second application.

6. The apparatus of claim 4, the first related object associated with a first system architecture and the second related object associated with a second system architecture.

7. The apparatus of claim 6, the instructions further operable to automatically determine the first related object and the second related object through a persistence layer.

8. The apparatus of claim 4 further operable to:

receive a request for a query, the query comprising at least one parameter indicating a request for the first object type and the second object type;

automatically execute a first sub-query for the first object type and a second sub-query for the second object type; and

join the results of the sub-queries.

9. The apparatus of claim 1, the requesting module comprising a remote application.

10. The apparatus of claim 1 further operable to provide the relationship data structure to a second requesting module disparate from the first requesting module.

11. The apparatus of claim 1 further operable to persist the relationship data structure, which comprises a directed graph where each object comprises a node and each relationship comprises an edge.

12. The apparatus of claim 1, the instructions further operable to provide the relationship data structure to the requesting module by providing a reference to the relationship data structure.

13. The apparatus of claim 1 further operable to provide visualization of the relationship data structure via at least one exposed framework API.

14. The apparatus of claim 13, the visualization functionality implementing user-specified criteria and offering drill-down functionality into the related objects.

15. The apparatus of claim 1 further operable to add semantic relationship information to the relationship data structure.

16. The apparatus of claim 15, the semantic relationship information comprising:

direction of relation;

business process step that created the particular object;

protocol;

time of creation;

duration of creation time; and

conditions met for that relationship to exist.

17. The apparatus of claim 1 further operable to:

receive identification of a new object type via an open framework API; and

wherein automatically determining related objects using the target object comprises automatically determining related objects using the target object at least partially based on the new object type.

18. The apparatus of claim 1 further operable to automatically identify the prima nota of the target object based on the relationship data structure.