Apparatus for facilitating transactions between thin-clients and message format service (MFS)-based information management systems (IMS) applications

• US 8,091,091 B2
• Filed: 07/07/2008
• Issued: 01/03/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 09/16/2002
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Dinh, Thu-Tram T., Ho, Shyh-Mei F., Hung, Jenny ChengYin, Lo, Kevin Yu Chang
• Primary Examiner(s): Ho, Andy
• Application Number:
  US12/168,451
• Publication Number:
  US 20080263641A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,275 Days
• Field of Search: 719/313, 709/217, 709/219, 707/999.01
• US Class Current: 719/313
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/252 between a Database Management System and a front-end application
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/258 Data format conversion from or to a database
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/84 Mapping; Conversion
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/972 Access to data in other repository systems, e.g. legacy data or dynamic Web page generation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/466 Transaction processing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/546 Message passing systems or structures, e.g. queues

Abstract

An apparatus is disclosed for facilitating conversational and non-conversational transactions between thin-clients and MFS-based IMS applications. The apparatus stores conversation attributes associated with a conversational transaction between a thin-client and an MFS-based IMS application, the conversation attributes comprising connection information and conversation-specific information. Next, one or more transaction messages from the thin-client are preprocessed based on a transaction message type. The stored conversation attributes are updated in response changes in the conversation attributes caused by the one or more transaction messages. Then, a conversation output message is formatted for the thin-client. The apparatus may include a security module that authenticates user, a connection module that establishes a connection with an MFS-based IMS application, a state module that preserves and maintains conversation attributes, and a control module to process a transaction message having one or more transaction message types.

Claims

1. An apparatus for facilitating transactions between thin-clients and Message Format Service (MFS)-based Information Management System (IMS) applications, comprising:

a computer readable storage medium storing computer readable program code executable by a processor, the computer readable program code comprising;

a security module configured to preserve and maintain user security credentials;

a connection module configured to establish a connection with an MFS-based IMS application by way of an MFS adapter, the connection supporting a conversational transaction;

a state module configured to preserve and maintain connection information associated with the connection and conversation-specific information based on one or more transaction messages from the thin-client; and

a control module configured to process a transaction message having one or more transaction message types, the control module further comprising a formatter configured to format a conversation output message for the thin-client according to connection information, wherein the formatter combines XML Metadata Interchange (XMI) information with XML Stylesheet (XSL) information to generate HTML data suitable for display on the thin-client and sends the HTML data to the thin-client.

2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the control module further comprises:

a function key module configured to process a transaction message having a function key indicator;

a page module configured to process a transaction message having a paging request; and

a command module configured to process a transaction message having a conversational command.

3. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the formatter determines a subset of XMI information from an XMI repository based on page information within the conversation-specific information and combines the subset of XMI with XSL information to produce HTML suitable for presentation by the thin-client.

4. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the security module authenticates the user security credentials with a mainframe security control subsystem.

5. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the connection module manages a plurality of connections in response to conversational commands.