Modeling and managing heterogeneous applications

• US 8,181,151 B2
• Filed: 10/26/2007
• Issued: 05/15/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 10/26/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Sedukhin, Igor, Eshner, Daniel, Swartz, Stephen T.
• Primary Examiner(s): Dao, Thuy
• Assistant Examiner(s): ST LEGER, GEOFFREY R
• Application Number:
  US11/925,591
• Publication Number:
  US 20090113379A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,663 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 717/104
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/10 Requirements analysis; Specification techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/35 model driven
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99948 Application of database or data structure, e.g. distributed, multimedia, or image

Abstract

The present invention extends to methods, systems, and computer program products for modeling and managing heterogeneous applications. Application intent can be described in a relatively straight forward manner that abstracts underlying implementation details. Thus, application developers can develop applications without necessarily having to know extensive details of an underlying implementation environment. In any event, an application can be executed in different implementation environments without requiring changes to the corresponding model.

Claims

1. At a computer system within a computing environment, the computing environment including a plurality of different technologies for implementing distributed applications, a method for implementing a composite distributed application, the method comprising:

an act of describing the components of a composite distributed application in a declarative model in an implementation independent manner that describes operations and intended behaviors of the components without describing each implementation step for deploying the components within different technology and computing environment contexts, including describing a plurality of different application parts that each describes a portion of the composite distributed application;

an act of inserting a plurality of abstractions into the declarative model, each abstraction describing the operation and intended behavior of a corresponding application part in an implementation independent manner so that the corresponding application part is deployable using different computing technologies and in different computing environments, the plurality of abstractions extending the declarative model to make the declarative model executable;

an act of setting an implementation attribute on at least one inserted abstraction, the implementation attribute including implementation details expressly indicating how the at least one inserted abstraction is to be tagged to indicate an intended implementation of the operation and intended behavior of the at least one inserted abstraction;

in response to a request to deploy the composite distributed application in a particular computing environment, an act of refining the declarative model for deployment within the particular computing environment, including an act of tagging each of the plurality of abstractions with a label, each label including implementation specific details that indicate how one or more technologies that are specific to the particular computing environment are to be used to implement the corresponding application part when deployed within the particular computing environment, at least one label based on the implementation attribute set on the at least one inserted abstraction, and at least one label inferred from the particular computing environment; and

an act of interpreting the refined declarative model to implement an executable instance of the composite distributed application within the particular computing environment, the executable instance of the composite distributed application implemented using the one or more technologies that are specific to the particular computing environment in accordance with the implementation specific details included in the labels.

2. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the act of describing the components of a composite distributed application in a declarative model comprises an act of describing a process application part and a data application part of the composite distributed application.

3. The method as recited in claim 2, wherein the act of describing a process application part and a data application part of the composite distributed application comprises an act of describing Web Services and Databases.

4. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the act of describing the components of a composite distributed application in a declarative model comprises:

an act of describing endpoints connecting the plurality of different application parts to one another; and

an act of describing an external provider endpoint for communicating with the composite distributed application.

5. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the act of tagging each of the plurality of abstractions with a label comprises an act of inferring how an abstraction is to be tagged based on one or more of:

available system resources of different technologies, prior system settings, and default system values.

6. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the act of interpreting the refined declarative model to implement an executable instance of the composite distributed application within the particular computing environment comprises an act of implementing different application parts of the composite distributed application in different host environments.

7. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the computer system further includes one or more drivers, each driver configured to process abstractions for a specified combination of different technologies, the computer system further including one or more translators, each translator configured to process model elements representing objects within a specified technology from among the plurality of different technologies, and wherein the act of interpreting the refined declarative model to implement an executable instance of the composite distributed application within the particular computing environment comprises:

for each abstraction;

an act of identifying a driver that is configured to process a described application part corresponding to the combination of technologies indicated for the abstraction;

an act of forwarding the application part to the identified driver; and

an act of the identified driver parsing the application part to identify model elements and their relationship to one another;

for each identified model element;

an act of identifying a translator configured to translate model elements for the specified technology corresponding to the identified model element;

an act of sending the model element to the translator;

an act of receiving a sequence of actions that are to be performed within the specified technology to partially implement the composite distributed application, the sequence of actions being a subset of the total actions that are to be performed to fully implement the composite distributed application; and

an act of assembling the received sequence of actions for the model element into an execution plan, the received sequence of actions assembled into the execution plan in a designated order with respect to sequences of actions received for other model elements based on the model element'"'"'s relationship to other model elements in the received declarative model; and

an act of executing the execution plan to implement the composite distributed application, execution of the execution plan including executing the sequences of actions received for each model element in the designated order.

8. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the act of interpreting the refined declarative model to implement an executable instance of the composite distributed application within the particular computing environment comprises processing each abstraction in the refined declarative model with a different driver.

9. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the act of interpreting the refined declarative model to implement an executable instance of the composite distributed application within the particular computing environment comprises deploying each application part on a different computing system within the particular computing environment.

10. A computer program product for use at a computer system within a computing environment, the computing environment including a plurality of different technologies for implementing distributed applications, the computer program product for implementing a method for implementing a composite distributed application, the computer program product comprising one or more physical storage media having stored thereon computer-executable instructions that, when executed at a processor, cause the computer system to perform the method including the following:

describe the components of a composite distributed application in a declarative model, including describing a plurality of different application parts that each describes a portion of the composite distributed application in an implementation independent manner that describes operations and intended behaviors of the application parts without describing each implementation step for deploying the application parts within different technology and computing environment contexts;

insert a plurality of abstractions into the declarative model, each abstraction describing the operation and intended behavior of a corresponding application part in an implementation independent manner so that the corresponding application part is deployable using different computing technologies and in different computing contexts, the plurality of abstractions extending the declarative model to make the declarative model executable;

set an implementation attribute on at least one inserted abstraction, the implementation attribute including implementation details expressly indicating how the at least one inserted abstraction is to be tagged to indicate an intended implementation of the operation and intended behavior of the at least one inserted abstraction;

receive a request to deploy the composite distributed application in a particular computing environment, and in response;

refine the declarative model for deployment within the particular computing environment, including tagging each of the plurality of abstractions for implementation with a label, each label including implementation specific details that indicate how different technologies available within the particular computing environment are to be used to implement the corresponding application part, including;

tagging the at least one inserted abstraction for implementation based on the implementation details in the implementation attribute; and

tagging at least one other inserted abstraction for implementation based on information inferred from the particular computing environment; and

interpret the refined declarative model to implement an executable instance of the composite distributed application within the particular computing environment, the executable instance of the composite distributed application implemented using the technologies available within the particular computing environment in accordance with the implementation specific details included in the labels.

11. The computer program product as recited in claim 10, wherein computer-executable instructions that, when executed, cause the computer system to describe the components of a composite distributed application in a declarative model comprises computer-executable instructions that, when executed, cause the computer system to describe a process application part and a data application part of the composite distributed application.

12. The computer program product recited in claim 10, wherein computer-executable instructions that, when executed, cause the computer system to describe the components of a composite distributed application in a declarative model comprise computer-executable instructions that, when executed, cause the computer system to:

describe endpoints connecting the plurality of different application parts to one another; and

describe an external provider endpoint for communicating with the composite distributed application.

13. The computer program product as recited in claim 10, wherein computer-executable instructions that, when executed, cause the computer system to tag each of the plurality of abstractions with a label comprises computer-executable instructions that, when executed, cause the computer system to infer how an abstraction is to be tagged based on one or more of:

available system resources of different technologies, prior system settings, and default system values.

14. The computer program product as recited in claim 10, wherein computer-executable instructions that, when executed, cause the computer system to interpret the refined declarative model to implement an executable instance of the composite distributed application within the particular computing environment comprises computer-executable instructions that, when executed, cause the computer system to implement different application parts of the composite distributed application in different host environments.

15. A computer system, comprising:

one or more processors; and

one or more physical computer storage media storing computer-executable instructions which, when executed, cause the one or more processors to implement a method for describing the intended executable behavior of a composite distributed application in an implementation-independent manner, and for refining the description for execution within particular computing environments, the method comprising;

an act of describing a composite distributed application in a declarative model, the declarative model having a plurality of model elements, each model element representing a portion of the intended executable behavior of the composite distributed application in an implementation independent manner that describes operations and intended behaviors of the plurality of model elements without describing each implementation step for deploying the model elements within different technology and computing environment contexts, the description of the composite distributed application including at least;

an act of describing a first application part of the composite distributed application, the first application part being a first specified type of application part, including;

an act of declaring a first abstraction for the first application part, the first abstraction describing the intended execution behavior of the first application part in an implementation independent manner so that the first application part is deployable using different computing technologies and in different computing environments; and

an act of describing a second part of the composite distributed application, the second part being a second different specified type of application part, including;

an act of declaring a second abstraction for the second application part, the second abstraction describing the intended execution behavior of the second application part in an implementation independent manner so that the second application part is deployable using different computing technologies and in different computing environments; and

in response to a request to deploy the composite distributed application in a particular computing environment, an act of refining the declarative model for deployment within the particular computing environment, including;

an act of tagging each of the first and second abstraction with a corresponding first and second label, respectively, that includes implementation specific details that indicate how technologies specific to the particular computing environment are to be used to implement the corresponding application part, one of the first and second labels being based on an implementation attribute set on one of the abstractions, and an alternate one of the first and second labels being inferred from the particular computing environment.

16. The computer system as recited in claim 15, wherein the act of describing a composite distributed application in a declarative model comprises an act of describing a composite distributed application, wherein the first application part is a process and the second application part is data.

17. The computer system as recited in claim 15, wherein the act of describing a first application part of the composite distributed application comprises an act of setting a first implementation attribute on the first abstraction to expressly indicate the technologies that are to be used to implement the first application part.

18. The computer system as recited in claim 15, further comprising:

an act of describing an external provider endpoint for the composite distributed application, the external provider endpoint configured to;

receive requests from components external to the composite distributed application; and

delegate the requests to a first part provider endpoint for processing.

19. The computer system as recited in claim 15, wherein:

the act of describing a first application part of the composite distributed application further includes;

an act of declaring a first application part provider endpoint that provides information processed at the first application part to external components; and

an act of declaring a first part consumer endpoint that consumes information from external components; and

the act of describing a second part of the composite distributed application further includes;

an act of declaring a second application part provider endpoint that provides information to external components, the second application part provider endpoint connectable to consumer endpoints including the first application part consumer endpoint; and

an act of declaring a second application part consumer endpoint that consumes information from external components, the second application part consumer endpoint connectable to other provider endpoints.