Apparatus, system, and method for facilitating communication between an enterprise information system and a client

• US 8,301,750 B2
• Filed: 06/10/2005
• Issued: 10/30/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 06/10/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Lacombe, Jason Nathaniel, Nelson, Travis Eli, Vidyarthi, Suraksha
• Primary Examiner(s): Avellino, Joseph
• Assistant Examiner(s): BARON, JAMES T
• Application Number:
  US11/149,652
• Publication Number:
  US 20060282524A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,699 Days
• Field of Search: 709/206, 709223-224, 719/318, 714/2, 714/16
• US Class Current: 709/224
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/542 Event management; Broadcasting; Multicasting; Notifications

Abstract

An apparatus, system, and method are disclosed for assuring delivery of an Enterprise Information System (EIS) event to a client. An adapter apparatus polls at least one EIS for an event. The event is staged to a staging table, consisting of an XA-compliant database, in preparation for delivery to the client. The status of the event is marked and the event is delivered to the client. Events delivered to clients that are unresponsive or otherwise unavailable are held until the clients become responsive and then the events are delivered. Delivery of events is confirmed using a transaction service.

Claims

1. A computer program product comprising a computer readable storage medium storing computer usable program code that when executed by a processor performs a method which facilitates communication between an Enterprise Information System (EIS) and a client, the method including:

polling an EIS for an event;

staging the event for delivery to a plurality of clients by writing a reference to the event, for each of the plurality of clients registered to receive events, to a staging table;

delivering the event to the plurality of clients; and

certifying that only one instance of the event was received by the plurality of clients by removing a particular reference to the event for a particular client from the staging table upon a consumption of the event by the particular client of the plurality of clients, the removal of the particular reference and the consumption of the event by the particular client comprising an atomic operation spanning the staging table and the particular client, the atomic operation using a transaction service according to an Open Group distributed transaction (XA) specification.

2. The computer program product of claim 1, wherein polling the EIS comprises determining whether clients are available to receive events.

3. The computer program product of claim 1, wherein polling the EIS comprises periodically querying the EIS for new events based on a user-configured parameter.

4. The computer program product of claim 1, wherein staging the event further comprises marking a delivery status for each event within the EIS.

5. The computer program product of claim 1, wherein the staging table comprises an XA compliant staging table.

6. The computer program product of claim 1, further comprising removing the reference in the staging table to a staged event, upon confirmation of completed delivery of the event to a particular client.

7. The computer program product of claim 1, further comprising deleting an event from the EIS in response to references to the event being removed from the staging table as an atomic operation.

8. The computer program product of claim 1, wherein delivering the event further comprises transmitting and storing the event using a transaction service.

9. The computer program product of claim 1, further comprising holding a first event for clients that are unavailable.

10. The computer program product of claim 9, wherein holding the first event for the unavailable clients is user-configurable.

11. The computer program product of claim 9, wherein delivering the event further comprises delivering one or more held events to a first client that becomes available, in response to an indicator obtained during polling that the first client has become available.

12. The computer program product of claim 11, wherein the delivery of the one or more held events to the first client that has become available for the delivery of events is completed before the delivery of new events to other clients.

13. The computer program product of claim 1, further comprising deleting the event from the EIS upon confirmation that all clients registered to receive the event have received the event.

14. A computer implemented method to integrate an Enterprise Information System (EIS) with a plurality of software clients for a customer, the method implemented by way of a processor and a memory, the method comprising:

receiving a set of integration requirements;

building an integration adapter configured to connect an EIS and a plurality of clients such that the client plurality of clients receives EIS events, the integration adapter configured to,

poll the EIS for an event;

stage the event for delivery to the plurality of clients by writing a reference to the event, for each of the plurality of clients registered to receive events, to a staging table;

deliver the event to the plurality of clients; and

certify that only one instance of the event is received by each of the plurality of clients by removing a particular reference to the event for a particular client from the staging table upon a consumption of the event by the particular client of the plurality of clients, the removal of the particular reference and the consumption of the event by the particular client comprising an atomic operation spanning the staging table and the particular client, the atomic operation using a transaction service according to an XA specification; and

delivering the integration adapter to the customer.

15. The method of claim 14, comprising registering each of the at least one client to receive events from the EIS.

16. The method of claim 14, comprising determining the frequency of polling the EIS for an event.

17. The method of claim 14, comprising determining a quantity of events to stage before delivery.

18. The method of claim 14, further comprising integrating a transaction service with the integration adapter.

19. The method of claim 14, comprising determining whether events are to be held for an unavailable client until the client becomes available.

20. A computer implemented method to facilitate communication between an Enterprise Information System (EIS) and a client, the method comprising:

polling an EIS for an event;

staging the event for delivery to a plurality of clients by writing a reference to the event, for each of the plurality of clients registered to receive events, to a staging table;

delivering the event to the plurality of clients;

certifying that only one instance of the event was received by each of the plurality of clients by removing a particular reference to the event for a particular client from the staging table upon a consumption of the event by the particular client of the plurality of clients, the removal of the particular reference and the consumption of the event by the particular client comprising an atomic operation spanning the staging table and the particular client, the atomic operation using a transaction service according to an XA specification; and

determining a delivery status of the event for each of the plurality of clients.

21. The method of claim 20, wherein the staging table comprises an XA compliant staging table,

22. The method of claim 20, further comprising removing the reference in the staging table to a staged event, upon confirmation of completed delivery of the event to the particular client.

23. The method of claim 20, wherein staging the event further comprises marking a delivery status for each event within the EIS.

24. The method of claim 20, wherein delivering the event further comprises temporarily holding events for clients that are unavailable.

25. The method of claim 24, wherein delivering the event further comprises delivering one or more held events to a client that becomes available, in response to an indicator produced during polling.

26. The method of claim 20, wherein delivering the event comprises sending events to clients designated as durable subscribers.

27. The method of claim 20, further comprising deleting the event from the EIS upon confirmation that all intended clients have received the event.

28. An apparatus to facilitate communication between an Enterprise Information System (EIS) and a client, the apparatus comprising:

a polling module configured to poll an EIS for an event, the polling module stored on a memory and executed with a processor;

a staging module configured to stage the event for delivery to a plurality of clients by writing a reference to the event, for each of the plurality of clients registered to receive events, to a staging table;

a delivery module configured to deliver the event to the plurality of clients;

a confirmation module configured to certify that only one instance of the event is received by each of the plurality of clients;

a removal module configured to remove a particular reference to the event for a particular client from the staging table upon a consumption of the event by the particular client of the plurality of clients, the removal of the particular reference and the consumption of the event by the particular client comprising an atomic operation spanning the staging table and the particular client, the atomic operation using a transaction service according to an XA specification; and

the staging module further configured to determine a delivery status of the event for each of the plurality of clients.

29. The apparatus of claim 28, wherein the polling module is configured to periodically query the EIS for new events based on a user-configured parameter.

30. The apparatus of claim 28, wherein the staging table comprises an XA compliant staging table.

31. The apparatus of claim 28, wherein the removal module is further configured to remove the particular reference to a staged event from the staging table, upon confirmation of completed delivery of the event corresponding to the particular reference to the particular client.

32. The apparatus of claim 28, wherein the staging module is further configured to mark a delivery status for each event.

33. A computer implemented method for deploying computing infrastructure configured to integrate an Enterprise Information System (EIS) with a plurality of software clients that assures once-and-only-once event delivery to the clients, the method implemented by way of a processor and a memory, the method comprising:

developing a software toolkit comprising a plurality of extendable modules, the modules configured to,

poll an EIS for an event

stage the event for delivery to a plurality of client by writing a reference to the event to a staging table;

deliver the event to the at least one plurality of clients; and

certify that only one instance of the event is delivered to each of the plurality of clients by removing a particular reference to the event for a particular client from the staging table upon a consumption of the event by the particular client of the plurality of clients, the removal of the particular reference and the consumption of the event by the particular client comprising an atomic operation spanning the staging table and the particular client, the atomic operation using a transaction service according to an XA specification;

determining a delivery status of the event for each of the plurality of clients;

integrating the transaction service with the software tool kit; and

publishing the software tool kit.

34. The method of claim 33, wherein the transaction service supports distributed transactions supported by the XA specification.