Method and apparatus for simplified assembly of parametric information processing applications

• US 8,898,624 B2
• Filed: 05/05/2008
• Issued: 11/25/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 05/05/2008
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Liu, Zhen, Riabov, Anton V., Bouillet, Eric
• Primary Examiner(s): Nahar, Qamrun
• Application Number:
  US12/114,920
• Publication Number:
  US 20090276753A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,395 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 717/106
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/972 Access to data in other repository systems, e.g. legacy data or dynamic Web page generation

Abstract

A method for assembling parametric information processing applications, includes: receiving a composition request; composing a processing graph for the request, wherein the processing graph represents an application that includes at least one component; identifying a deployment parameter of the component and requesting a value of the parameter; receiving the parameter value; applying the parameter value to the application; and deploying the application with the parameter value in an execution environment.

Claims

1. A method for assembling parametric information processing applications, comprising:

receiving, by a user interface, a composition request, the composition request including a query based on tags displayed at the user interface;

composing a processing graph in accordance with the query, wherein the processing graph represents an application that includes at least one component;

identifying a deployment parameter of the component and requesting a value of the parameter by prompting a user via the user interface, wherein the parameter is identified from a description of the component and the value of the parameter is requested prior to running the processing graph and wherein an output description of an operator representing the parameter and an input description of an operator representing a first service are matched to each other and the output description of the operator representing the parameter and an input description of an operator representing a second service are matched to each other so that the value of the parameter corresponds to a parent node feeding into the first and second services in the processing graph;

displaying, at the user interface, the processing graph, the query and the parameter value prompt at the same time;

receiving the parameter value;

applying the parameter value to the application; and

deploying the application with the parameter value in an execution environment.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the deployment parameter is a configuration parameter of the component.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

storing the received parameter value as a default parameter value.

4. The method of claim 3, further comprising:

presenting the default parameter value to the user when requesting a value of the parameter.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the user interface includes a field in which the parameter value is to be entered by the user.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving a request to execute the deployed application;

identifying an execution parameter for the deployed application and requesting a value of the execution parameter;

receiving the value of the execution parameter;

invoking the deployed application according to the received execution parameter value; and

returning a response provided by the invoked application.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving a request to reconfigure the deployed application;

identifying a reconfiguration parameter for the deployed application and requesting a value of the reconfiguration parameter;

receiving a reconfiguration parameter value; and

reconfiguring the deployed application with the reconfiguration parameter value.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the reconfiguration parameter is a configuration parameter of a component in the deployed application.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the deployment parameter is a parameter operator instance in the processing graph.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein at least one prompt for each parameter operator instance is presented to the user.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein if two deployment parameters are identified that are the same only one parameter value needs to be entered.

12. A method for assembling parametric information processing applications, comprising:

receiving, by a user interface, a composition request, the composition request including a query based on tags displayed at the user interface, wherein a tag includes keywords corresponding to terms of a business domain;

composing a processing graph in accordance with the query, wherein the processing graph represents an application that includes at least one component;

deploying the application in an execution environment;

identifying an execution parameter of the component in the deployed application and requesting a value of the parameter by prompting a user via the user interface, wherein the parameter is identified from a description of the component and the value of the parameter is requested prior to running the processing graph and wherein an output description of an operator representing the parameter and an input description of an operator representing a first service are matched to each other and the output description of the operator representing the parameter and an input description of an operator representing a second service are matched to each other so that the value of the parameter corresponds to a parent node feeding into the first and second services in the processing graph;

displaying, at the user interface, the deployed application, the query and the parameter value prompt at the same time;

receiving the parameter value;

invoking the deployed application according to the execution parameter value; and

returning a response provided by the invoked application.

13. The method of claim 12, further comprising:

storing the received parameter as a default parameter value.

14. The method of claim 13, further comprising:

presenting the default parameter value to the user when requesting a value of the parameter.

15. The method of claim 12, wherein the user interface includes a field in which the parameter value is to be entered by the user.

16. The method of claim 12, further comprising:

receiving a request to reconfigure the deployed application;

identifying a reconfiguration parameter for the deployed application and requesting a value of the reconfiguration parameter;

receiving a reconfiguration parameter value; and

reconfiguring the deployed application with the reconfiguration parameter value.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein the reconfiguration parameter is a configuration parameter of a deployed component.

18. The method of claim 16, further comprising:

deploying the reconfigured application in the execution environment;

invoking the deployed reconfigured application according to the execution parameter value; and

returning a response provided by the invoked reconfigured application.

19. The method of claim 12, further comprising:

identifying a deployment parameter of the component and requesting a value of the parameter;

receiving the parameter value;

applying the parameter value to the application; and

wherein the application is deployed with the parameter value.

20. A method, comprising:

composing an application in response to a tag query that identifies a user-specified goal, wherein the application is represented by a processing graph and a tag is not an HTML tag;

deploying the processing graph in an execution environment in a deployment stage; and

invoking the deployed processing graph in the execution environment in an execution stage,

wherein parameter values are applied to the processing graph in the deployment stage if there are any parameters in the processing graph that require user-input prior to deployment, or

wherein parameter values are applied to the processing graph in the execution stage if there are any execution parameter requests,

wherein the parameters are identified from a description of at least one component included in the processing graph and values of the parameters are requested prior to running the processing graph and wherein an output description of an operator representing a first parameter and an input description of an operator representing a first service are matched to each other and the output description of the operator representing the first parameter and an input description of an operator representing a second service are matched to each other so that the value of the first parameter corresponds to a parent node feeding into the first and second services in the processing graph.