Building computing applications based upon metadata

• US 8,972,872 B2
• Filed: 03/27/2007
• Issued: 03/03/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 03/27/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Fujitsu Limited
• Original Assignee: Fujitsu Limited
• Inventors: Labrou, Yannis, Masuoka, Ryusuke, Song, Zhexuan, Huang, Guang
• Primary Examiner(s): Ng, Amy
• Assistant Examiner(s): Muhebbullah, Sajeda
• Application Number:
  US11/691,807
• Publication Number:
  US 20070266384A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,898 Days
• Field of Search: 715/744, 715762-763, 717/105, 717/111
• US Class Current: 715/762
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/00 Arrangements for software engineering testing or debugging G06F11/36; administrative, planning or organisation aspects of software project management G06Q10/06

Abstract

Associating a semantic service description (SSD) with a service, wherein the SSD comprises a semantic description of the service, including a semantic description of a parameter of the service, according to a computer interpretable language, and, as a service grounding, a mapping between the computer interpretable language expressing the SSD and an interface, including an interface parameter, of the service. A dynamic composition of a task based upon a user selection of a plurality of known services is supported and a dynamic association of the task with a user interface of an application is supported, based upon associating the task with the user selection of a UI object, a UI display screen, and a UI event for the application.

Claims

1. An apparatus providing a plurality of computing sources of functionality, each computing source of functionality presenting a service and existing in a computing environment of the apparatus, in a computing environment in network communication with the apparatus, or in any combinations thereof, the apparatus comprising:

a computer processor; and

a non-transitory computer readable storage medium which stores instructions, which when executed by the computer processor, cause the computer processor to execute;

dynamically discover one or more semantic service descriptions (SSDs) as known services through a plurality of discovery mechanisms discovering the SSDs, an SSD including a semantic description of the service and a semantic description of a parameter of the service, according to a computer interpretable language, and as a service grounding, mapping information between the computer interpretable language expressing the SSD and an interface, including an interface parameter, of the service;

support dynamic composition of a task composed of a plurality of the discovered known services based upon a task composer selection of a plurality of the discovered known services; and

dynamically output a specification of association of user interface (UI) objects, user interface (UI) events and user interface (UI) display screens to a selected composed tasks responsive to selection of a UI object and association of the selected UI object with a selected UI event to a selected UI display screen from selectable lists of one or more UI objects, UI events and UI display screens and selection of a composed task from among composed task candidates identified based upon input/output of a composed task and input/output of the selected UI object associated with the UI event to the UI display screen, thereby the selected composed task is executable upon displaying of the selected UI display screen and upon action on the selected UI event associated with the selected UI object displayed in the displayed selected UI display screen,

wherein a UI object corresponds to an SSD as a discovered known service included in the selected composed task,

wherein the specification of association of the UI objects, the UI events and the UI display screens to the selected composed tasks comprises generating a matrix of the selected UI object, the selected UI display screen for the selected UI object, the selected UI event for the selected UI object and the selected composed task.

2. The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the matrix comprises identifiers corresponding to the selected UI object, the selected UI display screen, the selected UI event and the selected composed task.

3. The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the association of the selected UI object with the selected UI event to the selected UI display screen comprises:

associating metadata with a UI object,

presenting to the task composer selectable UI objects based upon the metadata,

upon selection of one of the UI objects, presenting to the task composer the list of selectable UI display screens in which the selected UI object appears,

upon selection of one of the UI display screens presenting to the task composer selectable UI events for the selected UI object in the selected UI display screen, and

upon selection of one of the UI events, presenting to the task composer selectable tasks for associating with the selected UI event, based upon inputs and/or outputs of tasks and inputs and/or outputs of the selected UI event.

4. The apparatus according to claim 3, wherein the UI objects, the UI display screens and the UI events are determined according to queries, output of queries or both specifying the UI objects of the task.

5. The apparatus according to claim 4, wherein the metadata is based upon an ontology.

6. The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the dynamic composition of the task comprises continuously updating services available for the task during the composition of the task and automatically linking a selected service to the task during the composition of the task, based upon the semantic description in each SSD associated with each service.

7. The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the controller further searches for a task based upon a query against all possible tasks.

8. The apparatus according to claim 7, wherein the task is searched by:

searching the known services for a set of matched services based upon the query,

determining a set of all possible tasks based upon the known services,

searching for the task in the set of all possible tasks based upon the set of matched services.

9. The apparatus according to claim 8, wherein the searching of the known services for the set of matched services comprises comparing the query with one or more attributes in the SSDs corresponding to the known services, the attributes including one or more of service label, service name, service description, input, or output, or any combinations thereof.

10. The apparatus according to claim 9, wherein each SSD attribute is given a weight, and the set of matched services is according to the SSD attribute weights.

11. The apparatus according to claim 8, wherein the searching for the task in the set of all possible tasks based upon the set of matched services comprises computing a weight for the task and ranking a plurality of searched tasks based upon respective task weights.

12. The apparatus according to claim 11, wherein the task weight is based upon execution history of the task.

13. The apparatus according to claim 7, wherein the controller searches for a plurality of tasks and the plurality of searched tasks are grouped by similarity of services among the tasks.

14. A method of associating a user interface action for a task, wherein the task is based upon a plurality of computing sources of functionality, each computing source of functionality presenting a service and existing in a computing environment, the method comprising:

executing by a computer to;

dynamically discover one or more semantic service descriptions (SSDs) as known services through a plurality of discovery mechanisms discovering the SSDs, an SSD including a semantic description of the service and a semantic description of a parameter of the service, according to a computer interpretable language;

support dynamic composition of a task composed of a plurality of the discovered known services based upon a task composer selection of a plurality of the known services; and

dynamically output a specification of association of user interface (UI) objects, user interface (UI) events and user interface (UI) display screens to selected composed tasks responsive to selection of a UI object and association of the selected UI object with a selected UI event to a selected UI display screen from selectable lists of one or more UI objects, UI events and UI display screens and selection of a composed task from among composed task candidates identified based upon input/output of a composed task and input/output of the selected UI object associated with the UI event to the UI display screen, thereby the selected composed task is executable upon displaying of the selected UI display screen and upon action on the selected UI event associated with the selected UI object displayed in the displayed selected UI display screen,

wherein a UI object corresponds to an SSD as a discovered known service included in the selected composed task,

wherein the specification of association of the UI objects, the UI events and the UI display screens to the selected composed tasks comprises generating a matrix of the selected UI object, the selected UI display screen for the selected UI object, the selected UI event for the selected UI object and the selected composed task.