Systems and methods for dynamic development and deployment of computing applications using blueprints

• US 9,043,747 B2
• Filed: 09/06/2012
• Issued: 05/26/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 09/07/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Imagine Communications Limited (Gores Broadcast Holdings LLC)
• Original Assignee: Imagine Communications Limited (Gores Broadcast Holdings LLC)
• Inventors: Eksten, Brick, White, Craig, Palmer, Scott, Belme, Frank, Li, Stephen, Saceanu, Cristian
• Primary Examiner(s): Bullock, Jr., Lewis A
• Assistant Examiner(s): Huynh, Tina
• Application Number:
  US13/605,661
• Publication Number:
  US 20130239089A1
• Time in Patent Office: 992 Days
• Field of Search: 717/104, 717/105, 717/113, 717/120, 717174-178, 709/226, 709/219, 726/5, 726/6, 726/21
• US Class Current: 717/105
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/105 Arrangements for software license management or administration, e.g. for managing licenses at corporate level
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/1077 Recurrent authorisation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/20 Software design
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/34 Graphical or visual programming
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/36 Software reuse
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/60 Software deployment
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/70 Software maintenance or management
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/44521 Dynamic linking or loading; Link editing at or after load time, e.g. Java class loading
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5066 Algorithms for mapping a plurality of inter-dependent sub-tasks onto a plurality of physical CPUs mappping at compile time, see G06F8/451
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/08 for authentication of entities cryptographic mechanisms or cryptographic arrangements for entity authentication H04L9/32
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/0823 using certificates cryptographic mechanisms or cryptographic arrangements for entity authentication involving certificates H04L9/3263

Abstract

Systems and methods for dynamic development and deployment of computing applications including a development framework, a visual design subsystem, and a deployment subsystem, where at runtime the deployment subsystem is operable to dynamically deploy a computing application realized by a blueprint by sending a request at runtime for graphs and components instantiated by the blueprint.

Claims

1. A system for dynamic development of computing applications comprising:

one or more processors;

one or more linked repositories storing components, blueprints, and graphs;

a visual design subsystem and a software development kit for creating, testing and outputting at least one computing application realized by a blueprint, the blueprint used to instantiate a graph at application runtime, the graph representing a workflow of the components from the components stored in the one or more linked repositories, the graph defining an arrangement of the components in functional blocks with specific orders of operation for the functional blocks, and connections between the functional blocks;

the one or more processors configured to;

define a computing processing mechanism for processing data containers of computing data at the application runtime using each of the component, the each of component is a distribution plug in unit;

instantiate the graph using the blueprint;

using the graph, define connections between the components using pins to pass data between the components, and properties for the components, wherein the graph is an instantiation of the corresponding the computing application realized by the blueprint at the application runtime, and the components of the graph comprise at least one compound component with an inner component embedded within an outer component, the inner component promoting its properties to the outer component;

wherein the graph instantiated by the blueprint comprises;

a label referencing a subgraph of the one or more components, wherein the subgraph connects to the graph using input and output pins, wherein the graph and sub-graph initiate running process instances on disparate host systems, wherein the input and output pins decouple the graph and sub-graph and handle interprocess communication between the running process instances on the disparate host systems; and

at least two components written for different architectures, wherein the graph instantiates the running process instances on the disparate host systems for each of the different architectures, and additional pins handle interprocess communication between the running process instances for the each of the different architectures.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the graph delivers functionality defined by the components identified by the graph, and wherein the blueprint connects the functionality to a running environment.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the blueprint provides business logic for the corresponding graph.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein each component is associated with one or more versions, wherein the graph of the at least one computing application and the blueprint comprises a label as a reference to a solution set of components, wherein the solution set identifies a set of components and a version for each component in the set.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein at least one component is associated with one or more versions and wherein the graph for the at least one computing application enables loading of an appropriate version of the at least one component at the application runtime.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein a first component is in a first language and a second component is in a second different language, wherein the first and second components comprise data and are operable to access the one or more linked repositories, and wherein the system further comprises a translation module operable to translate multiple languages into a common language by translating at least one of the first language and second different language into the common language.

7. The system of claim 1, further comprising for dynamic deployment of a plurality of host systems, wherein each host system comprises one or more processors configured with a cloud agent, and one or more cloud engines, wherein the cloud agent provides a running environment for the one or more cloud engines and controls instantiation of the one or more at least one cloud engines, wherein at the application runtime, the cloud engine dynamically constructs the computing application by sending a request to the one or more linked repositories for the graph instantiated by the corresponding blueprint and components identified by the graph, wherein the one or more cloud engines instantiate a running process instance of at least a portion of the dynamically constructed computing application on the respective host system.

8. The system of claim 4, wherein the solution set is updated to identify a new version of at least one component identified in the set of components.

9. The system of claim 7, further comprising a license server, wherein the license server dynamically manages licenses and associates licenses with the components identified by the graph, wherein use of the components at the application runtime requires a check for the appropriate license.

10. The system of claim 9, further comprising a job manager, wherein the job manager dispatches the blueprint and the graph to the cloud agent based on available licenses managed by the license server.

11. The system of claim 7, further comprising a security manager, wherein the security manager provides for secure connections and communications between the plurality of host systems.

12. The system of claim 7, further comprising a job manager configured to provide job and cloud engine dispatch, failover, tracking and reporting.

13. The system of claim 7, wherein the graph defines the connections between the components using different types of pins.

14. The system of claim 1, wherein a data container of a component defines a data type and a data object, wherein the data type is metadata describing the data container and the data object maintains raw data.

15. The system of claim 7, wherein the one or more linked repositories manage versioning of components and the graph to keep track of updates made thereto, wherein the one or more linked repositories serve the components and the graph at the application runtime using appropriate versions of the graph and the components.

16. The system of claim 7, wherein the cloud agent is provided to the each host system to manage the local resources of the respective host system, wherein the cloud agent interacts with the one or more cloud engines to instantiate the graphs using the blueprints.

17. The system of claim 7, further comprising a normalization module operable to receive input data files and convert and parse the input data files into the data containers for processing by the graph.

18. The system of claim 7, further comprising a code signing module operable to digitally sign each component of the graph to associate a developer, license, or both with at least one component.

19. The system of claim 7 further comprising:

a digital certificate associated with a component provider subsystem, wherein the component provider subsystem provides one or more components of the components identified in the graph instantiated by the blueprint;

a digital certificate associated with a user computing subsystem, wherein the user computing subsystem is associated with the computing application;

a license server configured to digitally sign a component of the one or more components by linking the component to the digital certificate associated with the user computing subsystem and the digital certificate associated with the component provider subsystem to indicate that the user computing system and the component provider subsystem accept performance of the digitally signed component;

when dynamically constructing the computing application, the one or more cloud engine queries the license server to determine whether the component is linked to the digital certificate associated with the user computing subsystem and the digital certificate associated with the component provider subsystem.

20. The system of claim 7, wherein the cloud agent is further configured to partition the graph into two or more subgraphs, create a running process instance on at least two disparate host systems and handle interprocess communications between the two or more subgraphs.

21. A method for dynamic development of computing applications:

providing one or more linked repositories storing a development framework, one or more components, blueprints, and graphs,

providing a visual design subsystem and a software development kit for creating, testing and outputting computing applications;

creating, testing and outputting, using the visual design subsystem and the software development kit, at least one computing application realized by a blueprint, the blueprint used to instantiate a graph at application runtime, the graph representing a workflow of the components from the one or more linked repositories, the graph defining an arrangement of the components in functional blocks with specific orders of operation for the functional blocks, and connections between the functional blocks;

defining a computing processing mechanism for processing data containers of computing data at the application runtime using each of the component, the each of component is a distribution plug in unit;

initiating the graph using the blueprint;

using the graph, defining connections between the components using pins to pass data between the components, and properties for the components by the graph, wherein the graph is an instantiation of the corresponding the computing application realized by the blueprint at the application runtime, and the components of the graph comprise at least one compound component with an inner component embedded within an outer component, the inner component promoting its properties to the outer component;

wherein initiating the graph by the blueprint comprises;

a label referencing a subgraph of the one or more components, wherein the subgraph connects to the graph using input and output pins, wherein the graph and sub-graph initiate running process instances on disparate host systems, wherein the input and output pins decouple the graph and sub-graph and handle interprocess communication between the running process instances on the disparate host systems; and

at least two components written for different architectures, wherein the graph instantiates the running process instances on the disparate host systems for each of the different architectures, and additional pins handle interprocess communication between the running process instances for the each of the different architectures;

developing additional components for the computing application using the visual design subsystem and the software development kit and graphs for the blueprint; and

storing the additional components in the one or more linked repositories for loading at the application runtime.

22. The method of claim 21 further comprising:

providing a plurality of host systems, each host system comprising one or more processor and configured with a cloud agent and one or more cloud engines, wherein the cloud agent provides a running environment for the one or more cloud engines and controls instantiation of the one or more cloud engines;

dynamically constructing, at the application runtime, the computing application realized by the blueprint instantiating the graph by sending a request at runtime to the one or more linked repositories for the components identified by the graph; and

for each of the host systems, instantiating a running process instance, using the one or more cloud engines, of a portion of the dynamically constructed computing application on the respective host system.

23. The method of claim 22, further comprising:

providing a digital certificate associated with a component provider subsystem, wherein the component provider subsystem provides one or more components of the components identified in the graph instantiated by the blueprint realizing the computing application;

providing a digital certificate associated with a user computing subsystem, wherein the user computing subsystem is associated with the computing application;

providing a license server configured to digitally sign a component of the one or more components by linking the component to the digital certificate associated with the user computing subsystem and the digital certificate associated with the component provider subsystem to indicate that the user computing system and the component provider subsystem accept performance of the digitally signed component;

receiving, at a license server, acceptance of the component provided by the component provider subsystem in the computing application associated with user computing system by receiving the digital certificate from the user computing subsystem and the digital certificate from the component provider computing system;

linking, at the license server, the component of the one or more components provided by the component provider subsystem in the computing application associated with user computing system to the digital certificate from the user computing subsystem and the digital certificate from the component provider computing system; and

querying the license server to determine whether the component is linked to the digital certificate associated with the user computing subsystem and the digital certificate associated with the component provider subsystem.