Reuse of on-demand enterprise system customization knowledge utilizing collective experience

• US 9,390,375 B2
• Filed: 01/06/2015
• Issued: 07/12/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 05/02/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: SAP SE
• Original Assignee: SAP SE
• Inventors: Allgaier, Matthias
• Primary Examiner(s): Hill, Stanley K
• Assistant Examiner(s): Misir, Dave
• Application Number:
  US14/590,453
• Publication Number:
  US 20150127583A1
• Time in Patent Office: 553 Days
• Field of Search: 706/46, 706/11, 707/769
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06N 20/00 Machine learning
• CPC Class Codes: G06N 5/04 Inference or reasoning models

Abstract

Systems and methods allow sharing and reuse of acquired customization knowledge of enterprise systems, utilizing collective customization experience. Particular embodiments employ Case-Based Reasoning (CBR) principles to manage customization experience in the context of both Software as a Service (SaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS) environments. Collective customization knowledge may be explicitly retrieved, adapted, shared, reused, and/or traded between tenants, partners, and optionally provider(s), of on-demand enterprise systems. A previous customization case stored within an experience base, may include one or more of the following: information allowing annotation of price information for trading the previous customization case (e.g. to another tenant); information restricting visibility of the previous customization case within the experience base; information defining a rating for the previous customization case within a community; information capturing a reuse frequency of the previous customization case; and/or information rendering anonymous at least a portion of the previous customization case.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

providing a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium containing an experience base comprising a stored customization case previously used by a first entity to customize an enterprise system for a first tenant, wherein the stored customization case is in a case representation model that includes a customization problem and a customization solution comprising an adaptation pattern category, the stored customization case further including,

information configured to restrict inter-tenant visibility of the stored customization case within the experience base distinct from any anonymization measure, and

receiving from a second entity, a first query comprising a first unsolved enterprise customization case for a second tenant, the first unsolved enterprise customization case having a first new customization problem and not having a customization solution;

causing a case-based reasoning engine contained within the non-transitory computer-readable storage medium to reference the experience base by executing a case retrieval algorithm upon the case representation model and generate a similarity measure between the first new customization problem and the stored customization case;

displaying the similarity measure to the second entity prior to adapting the customization solution for the first unsolved customization case;

receiving from the first entity, a second query comprising a second unsolved enterprise customization case for a third tenant; and

restricting visibility of the stored customization case to the third tenant based upon the information.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the case-based reasoning engine comprises an add-on to a Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) component of the enterprise system.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the first entity and/or the second entity are system integrators.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the first entity and/or the second entity are tenants of the enterprise system.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the stored customization case includes information allowing annotation of price information for trading.

6. The method of claim 1 further comprising storing the new customization problem and an adapted customization solution, as a new customization case.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein the stored customization case further includes information configured to:

define a rating for the stored customization case within a community; and

capture a reuse frequency of the stored customization case.

8. A non-transitory computer readable storage medium embodying a computer program for performing a method, said method comprising:

providing a database containing an experience base comprising a stored customization case previously used by a first entity to customize an enterprise system for a first tenant, wherein the stored customization case is in a case representation model that includes a customization problem and a customization solution comprising an adaptation pattern category, the stored customization case further including;

information configured to restrict inter-tenant visibility of the stored customization case within the experience base distinct from any anonymization measure;

receiving from a second entity, a first query comprising a first unsolved enterprise customization case for a second tenant, the first unsolved enterprise customization case having a first new customization problem and not having a customization solution;

causing a case-based reasoning engine contained within the database to reference the experience base by executing a case retrieval algorithm upon the case representation model and generate a similarity measure between the first new customization problem and the stored customization case;

displaying the similarity measure to the second entity prior to adapting the customization solution for the first unsolved customization case;

receiving from the first entity, a second query comprising a second unsolved enterprise customization case for a third tenant; and

restricting visibility of the stored customization case to the third tenant based upon the information.

9. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 8 wherein the case-based reasoning engine comprises an add-on to a Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) component of the enterprise system.

10. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 8 wherein the first entity and/or the second entity are system integrators.

11. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 8 wherein the first entity and/or the second entity are tenants of the enterprise system.

12. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 8 wherein the stored customization case includes information allowing annotation of price information for trading.

13. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 8 further comprising storing the new customization problem and an adapted customization solution, as a new customization case.