Task computing

• US 20050246726A1
• Filed: 04/27/2005
• Published: 11/03/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 04/28/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Fujitsu Limited
• Original Assignee: Fujitsu Limited
• Inventors: Song, Zhexuan, Labrou, Yannis, Huynh, Duy, Masuouka, Ryusuke
• Granted Patent: US 7,761,885 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 719/328
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2209/462 Lookup
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/465 Distributed object oriented systems remote method invocation [RMI] G06F9/548

Abstract

Task Computing computer system by segmenting the system into a plurality of implementation tiers of a presentation layer, a remote procedure call programming interface (API), a middleware layer to which the presentation layer interfaces via the remote procedure call API to real-time, dynamically generate a computer implemented task interface at the presentation layer to a semantically described source of function as a service on a computer system, and a service layer and a function source realization layer providing the semantically described source of function as the service on the computer system to which the middleware layer interfaces. Real-time and dynamically composing an executable task that comprises one or more services using the generated task interface at the presentation layer to one or more services on the computer based upon the semantically described application-, device- and service-rich computer.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

semantically describing a plurality of computer system sources of functions as services on a computer system;

segmenting a computer system into a plurality of programmable computing system implementation tiers comprising;

a presentation client processing layer,

a remote procedure call application programming interface (API),

a middleware server processing layer to which the presentation layer interfaces via the remote procedure call API to real-time, dynamically generate a computer implemented task interface at the presentation layer to a semantically described computer system source of function as a service on a computer system, and

a service layer and a function source realization layer providing the semantically described computer system source of function as the service on the computer system to which the middleware processing layer interfaces; and

real-time, dynamically composing an executable task that comprises one or more services, according to the generated task interface at the presentation layer to one or more services on the computer system.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the service layer comprises a service function from the function source realization layer and a semantic service description correspondingly semantically describing the service function of the function source realization layer, as the service on the computer system.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the remote procedure call API is according to Web services.

4. The method of claim 1,

wherein the computer system comprises a plurality of computer systems in network communication,

wherein the remote procedure call API is according to Web services, the Web services comprising a remote Web services API, and the method further comprises:

registering by a first computer system a remote Web services API of the first computer system via the network in a second computer system;

discovering by the second computer system a service on the second computer system; and

informing, by the second computer system, via the registered remote Web services API, the first computer system of the discovered services in the second computer system, thereby providing cross-computer system service discovery.

5. The method of claim 4, further comprising filtering discovery of the services in the second computer system according to specifying a filter in the registered remote Web services API.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the filter is a query according to Resource Description Framework Data Query Language (RDQL).

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

defining a service name according to a natural language in the semantic description of the computer source of function, thereby supporting the composition of the executable task that comprises one or more services according to a natural language sentence.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

defining according to an ontology a functional characteristic of the semantic description of the computer source of function as the service,

wherein the executable task is a composition of one or more services compatible according to a functional characteristic of each service.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the middleware server processing layer comprises programmed units of a service discovery unit, a service composition unit, a service execution unit, a service management unit, or any combinations thereof accessible via the remote procedure call API to support the real-time, dynamically generation of the computer implemented task interface at the presentation layer.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the computer system comprises a plurality of computer systems in network communication, and the method further comprises:

installing a first programmed unit of the middleware server processing layer in a first computer system as a remote middleware server processing layer;

publishing a first remote procedure call API of the first programmed unit in the first computer system;

invoking by a second programmed unit in a second computer system, via the published first remote procedure call API, the first programmed unit in the first computer system to manage a service in the first computer system.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein managing the service in the first computer system comprises discovering, executing, manipulating, or any combinations thereof of the service in the first computer system via the semantic description of the computer system source of function for the service.

12. The method of claim 10, wherein the invoking the first programmed unit in the first computer system to manage a service in the first computer system, comprises:

discovering the service via the semantic description of the computer system source of function for the service according to one or more discovery mechanisms of file system, multi-cast, community directory, open semantic service directory, or any combinations thereof.

13. The method of claim 10, wherein the invoking the first programmed unit in the first computer system to manage a service in the first computer system, comprises:

setting a discovery range from ranges of empty, private, group by subnet, group by interest, or any combinations thereof, in the semantic description of the computer system source of function for the service; and

discovering the service via the semantic description of the computer system source of function for the service according the discovery range set in the semantic description of the computer system source of function for the service.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein the computer system source of function is described semantically according to Web Ontology Language (OWL) based Web service ontology (OWL-S) language.

15. The method of claim 1, wherein the semantic description of a computer system source of function comprises a spoken language attribute controlling a computer user interface according to the spoken language.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein the computer user interface is a computer displayed graphical user interface and the spoke language attribute controls displayed description of a service name and a service description according to the spoken language.

17. The method of claim 1, wherein the semantic description of a computer system source of function comprises descriptions for a relaxed data type of input, a location of a computer system source of function as a service, a management function or any combinations thereof.

18. The method of claim 1, wherein the semantic description of a computer system source of function as the service on the computer system comprises identifying two or more types of input data for the service, a first input data type identifying an exact domain of input data and a second input data type identifying a relaxed input data type of a domain larger than the domain of the first input data type.

19. The method of claim 1, wherein the semantic description of a computer system source of function as the service comprises a description for a management function for the service, a link to a description for a management function for the service or both.

20. The method of claim 19, wherein the management function comprises one or more service processes of deleting a service, returning a handled semantic object of a service, presenting a user interface to the service, status information of the service, a location of the service, or any combinations thereof.

21. The method of claim 1, wherein the computer implemented interface to the semantically described computer system source of function is a computer displayed graphical user interface, a voice command user interface, a radio device user interface, or any combination thereof.

22. The method of claim 1, wherein computer implemented interface to the semantically described computer system source of function is a voice command user interface, and the method further comprises:

defining a service name according to a natural language in the semantic description of the computer source of function,

generating a speech recognition state grammar diagram according to the defined natural language service names,

recognizing by a speech recognizer a spoken natural language sentence as a composition of a task that comprises one or more of spoken defined service names,

matching the recognized spoken defined service names to a sequence of services according to the speech recognition state grammar diagram, and

executing the task by executing the matched services.

23. The method of claim 22, wherein the computer displayed graphical user interface is a spatial presentation of a service.

24. The method of claim 23, wherein the spatial presentation of a service comprises:

displaying an area map; and

spatially displaying over the area map discovered services.

25. The method of claim 1,

wherein the semantically describing the plurality of computer system sources of functions as services, comprises:

describing functional characteristics of a computer system source of function using an ontology, and

assigning a name to the service as an element of a natural language sentence to support composability of the services mapping into composability of natural language elements as a natural language sentence, and

wherein generation of the computer implemented task interface comprises;

discovering available services, and

identifying compatible services according to a functional characteristic of a service based upon the describing of the functional characteristics of a computer system source of function using an ontology to support user composing the executable task of a plurality of the compatible services based upon the natural language service names according to a natural language sentence.

26. The method of claim 25, wherein the computer implemented task interface is a computer displayed screen graphical user interface, and the graphical user interface comprises:

displaying in a first graphical user interface window selectable graphical displays of discovered services according to a tree structure;

presenting a second graphical user interface supporting real-time, dynamic composition of the one or more services into a task according to a process, comprising;

selecting by a user a discovered service in the first window;

automatically displaying a selectable graphical display of other compatible services in connection with the selected discovered service;

selecting by a user a compatible service; and

real-time, dynamically displaying in the second graphical user interface window a directed service graph according to the user selecting of the discovered service and the compatible services as the task; and

displaying a selectable graphical display of task execution to execute the task.

27. The method of claim 26, wherein the displayed discovered services are organized in the first graphical user interface window according to functional characteristics of the discovered services.

28. The method of claim 1, wherein access to a service is controlled according to service access control elements of facts provided by a client, the service private policy, a shared policy, ontologies, or any combinations thereof.

29. The method of claim 1, wherein the presentation client processing layer comprises providing internal services of instance creator, instance copier, instance interceptor, instance saver, property chooser or any combinations thereof.

30. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

providing a semantic instance serializing service, an information providing service, a sensor service, a snapshot service, an Web Ontology Language (OWL) formatter service, and a text formatter service as the plurality of computer system sources of functions semantically described.

31. The method of claim 30, wherein the semantic instance serializing service comprises consuming any type of semantic instance, serializing the semantic instance into information and providing the information to a user.

32. The method of claim 30, wherein the information providing service comprises outputting a semantic object from a computer system source of function, wherein the computer system source of function is an information providing source of function.

33. The method of claim 32, wherein the information providing source of function provides time, date, weather related, road traffic, or any combinations thereof.

34. The method of claim 30, wherein the snapshot service comprises:

capturing a still image from an imaging device; and

outputting a semantic object for the still image.

35. The method of claim 30, wherein the OWL formatter service comprises:

accepting a semantic object as input;

formatting the semantic object into a human understandable way, and

outputting the formatted semantic object.

36. The method of claim 30, wherein the text formatter service comprises:

accepting a semantic object;

formatting the semantic object into one of pre-determined text formats; and

outputting the formatted semantic object.

37. The method of claim 1,

wherein the computer system comprises a plurality of computer systems in network communication, and

wherein the computer system sources of functions as the services comprise device, application, electronic service, content, or any combinations thereof sources of functions on any of the plurality of computer systems.

38. The method of claim 37 or 25, wherein the computer system sources of functions as the services are available through remote procedure calls of WSDL (Web Service Description Language), a UPnP (Universal Plug and Play), CORBA, RMI, RPC, DCE, DCOM, or any combinations thereof.

39. The method of claim 1,

wherein the computer system comprises a plurality of computer systems in network communication,

wherein the remote procedure call API is according to Web services, the Web services comprising a remote Web services API, and the method further comprises:

publishing the remote Web services API of a first computer system; and

managing by a second computer system, via the published remote Web services API, a service on the first computer system.

40. The method of claim 39, wherein the managing of the service on the second computer system comprises creating, publishing, discovering, executing, or any combinations thereof the service on the second computer system.

41. The method of claim 1, wherein the middleware server processing layer comprise a service management process, and the presentation client processing layer comprises one or more semantically described service control mechanism clients to create, publish, and/or manipulate a semantic object and/or a semantic service description for a computer system source of function as a service.

42. The method of claim 1, wherein the semantically described service control mechanism clients comprise a client process to semanticize, create a semantic service description, and publish the semantic service description as a service, a real-world object semanticizer client, a database semanticizer client, and a media publisher.

43. The method of claim 1, wherein the media publisher comprises:

receiving a selected data object;

generating a corresponding semantic instance for the selected data object, and

creating and publishing a semantic service description for the generated semantic instance to provide a service.

44. A computer system, comprising:

a server processing system abstracting computer system sources of function as semantically-described services; and

a client processing system interfacing with the server system via a remote procedure call to support via a computer implemented task interface real-time, dynamic composition of an executable task comprising one or more services on the computer system, based upon the semantically-described services of the computer system sources of function.

45. An apparatus, comprising:

a programmed processor controlling the apparatus according to a process comprising;

recognizing an object;

generating a semantic instance based upon the recognized object; and

publishing the semantic instance.

46. The apparatus of claim 45, wherein the object is a physical object, voice, video, or any combinations thereof.

47. The apparatus of claim 45, wherein the recognizing of the object is according to reading a computer readable code, detecting a Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tag, and detecting object information by multimedia recognition processing engines.

48. A computer implemented method, comprising:

mapping a database schema to an ontology; and

generating a semantic object of data in the database based upon the mapping.

49. The method of claim 48, further comprising:

controlling the generating of the semantic object to generate a semantic object from all or a part of the data in the database and outputting one or more semantic objects in a single or multiple files.

50. The method of claim 48, wherein the mapping further comprises:

displaying a graphical user interface comprising;

a first window displaying selectable graphical displays of the database schema; and

a second window displaying a selectable graphical display of an ontology; and

mapping by a user the database schema to the ontology, based upon the displayed graphical user interface.

51. The method of claim 50, wherein the mapping further comprises:

suggesting by a programmed processor a possible mapping according to syntactical clues in the database schema and the ontology.

52. The method of claim 48, further comprising:

displaying a graphical user interface comprising selectable graphical displays of a semantic object; and

returning a value of a selected semantic object.

53. A computer system, comprising:

server processing means for abstracting computer system sources of function as a plurality of services; and

client processing means for providing, via a remote procedure call mechanism, a user task interface for real-time, dynamic composition of a task comprising two or more of the services.

54. A portable computer readable medium storing at least one program controlling a computer system according to a process comprising:

semantically describing a plurality of computer system sources of functions as services;

discovering the plurality of semantically described computer system sources of functions as the services and presenting the services in a first graphical user interface;

presenting a second graphical user interface supporting real-time, dynamic composition of the one or more services into a task according to a process, comprising;

selecting by a user a discovered service in the first window;

automatically displaying a selectable graphical display of other valid services in connection with the selected discovered service;

selecting by a user a valid service; and

real-time, dynamically displaying in the second graphical user interface window a directed service graph according to the user selecting of the discovered service and the valid services as the task; and

displaying a selectable graphical display of task execution to execute the task.

55. A terminal device, comprising:

a programmed client processor controlling the terminal device according to a process, comprising;

discovering via a remote procedure call mechanism to a server process a plurality of semantically described computer system sources of functions as services;

generating a computer implemented user interface supporting real-time, dynamic composition of the one or more services into a task according to a process, comprising;

receiving a command of the task by a user; and

controlling processing of the task comprising one or more services via the server process.

56. The terminal device of claim 55, wherein the computer implemented user interface is a computer displayed graphical user interface, a voice command user interface, a radio device user interface, or any combination thereof.

57. The terminal device of claim 55, wherein the process of the client process further comprises:

presenting the discovered services in a first graphical user interface;

presenting a second graphical user interface supporting the real-time, dynamic composition of the one or more services into a task according to a process, comprising;

selecting by a user a discovered service in the first window;

automatically displaying a selectable graphical display of other valid services in connection with the selected discovered service;

selecting by a user a valid service; and

real-time, dynamically displaying in the second graphical user interface window a directed service graph according to the user selecting of the discovered service and the valid services as the task; and

displaying a selectable graphical display of task execution to execute the task via the server process.

58. A terminal device, comprising:

a programmed client processor controlling the terminal device according to a process, comprising;

reading a Web Ontology Language (OWL-S) file semantically describing a computer system source of function as a service, and

executing the service according to the reading of the OWL-S file.

59. A server processing apparatus in communication with a plurality of client processing apparatuses, the server processing apparatus comprising:

a programmed server processor controlling, in response to a remote procedure call mechanism, the server processing apparatus according to a process, comprising;

discovering a plurality of semantically described computer system sources of functions as services;

controlling via the remote procedure call mechanism generation of a client computer implemented user interface supporting real-time, dynamic composition of the one or more services into a task.

60. The server processing apparatus of claim 59, wherein the controlling of the client computer implemented user interface is according to a process, comprising:

identifying compatible services from the plurality of discovered services according to a functional characteristic of a service described in a semantic description of a computer system source of function;

composing a task according to one or more selected compatible services;

receiving a task execution command; and

executing the one or more services at the client to execute the task, in response to the task execution command.