Seamless migration of one or more business processes and their work environment between computing devices and a network

• US 7,269,645 B2
• Filed: 10/31/2003
• Issued: 09/11/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 10/31/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Sairamesh, Jakka, Goh, SweeFen, Stanoi, Ioana
• Primary Examiner(s): Barot; Bharat
• Application Number:
  US10/699,578
• Publication Number:
  US 20050096968A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,411 Days
• Field of Search: 709202-203, 709223-224, 709227-229, 719318-320, 705/1, 714 4- 5, 714/47
• US Class Current: 709/223
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/34 involving the movement of software or configuration parameters network booting or remote initial program loading [RIPL] G06F9/4416
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/329 in the application layer [OSI layer 7]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/40 Network security protocols

Abstract

A mechanism for end-to-end mobile e-business applications for migration of business processes and business context between two or more clients and servers to provide transparency and reliability given unreliable networks and systems is disclosed. The e-business applications include mobile purchasing, retail point of sales, and inventory replenishment. The design of the novel mechanism takes into consideration migration of business processes and business context between clients and servers making the business activities transparent to the user of the mobile clients or networked clients.

Claims

1. A method for seamless migration of one or more business processes and their work environment between a plurality of computing devices belonging to a user and connected to a network, where a first computing device initiates a first working session with a server computing device creating a first work environment on the first computing device and at initiation the user migrating the first session to a second computing device to continue the first working session between a second computing device and a server computing device, the method comprising steps of:

(a) determining all non-failure states of each component of the first work environment goes through based on the non-failure action performed on it;

(b) for each determined state determining all failure events caused by events that prevent said each component from reaching said non-failure states;

(c) associating said failure events with one of defined failure states;

(d) for each failure state specifying a next non-failure action to perform;

(e) repeating steps (a)-(d) for all next non-failure action of step (d); and

(f) migrating said one or more business process and their work environment between a plurality of computing devices belonging to the user.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the network is the Internet.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the computing devices are connected to the network via wireless means.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the computing devices are connected to the network via wired and wireless means.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the migrating of one or more business processes and their work environment between a plurality of computing devices provides transparency and reliability to the user utilizing the plurality of computing devices.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein users and their plurality of computing devices are registered with the sewer computing device.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein instances of migrations are registered with the server computing device.

8. A computer program device readable by a machine, tangibly embodied in a storage medium and in a manner so as to be executable by the machine to perform method steps for a method for seamless migration of one or more business processes and their work environment between a plurality of computing devices belonging to a user and connected to a network, where a first computing device initiates a first working session with a sewer computing device creating a first work environment on the first computing device and at initiation the user migrating the first session to a second computing device to continue the first working session between a second computing device and a sewer computing device, the method comprising steps of:

(a) determining all non-failure states of each component of the first work environment goes through based on the non-failure action performed on it;

(b) for each determined state determining all failure events caused by events that prevent said each component from reaching said non-failure states;

(c) associating said failure events with one of defined failure states;

(d) for each failure state specifying a next non-failure action to perform;

(e) repeating steps (a)-(d) for all next non-failure action of step (d); and

(f) migrating said one or more business process and their work environment between a plurality of computing devices belonging to the user.

9. A method for seamless migration of one or more business processes and their work environment between a plurality of computing devices belonging to a user and connected to a network, the method comprising steps of:

(a) initiating a first working session between a first computing device and a server computing device, wherein a first work environment is created on the first computing device;

(b) determining all non-failure states of each component of the first work environment goes through based on the non-failure action performed on it;

(c) for each determined state determining all failure events caused by events that prevent said each component from reaching said non-failure states;

(d) associating said failure events with one of defined failure states;

(e) for each failure state specifying a next non-failure action to perform;

(f) repeating steps (a)-(d) for all next non-failure action of step (d); and

(g) initiating migration of the first session to a second computing device to continue the first working session between a second computing device and a server computing device.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the computing devices are wirelessly connected to the network.