Providing remote processing services over a distributed communications network

• US 7,493,397 B1
• Filed: 06/06/2001
• Issued: 02/17/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 06/06/2001
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Christensen, Erik B, Guthrie, Scott D., Christensen, Yann E.
• Primary Examiner(s): Jaroenchonwanit; Bunjob
• Assistant Examiner(s): Chankong; Dohm
• Application Number:
  US09/875,324
• Time in Patent Office: 2,813 Days
• Field of Search: 709201-203, 709217-219, 709227-229, 715/513, 719313-317, 719/330
• US Class Current: 709/227
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/02 based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/133 Protocols for remote procedure calls [RPC]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/329 in the application layer [OSI layer 7]

Abstract

Internet web servers provide processing services, in addition to data and visual content, to provide remote clients with access to processing services located on servers. The client processes communicate with these service providing servers over a distributed network like the Internet using standard HTTP communications protocol and XML data exchange language. Client processes send an HTTP request to a remote server for processing. This processing request may contain input data that is to be used in responding to the request. The server processes the request using the input data, and possibly other data obtained from remote databases, and returns a resultant XML specified data packet. This processing requests, may be initiated using a web browser from an HTML based web page or using a smart client process that simply sends a processing request along with input data and consumes the resultant data packet. The server provides these web services accessed by the client process by allowing the client to access a URL referencing a source code file containing class specifications that may be dynamically compiled into an executable object whenever an executable object corresponding to the current version of the source code referenced by a URL does not exist on the server.

Claims

1. A method, executed in a computer system, for automatically creating data exchange schema data on a network server corresponding to remote processing services provided by the network server for source code corresponding to data processing objects used to provide the remote processing services upon receipt of a request from a client, the method comprising:

storing a source code file within the mass storage of the server;

receiving a processing service request;

determining the processing service to be performed by examining one or more items of payload data in the processing service request;

determining if a compiled version of the data processing object for the processing service requested is stored in a web services library;

if the data processing object is not stored in the web services library, compiling the source code file to generate a data processing object, the data processing object providing the requested processing service;

automatically generating the data exchange schema data that specifies how to exchange data between the server and the client for the data processing object, the data exchange schema data generated when the source code file is compiled to generate the data processing object, the data exchange schema data being a separate description from

storing both the data exchange schema data and the data processing object within the web services library for use by subsequent processing service requests;

receiving a first subsequent processing service request from a subsequent client;

determining if a compiled version of the data processing object is stored in the web services library;

if the data processing object is stored in the web services library, separately providing the data exchange schema data to the subsequent client, the subsequent client determining format and function of input and output arguments of the data processing object from the data exchange schema data;

receiving a second subsequent processing service request from the subsequent client, the second subsequent processing service request comprised of payload data received in accordance with the data exchange schema data;

in response to receiving the subsequent payload data in the second subsequent processing request, executing the data processing object to generate a response; and

sending the response to the subsequent client.

2. The method according to claim 1, wherein data exchange schema data comprises an HTML representation for a web page containing a description of exposed data processing services.

3. The method according to claim 2, wherein the web page comprises:

a textual description of each exposed data processing service based upon data stored within the source code file;

a description of each input argument accepted by each exposed data processing service, the description includes a description of the input argument and a description of the data format for the input argument data expected by the exposed data processing service; and

a description of each output data value generated by each exposed data processing service.

4. The method according to claim 3, wherein the description of each input argument further comprises an input field upon the generated web page for permitting a user to input a value to be passed to the exposed data processing service as the corresponding input argument.

5. The method according to claim 4, wherein the description of each output data value generated by each exposed data processing service further comprises an activate button which causes the remote data processing service to be activated using the values contained within the input fields corresponding to the input arguments as the input arguments submitted with the remote data processing service request.

6. The method according to claim 1, wherein the data exchange schema data comprises a specification for the input and output data schema expressed in a data transfer specification language.

7. The method according to claim 6, wherein the data transfer specification language comprises a Web Services Description Language representation for the data exchange schema data.

8. The method according to claim 6, wherein the data transfer specification language comprises a Resource Description Format representation for the data exchange schema data.

9. A computer readable storage medium executable by a computing system and encoding instructions for automatically creating data exchange schema data on a network server corresponding to remote processing services provided by the network server for source code corresponding to data processing objects used to provide the remote processing services upon receipt of a request from a client process, the computer process comprising:

storing a source code file within the mass storage of the server;

receiving a processing service request;

determining the processing service to be performed by examining one or more items of payload data in the processing service request;

determining if a compiled version of the data processing object for the processing service requested is stored in a web services library;

if the data processing object is not stored in the web services library, compiling the source code file to generate a data processing object, the data processing object providing the requested processing service;

automatically generating the data exchange schema data that specifies how to exchange data between the server and the client for the data processing object, the data exchange schema data generated when the source code file is compiled to generate the data processing object, the data exchange schema data being separate from the data processing object;

storing both the data exchange schema data and the data processing object within the web services library for use by subsequent processing service requests; and

receiving a first subsequent processing service request from a subsequent client;

determining if a compiled version of the data processing object is stored in the web services library;

if the data processing object is stored in the web services library, separately providing the data exchange schema data to a subsequent client, the subsequent client determining format and function of input and output arguments of the data processing object from the data exchange schema data;

receiving a second subsequent processing service request from the subsequent client, the second subsequent processing service request comprised of payload data received in accordance with the data exchange schema data;

in response to receiving the subsequent payload data, in the second subsequent processing request, executing the data processing object to generate a response; and

sending the response to the subsequent client.

10. The computer readable storage medium according to claim 9, wherein data exchange schema data comprises an HTML representation for a web page containing a description of exposed data processing services.

11. The computer readable storage medium according to claim 10, wherein the web page comprises:

a textual description of each exposed data processing service based upon data stored within the source code file;

a description of each input argument accepted by each exposed data processing service, the description includes a description of the input argument and a description of the data format for the input argument data expected by the exposed data processing service; and

a description of each output data value generated by each exposed data processing service.

12. The computer readable storage medium according to claim 11, wherein the description of each input argument further comprises an input field upon the generated web page for permitting a user to input a value to be passed to the exposed data processing service as the corresponding input argument.

13. The computer readable storage medium according to claim 12, wherein the description of each output data value generated by each exposed data processing service further comprises an activate button which causes the remote data processing service to be activated using the values contained within the input fields corresponding to the input arguments as the input arguments submitted with the remote data processing service request.

14. The computer readable storage medium according to claim 9, wherein the data exchange schema data comprises a specification for the input and output data schema expressed in a data transfer specification language.

15. The computer readable storage medium according to claim 14, wherein the data transfer specification language comprises a Web Services Description Language representation for the data exchange schema data.

16. The computer readable storage medium according to claim 14, wherein the data transfer specification language comprises a Resource Description Format representation for the data exchange schema data.