Task computing

• US 8,117,280 B2
• Filed: 08/30/2006
• Issued: 02/14/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 12/12/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Fujitsu Limited
• Original Assignee: Fujitsu Limited
• Inventors: Masuouka, Ryusuke, Labrou, Yannis, Song, Zhexuan, Lee, Sung Youn
• Primary Examiner(s): Augustin, Evens J
• Application Number:
  US11/512,405
• Publication Number:
  US 20070033590A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,994 Days
• Field of Search: 709/218, 709/219
• US Class Current: 709/218
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5038 considering the execution order of a plurality of tasks, e.g. taking priority or time dependency constraints into consideration scheduling strategies G06F9/4881 and subgroups

Abstract

An apparatus provides computing sources of functionality, each computing source of functionality presents a service and exists in any computing environment of the apparatus. The apparatus associates a semantic service description (SSD) with the service. The SSD has a semantic description of the service, including a semantic description of a parameter of the service, according to a computer interpretable language, and, as a service grounding, a mapping between the computer interpretable language expressing the SSD and an interface, including an interface parameter, of the service. The apparatus dynamically discovers SSDs as available services through discovery mechanisms, filters the services based upon the semantic description in each SSD associated with each service, generates a user interface to dynamically compose a task based upon selecting the services and the filtering the services to continuously present possible tasks, and generates an executable semantic service workflow description of the composed task.

Claims

1. An apparatus configured to provide a plurality of computing sources of functionality, each computing source of functionality presenting a service and existing in a computing environment of the and/or in a computing environment in network communication with the apparatus, the apparatus comprising:

a controller to control the apparatus according to a process, comprising;

associating a semantic service description (SSD) with the service, wherein the SSD comprises a semantic description of the service, including a semantic description of a parameter of the service, according to a computer interpretable language, and, as a service grounding, a mapping between the computer interpretable language expressing the SSD and an interface, including an interface parameter, of the service;

dynamically discovering one or more SSDs as available services through a plurality of discovery mechanisms to discover the SSDs;

dynamically filtering the services based upon the semantic description in each SSD associated with each service;

generating a user interface to dynamically compose a task based upon selecting the services and the dynamically filtering the services to continuously present possible tasks; and

generating a task package file that includes;

an execution plan for the composed task in form of an executable semantic service workflow description that specifies the services, including a condition about a service, and defines relationships among the services in the composed task,

a process model of the composed task, and

one or more of the SSDs associated with the services in the composed task.

2. The apparatus according to claim 1 wherein the service workflow further comprises a number of SSDs in the task, identification of the SSDs in the task, or link information to describe linkage of the SSDs in the task, or any combinations thereof.

3. The apparatus according to claim 1 wherein the task package file is cross computing environment executable.

4. The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the task package file is according to a zip format.

5. The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the process of the controller further comprises restoring the composed task in the user interface for edition or execution, or any combinations thereof, according to the task package file.

6. The apparatus according to claim 5, wherein the composed task restoring comprises:

presenting through the user interface the services included in the composed task, based upon the executable semantic service workflow description of the composed task, including any discovering the services of the composed task, based upon the plurality of discovery mechanisms to discover the SSDs associated with the services in the composed task via a temporary service discovery for current task composition including edition and/or execution by accepting the associated SSDs in the task package file over a web service interface and registering the accepted associated SSDs as available discovered services, or a native service discovery as a one-time discovery of services having a fixed service description, or an apparatus localized service discovery according to a socket published service message from an application, or a third party discovery mechanism, or any combinations thereof.

7. The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the plurality of service discovery mechanisms comprises a native service discovery as a one-time discovery of services having a fixed service description.

8. The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the plurality of service discovery mechanisms comprises a temporary service discovery as a discovery of the service by accepting the SSD associated with the service over a web service interface and registering the SSD as an available discovered service.

9. The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the process of the controller further comprises executing the task by utilizing the services grounding to translate for each service between the service interface parameter and the semantically described parameter of the service and by managing a sequence of executing the services through the process model of the composed task.

10. The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the process of the controller further comprises dynamically filtering the discovered SSDs as discovered services based upon relevance of the discovered services to the user and the user context by examining the semantic description of the service in an SSD and/or based upon the discovery mechanism that discovered the SSD.

11. The apparatus according to claim 10, wherein the filtering is according to a Resource Description Framework Data Query Language (RDQL) query.

12. The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the computer interpretable language expressing the SSD is Web Ontology Language (OWL) based Web service ontology (OWL-S) language.

13. The apparatus according to claim 1,

wherein each SSD defines according to an ontology a functional characteristic of each service, and

wherein the services are filtered according to compatibility based upon the SSD defined functional characteristic of each service.

14. The apparatus according to claim 13,

wherein the associating the SSD with the service comprises 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 the generating the user interface comprises supporting composing the task of the selected filtered services based upon the natural language service names according to a natural language sentence.

15. The apparatus according to claim 14, wherein the user 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 the discovered SSDs as the available services according to a tree structure;

presenting a second graphical user interface window supporting real-time, dynamic composition of the one or more services into the 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.

16. The apparatus according to claim 15, wherein the displayed discovered services are organized in the first graphical user interface window according to the functional characteristics of the discovered services.

17. A method of providing task computing based upon a plurality of computing sources of functionality, each computing source of functionality presenting a service and existing in a computing environment of an apparatus and/or a computing environment in network communication with an apparatus, the method comprising:

supporting association of a semantic service description (SSD) with the service, wherein the SSD comprises a semantic description of the service, including a semantic description of a parameter of the service, according to a computer interpretable language, and, as a service grounding, a mapping between the computer interpretable language expressing the SSD and an interface, including an interface parameter, of the service; and

causing a computer to execute;

dynamically discovering one or more SSDs as available services through a plurality of discovery mechanisms to discover the SSDs;

dynamically filtering the services based upon the semantic description in each SSD associated with each service;

generating a user interface to dynamically compose a task based upon selecting the services and the dynamically filtering the services to continuously present possible tasks;

generating a task package file that includes;

an execution plan for the composed task in form of an executable semantic service workflow description that specifies the services, including a condition about a service, and defines relationships among the services in the composed task,

a process model of the composed task, and

one or more of the SSDs associated with the services in the composed task.

18. An apparatus configured to provide a plurality of computing sources of functionality, each computing source of functionality presenting a service and existing in a computing environment of the apparatus and/or a computing environment in network communication with the apparatus, the apparatus comprising:

means for associating a semantic service description (SSD) with the service, wherein the SSD comprises a semantic description of the service, including a semantic description of a parameter of the service, according to a computer interpretable language, and, as a service grounding, a mapping between the computer interpretable language expressing the SSD and an interface, including an interface parameter, of the service;

means for dynamically discovering one or more SSDs as available services through a plurality of discovery mechanisms to discover the SSDs;

means for dynamically filtering the services based upon the semantic description in each SSD associated with each service;

means for generating a user interface to dynamically compose a task based upon selecting the services and the dynamically filtering the services to continuously present possible tasks;

means for generating a task package file that includes;

an execution plan for the composed task in form of an executable semantic service workflow description that specifies the services, including a condition about a service, and defines relationships among the services in the composed task,

a process model of the composed task, and

one or more of the SSDs associated with the services in the composed task, and an index.