Some systems currently available publicly have limited functionality similar to some functionality offered in the Rearden Commerce System; however, in general the shortcoming of such currently available systems is that integration into existing suppliers' databases or applications requires extensive programming.
In one embodiment, a system and method are provided that allows easy integration of an existing third-party information or services management system into a services platform such as a Platform without requiring actual compiled code to be written. In addition, in one embodiment, the system and method allow developers to create new applications without requiring actual code to be written, which applications run on a services platform such as a Platform and are easily billable, upgradeable and supportable.
a shows an overview of an application life cycle 27-100 according to one embodiment art of this.
b shows an overview of the general architecture 27-100 of the service designer solution according to one embodiment.
In the following detailed description of embodiments of the invention, reference is made to the accompanying drawings in which like references indicate similar elements, and in which is shown by way of illustration specific embodiments in which the invention may be practiced. These embodiments are described in sufficient detail to enable those skilled in the art to practice the invention, and it is to be understood that other embodiments may be utilized and that logical, mechanical, electrical, functional, and other changes may be made without departing from the scope of the present invention. The following detailed description is, therefore, not to be taken in a limiting sense, and the scope of the present invention is defined only by the appended claims.
The On-Demand Application Platform and Marketplace is a hosted environment whereby application developers can build, test and publish On-Demand Applications to any user in the Marketplace.
The Platform is the runtime environment for the applications. The Marketplace is the web site where the applications are advertised and where users can purchase, lease or rent access to the applications.
The Platform provides a mechanism for the developer to develop a new application that is available in the Marketplace, and to provision that application to one or more users or groups of users. The Marketplace allows the developer to meter usage of the applications, to bill users and groups of users (such as a corporate entity) for use of the application, and to manage privileges and access to the application. The developer can provide granular access rights to each application so that only certain users are allowed to use it or even see that it is available in the Marketplace.
The developer is able to provide a standard Service Level Agreement (SLA) for this application based on the overall SLA provided by the Platform with any external dependencies factored in. For example, if the overall SLA for service uptime on the Platform is 99.9995%, but the developer has an external service with 99.5% uptime that is embedded as a runtime component in the on-demand application built on the Platform, he can offer some variation of uptime SLA to his customers, potentially 99.5% in this case. The Platform would monitor the actual uptime and report back to the users in the Marketplace and to the developer on actual vs. committed performance along a variety of metrics, uptime being one example.
The Platform also offers developers the ability to use other applications that are available in the Marketplace for sub-components of their applications. For example, Developer A could have built a mapping application that allows the user to view and print maps and directions via a web-based user interface. As part of that mapping application, he has also built a web services interface that allows programmatic access to these same functions. Developer B can then build the mapping service from Developer A into his application that also runs on the Platform. Developer B can license access to the mapping service from Developer A and either pass through the charge for the mapping application to the end user or pay the charge himself and mark up the cost his own application accordingly.
The Marketplace also offers a rating engine for users to view when deciding whether to buy access to an on-demand application.
Because customers are able to configure the applications rather than modify the applications at will, the application author has support tools that reflect the configuration options set by each customer and access to transactional information provided by the customer through the platform provider, allowing the support process to be quick and painless.
The Marketplace also offers the opportunity for a developer to advertise or market his application to users on the system based on their profile characteristics, past usage of other applications, and opt-in preferences. Also, the directory of available services that is shown to a user is potentially limited to those applications that are applicable to him based on his profile. For example, a user who lives in the United Kingdom may not be shown applications that only work in the United States for various reasons.
The Platform and Marketplace are inherently secure. The developers of applications have no knowledge of users who are using their applications other than what is provided as part of the licensing process or through runtime transactions that transmit information outside of the Platform for business reasons. The users of these applications can, at any time, request an auto-generated “privacy report” that shows what of their information would be made available to the developer through this application at runtime. In the embodiment, the user can request a report even before he uses or buys the application to find out what information the developer would be accessing as part of the application.
The service designer solution according to one embodiment allows creation of new applications by the developer without any programming in the traditional sense (i.e., creating and compiling Java, C, C++, C#, etc, code). Instead, the developer builds a service by defining the application's runtime characteristics as meta-data. This meta-data is then interpreted by Platform components to execute the service at runtime.
In one embodiment, the developer is able to build an application with a visual tool or simply write a text (XML, for example) document with the appropriate meta-data that represents the application's runtime characteristics. The visual tool has a toolkit that allows creation of complex applications that have variable workflow, multi-page user interface flows, complex user interfaces with variable field layout, the ability to make external calls to outside services through interfaces such as a Web Service or other protocol such as FTP, HTTP, etc. Also, in one embodiment, the developer can take advantage of the core services of the service platform, such as the user-centric features of user profile access, calendar integration, address book access and updates. For example, the developer can create an application and at runtime have access to the user's profile information (e.g., home address or phone number) without having built that information directly into his application itself. The platform stores all of this user information in a central place and allows structured access to it for the developer at development time and runtime, in one embodiment.
Each of the applications built by the developer can have automatic capability to be upgraded to a new version without the end user's intervention. The developer can use a tool to map the data fields from an old version of the application to a new version of the application and have that upgrade script run for all users who are upgraded from one version to the next, providing backward compatibility and no data loss or application failures.
In one embodiment, each of the applications built on the platform inherits other capabilities such as built-in monitoring. For example, if the application makes a web service call to an external provider, the application automatically monitors the uptime characteristics of that external provider.
The developer has the ability to build in configuration options for each user or entity who licenses access to his application. For example, customer X of the application may use the configuration option to set his default time zone to Pacific Time. Customer Y of the application may use that same configuration option to set his default time zone to Eastern Time. This capability allows the developer to create multiple customization options for many types of users without having to build a new version of this application for each distinct user. It also allows him to offer one application in the Marketplace that users cannot modify in a way that breaks the upgradeability of his application.
As part of the service designer solution, the developer has application life cycle tools available to him that allow him to take his applications through the standard process of development, testing, certification, publishing, maintenance and retirement. These tools allow for graceful upgrades to new versions without user interruption and allow for retirement of applications by gradually weaning the users off of the application through a quiescing process.
a shows an overview of an application life cycle 27-110 according to one embodiment. Cycle stage 27-111 is the statement of desired services, and at cycle flow 27-112, the desired services are created. Cycle stage 27-113 is the version in development, which by default is version 1.0, in one embodiment. At cycle flow 27-114, the developer requests certification of the application. When the certification is pending in cycle stage 27-115, the life cycle flow may branch. If certification is approved, at cycle flow 27-116, the life cycle moves to cycle stage 27-117, in which certification is approved. However, if the life cycle flow branches from cycle stage 27-115 to cycle flow 27-119, where a certification server (not shown) rejects certification, then the application reaches cycle stage 27-120, at which certification is rejected, and development continues via cycle flow 27-121 back to cycle stage 27-113. Processes shown in
At stage 27-117, with certification approved, the flow may diverge in one or more of three directions. The cycle may go to the continue development flow 27-118, going back to the version in development at stage 27-113. At the same time, the developer may choose to the publish at a particular date and time flow 27-122 to reach publishing pending stage 27-123. At stage 27-123, the developer may choose the cancel publication flow 27-124, or he may choose the publish flow 27-125 and in time arrive at the version in production stage 27-127. Or the developer may follow publish now flow 27-126, arriving again at stage 27-127.
Stage 27-127 represents the current published version of the application. Its life cycle may then move to deactivation via two different flows or to maintenance. One way to deactivation stage 27-129 is via request deactivation flow 27-128, when no users are active. When there is a request to reactivate the application, the application returns to the version in production stage 27-127 via reactivate flow 27-130. Alternatively, request deactivation flow 27-131, when users are active, arrives at version suspended stage 27-132, and then goes to deactivation stage 27-129 via deactivate flow 27-134, again when no users are active. However, if need be, the application may be reactivated from stage 27-132 via reactivate flow 27-133, back to the version in production stage 27-127.
If the application remains active and is updated via maintenance, a maintenance request flow 27-135, with a maintenance start time and/or a maintenance end time specified, moves to the maintenance pending stage 27-136. When and if the life cycle then moves along the maintenance-start-time-reached flow 27-137, it reaches a version in maintenance stage 27-138. There the version may cycle through an extended maintenance flow 27-139. Eventually, the version in maintenance moves along the reactivate flow 27-141 back to version in production 27-127. Alternatively, the version may move from the maintenance pending stage 27-136 along a recall flow 27-143 or a maintenance end time reached flow 27-142. In either event, the version goes back to the version in production 27-127.
b shows an overview of the general architecture 27-100 of the service designer solution according to one embodiment. The service designer 27-101 is the section that is used by a user to configure the system for a specific purpose or task. It generates a related XML schema 27-102. Such a schema 27-102 may be used to manage and control elements of an information or services management system. Table 27-1 lists typical system elements.
The discussions of
In some cases, XSLT (extensible Stylesheet Language Transformation) or other, similar XML based descriptors may be used as output.
The processes described above can be stored in a memory of a computer system as a set of instructions to be executed. In addition, the instructions to perform the processes described above could alternatively be stored on other forms of machine-readable media, including magnetic and optical disks. For example, the processes described could be stored on machine-readable media, such as magnetic disks or optical disks, which are accessible via a disk drive (or computer-readable medium drive). Further, the instructions can be downloaded into a computing device over a data network in a form of compiled and linked version.
Alternatively, the logic to perform the processes as discussed above could be implemented in additional computer and/or machine readable media, such as discrete hardware components as large-scale integrated circuits (LSI's), application-specific integrated circuits (ASIC's), firmware such as electrically erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM's); and electrical, optical, acoustical and other forms of propagated signals (e.g., carrier waves, infrared signals, digital signals, etc.); etc.
It is clear that many modifications and variations of this embodiment may be made by one skilled in the art without departing from the spirit of the novel art of this disclosure.
Exhibit A is attached hereto and incorporated by reference.
The present application is a continuation-in-part of U.S. application Ser. No. 10/966,556, entitled “System for Optimization of Cost Management,” filed Oct. 15, 2004 now U.S. Pat. No. 7,660,743 which is incorporated herein by reference.
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