Modern firms use complex business systems to define and perform the business processes used by the firms. The business system typically includes a variety of backend applications to perform related tasks and define related processes, such as inventory management, employee management, customer relations, etc. Each application makes use of a variety of business objects, which contain data and business logic to manipulate the data.
Users of such complex systems may encounter situations in which they wish to return to a specific state of their document or file. Oftentimes, this wish is unfulfilled given the needs of the system in use. Instead, current legacy systems involving such a variety and large amount of business objects are unable to provide an opportunity to a user to return to a specific state of their document or file. Thus, the functionality of such systems is limited by the complexity of the backend applications.
Thus, there is a need in the art for a uniform, flexible way to access and go back to an earlier version of a documents and/or application within a myriad of business objects in a legacy system.
Methods and systems having sync-point and rollback mechanisms within large systems employing several software business objects are provided. Such large systems may have, for example, an enterprise services infrastructure. A sync-point is related to the state of a software business object. The state of the software business object may involve data and/or other resources, e.g., locks of business objects. The sync-point may be set, for example, by a consumer, the framework, the application itself, and a user via an interface. For example, in certain situations such as an error situation or the appearance of an error situation, a service management or consumer may request a rollback to a dedicated sync-point.
A requested rollback to a dedicated sync-point involves essentially a revoking of changes already made to an object or business object. For example, a consumer and predefined framework driven points in time like the finalize or save phase can request such a sync-point so that all changes done since that predefined point in time could be rolled back if needed. In a legacy system, such a rollback requires informing all newly initialized business objects if the transaction is running under a sync-point protection, and informs all business objects involved in the transaction if a rollback is requested.
The use of sync-points and rollback can have several uses in any software system. For example, such use may provide a more tolerant error handling mechanism on the consumer side. In embodiments of the present invention, such use may provide an application programming model for the consumer which is more straight-forward. For example, additional application provider pre-validation may not be required. Instead, a consumer may be permitted to set the sync-point, decide whether to execute changes, and return to a specific defined state in the event of error. Thus, embodiments of the present invention may simplify application programs for use by a consumer.
In an embodiment of the present invention, the sync-point and rollback method and system are independent of the enterprise services framework. However, the sync-point and rollback functionality is provided by a sync-point and rollback manager (“SPR manager”). The SPR manager can be used by an enterprise services framework. Further, the SPR manager can be used by reuse components.
In an embodiment of the present invention, a sync-point and rollback can be triggered by business objects, by the service manager at dedicated points in time in the phase model, or, for example, by the consumer (e.g., user interface, process agent). In an embodiment of the present invention, business object service provider triggered sync-points can be nested. Such sync-points can exist inside a system sync-point or inside the consumer triggered sync-points.
In an embodiment of the present invention, the sync-point and rollback mechanism requires a separate phase model describing the states at which the triggering of sync-point(s) and rollback is allowed. In a further embodiment, the lifetime of the sync-point(s) must be aligned with this state model. In a further embodiment, the states at which the sync-points will be removed are defined. For example, in the enterprise services framework (ESF), the state model for the sync-points are integrated into the state model of the ESF. In a further embodiment, the constraints and contracts concerning user sync-points set by the consumer and system sync-points set by the service manager are clarified. For example, a system sync-point such as the finalize or save phase shown in
“Object” and “business object” are used throughout the specification to refer to all types of “business objects” defined in, for example, an enterprise services framework, including, e.g., business objects, dependent objects, transformed objects, and controller objects.
In
In an embodiment, in a single-level approach with user sync-points, a sync-point manager must take care of the currently active sync-point state. The contract for the sync-point user is defined describing the resulting state of the single sync-point. In the multi-level sync-point scenario, the sync-points follow a stack paradigm for business object (BO) service provider triggered sync points. In an embodiment, a request of sync points and rollbacks are explicitly triggered by the consumer/requestor. A further embodiment shows, that only the requester of a sync point is able to trigger a rollback for the last sync point of the stack. In a further embodiment, the close of a sync point shall be triggered automatically when the core service method is closed from which the sync point has been requested.
In an embodiment of the present invention, the status and action management of a system is involved in the sync-points and aware of a potential rollback request. In a further embodiment, various handlers, e.g., the change handler or the message handler, manage their respective entities, e.g., change notification or messages, in an appropriate way. For example, for messages, the exact behavior, e.g., reason for which a rollback may occur (e.g., error message) of the message manager is described.
In an embodiment, administration of all the sync-points is managed by a sync-point manager for the system or application or sub-application. All service providers may support sync-points using the various embodiments of the present invention. For example, in an ESF, the beginning of the finalize phase shall be a predefined finalize system sync-point. The consumer (e.g., the user interface/controller object) or a business object can also request a sync-point and a rollback within the finalize phase. The sync-point and rollback feature may be provided as a multi-level capability including situations involving an undo situation. The sync-point has a unique identifier within the transaction. The identifiers are managed by the sync-point manager. In an embodiment, the sync-point requester receives a reference to an interface and the identifier of the sync-point. The interface provides the rollback and close operation. The service providers which are running under control of the sync-point only see the sync-point identifier, but cannot request a rollback or close of a sync-point.
In an embodiment, by the end of a provider method SAVE or alternative with a new method within the service providers, all open sync-points may be removed. For the service consumer (user interface) after the successful save, all sync-points are removed. In the case of a rejected save, for example, all sync-points are still available. Reuse Services including buffering and own persistence have to be triggered by the business objects in the save sequence. In an alternative embodiment, if the business object has registered onto the sync point manager on its own, the business object receives an independent close event for all sync points from the sync point manager.
In an embodiment, an event after a rejected save, e.g., named AFTER_REJECTED_SAVE, is the counterpart rollback of the finalize system sync-point. In an embodiment, after the rejected save, there may be still open sync points that have been request by the service consumer prior to the save sequence start. In an embodiment, the sync-point and rollback feature is available for all stateful objects. All participants, e.g., ESI objects, reuse components, that have not been loaded when the sync-point was set, obtain sync-point information when they are accessed. In an embodiment, the multi-level incorporated registering is a part of the framework. In an embodiment, the ESI objects, for example, may request a sync-point when needed to bundle a set of cross-business object modifications e.g., actions, create, updates, and deletes, that must be rolled back as a whole in case of errors.
In an embodiment, the sync-point requestor that owns a sync point may enforce a rollback of all changes done under this sync-point protection. The rollback cannot be triggered by other objects than the requestor which must be guaranteed by the sync-point manager. In an embodiment, the ESI change handler removes the announced changes in case of a rollback and inform the consumers including controller objects about these changes. In an embodiment, the ESI message handler shall remove the announced messages in case of a rollback. The requestor is responsible to issue the error message explaining the cause for the rollback after the rollback call. In an embodiment, a rollback of sync-point is only possible for the last sync-point within the sync-point stack. In an embodiment, each sync-point shall be closed automatically by the sync-point manager after leaving the stack level.
The service manager 503 is responsible for managing and updating the state of the, e.g., property handler 505, change handler 506, and message handler 507. Further, in the rollback scenario the handlers of the service manager must also rollback the messages, the properties, and the change notifications to the requested sync-point. Accordingly, the service manager 503 also has a sync-point table 504. The sync-point table 504 keeps tally of the set sync-points.
The service manager 503 interfaces with the sync-point manager 508. The sync-point manager 508 includes a single stack of sync-points containing sync-point management data, sync-point identifiers, and requester identifiers. The sync-point manager 508 needs to be aware of all sync-points. The sync-point manager is part of the overall server infrastructure and can be used by all entities which are buffering data. The use of the sync-point manager can be used in the enterprise service infrastructure and in other infrastructures.
The service manager uses the sync-point manager to provide the system sync-points e.g., within the finalize phase. In a further embodiment, the service manager provides appropriate interfaces for the business objects or service providers 509 to use the sync-point and rollback mechanism under control of the service providers. In an embodiment, the business object service provider 509 does not use the sync-point service manager 508 directly. As described above, the service manager has a separate sync-point table to manage and provide additional convenient features for the service providers. For example, service providers can be instantiated in a scope when many sync-points are already active. In this case, relevant for the service provider is only the last sync-point because for all other sync-points the service provider is in the initial state. Here, the service manager can manage all previous sync-points and notify the service provider just for the last one.
In a further embodiment, a common instance manager having a running object table may interface with the service manager 503 and with the sync-point manager 508.
The caller BO2 here decides to rollback the changes because of the error occurrence and requests this rollback from the service manager 717. The service manager routes the rollback call to all service providers which have a sync-point call for the last one of the stack 718, 719. The service providers now have to throw away all changes done under this sync-point. BO2 finishes the modification and returns back to the caller BO1 with error messages 720, 721. BO1 decides to rollback the changes because of the error 722. Again all service providers who are informed about the first sync-point now get a rollback call to remove the changes, including the first buffer 723, 724, 725, 726, 727, 728.
It will be understood that the system and communication shown in the figures are exemplary only, and embodiments of the present invention may include more or fewer objects, more or fewer errors pronounced in system embodiments, additional layers, systems, and/or communication. Further, the embodiments of the present invention may be implemented in other systems, and are not limited to use within an enterprise services framework.
The various computer systems described herein may each include a storage component for storing machine-readable instructions for performing the various processes as described and illustrated. The storage component may be any type of machine readable medium (i.e., one capable of being read by a machine) such as hard drive memory, flash memory, floppy disk memory, optically-encoded memory (e.g., a compact disk, DVD-ROM, DVD±R, CD-ROM, CD±R, holographic disk), a thermomechanical memory (e.g., scanning-probe-based data-storage), or any type of machine readable (computer readable) storing medium. Each computer system may also include addressable memory (e.g., random access memory, cache memory) to store data and/or sets of instructions that may be included within, or be generated by, the machine-readable instructions when they are executed by a processor on the respective platform. The methods and systems described herein may also be implemented as machine-readable instructions stored on or embodied in any of the above-described storage mechanisms.
Although the present invention has been described with reference to examples and embodiments, it is understood that the present invention is not limited to those examples and embodiments. The present invention as claimed therefore includes variations from the specific examples and embodiments described herein, as will be apparent to one of skill in the art. And, the above examples and embodiments may be combined with and without each other.
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