Abstract:
Systems that use application view components to allow a user to exploit functionality in an EIS can utilize a shareable connection factory. Instead of having a connection factory for each application view, a single connection factory can be used that is simply referenced by each application view. Users can then choose to associate an application view with any available connection factory on the system, or can choose to create a new connection factory that can be available to any other application view or resource adapter.  
     This description is not intended to be a complete description of, or limit the scope of, the invention. Other features, aspects, and objects of the invention can be obtained from a review of the specification, the figures, and the claims.

Description:
CLAIM OF PRIORITY  
       [0001]    This application claims priority from U.S. provisional patent Application No. 60/377,353 entitled “SHARED COMMON CONNECTION FACTORY”, filed May 2, 2002, incorporated herein by reference. 
     
    
     
       COPYRIGHT NOTICE  
         [0002]    A portion of the disclosure of this patent document contains material which is subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has no objection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent document of the patent disclosure, as it appears in the Patent and Trademark Office patent file or records, but otherwise reserves all copyright rights whatsoever.  
         CROSS-REFERENCED CASES  
         [0003]    The following applications are cross-referenced and incorporated herein by reference:  
           [0004]    U.S. Provisional Application No. 60/377,322 entitled “Application View Transactions,” by Timothy Potter et al., filed May 2, 2002 (Attorney Docket No.: BEAS-01268US0).  
           [0005]    U.S. Provisional Application No. 60/377,303 entitled “Adapter Deployment Without Recycle,” by Timothy Potter et al., filed May 2, 2002 (Attorney Docket No.: BEAS-01266US0).  
           [0006]    U.S. Provisional Application No. 60/377,354 entitled “Modular Deployment of Components,” by Timothy Potter et al., filed May 2, 2002 (Attorney Docket No.: BEAS-01265US0).  
           [0007]    U.S. Provisional Application No. 10/271,194 entitled “Application View,” by Mitch Upton et al., filed Oct. 15, 2002.  
         FIELD OF THE INVENTION  
         [0008]    The present invention relates to connections in application integration systems.  
         BACKGROUND  
         [0009]    Existing application integration (AI) systems can utilize application views to simplify the way in which adapters are accessed in an enterprise. Application views provide a layer of abstraction between an adapter and any Enterprise Information System (EIS) functions exposed by that adapter. Instead of accessing an EIS by directly programming the EIS, a user can simply edit an application view for the adapter, create a new application view, or delete an obsolete application view. This layer of abstraction, formed by application views, makes it easy for non-programmers to maintain the services and events exposed by the adapter.  
           [0010]    Each application view is specific to one adapter and can define a set of business functions on the EIS for that adapter. After an adapter is created, a Web-based interface for that adapter can be used to define application views. Such application views provide a view of the application capabilities exposed by an adapter. An application view can be used to hide as many of the system details from clients as possible. These details can include functionality for doing integration and interacting with enterprise information. The more system level details that are hidden from clients, the greater the chance of changing those details without affecting the clients. This is one reason for using an abstraction layer. If things that may change are abstracted, anything depending on those things may not need to change.  
           [0011]    An application view can take advantage of a connection factory. A connection factory is an interface to a pool of connections for an information system. In present AI systems there is a one to one correspondence between application views and connection factories, such that when an application view is defined it is necessary to also define and deploy a connection factory to handle service invocations through a connector for that application view. This requirement of a one-to-one correspondence between application views and resources leads to undesirable definition and deployment repetition, as well as an undesirable consumption of resources.  
         BRIEF SUMMARY  
         [0012]    Systems and methods in accordance with embodiments of the present invention can overcome deficiencies in existing information systems by changing the way in which information system is accessed. A resource adapter can expose certain capabilities in an information system, such as an Enterprise Information System (EIS). An application view that is specific to the resource adapter can be used to allow a user or client application to access the capabilities exposed by the resource adapter. Instead of having a connection factory for each application view, a shareable connection factory can be used to provide a connection between the resource adapter for the application view and the information system. An application-programming interface can be used to provide the functionality that allows the connection factory to be shareable. The shareable connection factory can provide connections to the information system for multiple application views. A user can designate an application view to use a shareable connection factory by referencing the connection factory at application view design time.  
           [0013]    Other features, aspects, and objects of the invention can be obtained from a review of the specification, the figures, and the claims. 
       
    
    
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS  
       [0014]    [0014]FIG. 1 is a diagram of a system in accordance with one embodiment of the present invention.  
         [0015]    [0015]FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing a method that can be used with the system of FIG. 1. 
     
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION  
       [0016]    Systems and methods in accordance with embodiments of the present invention can allow multiple application views to share a common connection factory. One such system is shown in the diagram of FIG. 1. A user may only wish to define and maintain a single pool of connections in a server for a given information system  114  or EIS. A user can set up a shareable connection factory  112 , and can have an application view  102 ,  108  reference that connection factory  112  when the user defines the application view  102 ,  108 . Multiple application views  102 ,  108  can then share the connection factory  112  to provide access to the information system  114  through the appropriate resource adapter  104 ,  110  to multiple client applications  100 ,  106 .  
         [0017]    [0017]FIG. 2 shows a method for using such a system. A resource adapter can be provided that exposes certain capabilities in an information system, such as an Enterprise Information System (EIS)  200 . An adapter-specific application view can be provided that allows a user or client application to access the exposed capabilities  202 . Instead of having a connection factory for each application view, a shareable connection factory can be used to provide a connection between the resource adapter and the information system  204 . An application-programming interface can be used to provide the functionality that allows the connection factory to be shareable, and the shareable connection factory can provide connections to the information system for multiple application views. A user can designate an application view to use a shareable connection factory by referencing the connection factory at application view design time  206 . A user can associate an existing, shareable connection factory deployment with an application view, and can associate multiple application views to reference the shared connection factory. A user can provide a list of deployed connection factories for a specific adapter, and can leverage this functionality in a design time interface for a resource adapter.  
         [0018]    An AI application programming interface (API) can be used to support shared connection factories. Such APIs can contain shareable connection functionality to allow multiple application views to share a connection factory. An application integration system may only make owned connection factories available to a user, but can expose any existing connection factories. These connection factories can be sharable among newly created application views. Owned connection factories can still be created when a user defines a new application view.  
         [0019]    Changes to an existing AI system can be required, such as the way in which users interface with system, to integrate shareable connection factories into the design-time interfaces. A user may wish to be able to select the type of connection for an application view, such as a ‘shareable’ connection or an ‘owned’ connection. A user may also wish to see a list of available connection factories, as well as the properties of those connection factories. In one example, multiple pages of a user interface can be used to show connection factory properties, such as a summary of attributes from a shareable connection factory. In addition, an AI console can be used that implements a new page to display references to a shareable connection factory. A reference page can display any application view currently using a shareable connection factory, and can allow the client to un-deploy all referenced application views.  
         [0020]    Shareable connection factories can be determined by using connector component managed beans (MBeans). These MBeans can also be used to determine the Java Naming and Directory Interface (JNDI) locations of those connections. The JNDI specification is published by Sun Microsystems, Inc., of Santa Clara, Calif. The JNDI location of a connection can be set into an application view property, such as “connectionFactoryJNDIName.” An application view deployer can use this property to later deploy the application view. Since a connection factory can be deployed into any JNDI location, there may be no need to identify owned connection factories. Owned connection factories can be determined by a lookup in the repository. If the connection factory exists in the repository, the factory may be unable to be shared.  
         [0021]    In some embodiments, the only object having knowledge of an adapter logical name is the connection factory. This name can be used to uniquely identify an adapter and any associated resources. This attribute may not be available to design-time interfaces if the application view uses a shareable connection factory. This attribute can be added to an application descriptor interface, such as “ApplicationDesciptor.” In addition, any methods in an administration deployer extracting administration information objects may need to be reviewed for usage of the logical name.  
         [0022]    A connection factory selection page can be the first page that a user sees after defining an application view. The selection page can allow the user to select the type of connection factory to associate with the new application view. If a shareable connection factory is being used, the user can select a specific connection factory. If the user selects an owned connection factory, the next page displayed to the user can contain connection configuration information. If the user selects a shareable connection, the next page can include administration information.  
         [0023]    There can be a field, such as a check box or radio button, displayed to a user for each existing connection factory. There can be a field for each shareable connection factory, as well as a field for a new connection factory. In addition to a field, a reference link can be displayed next to each shareable connection factory. This reference link can allow a user to view application views that are deployed with the shareable connection factory.  
         [0024]    One system can allow a user to navigate to either a ‘select connection’ or ‘connection configuration’ page at any time during an application view definition process. The user can switch connection types at any time in the application view definition process prior to deployment.  
         [0025]    An application view deploy page can display shareable connection factory properties and relevant application view properties when the application view contains a reference to a shareable connection factory. A deploy page can use the current managed connection factory to extract the relevant attributes to allow a user to identify which connection factory is being used.  
         [0026]    In an application view, options such as a deploy tab and a connection tab can be used to display shareable connection factory properties when an application view references a shareable connection factory. In addition, both tabs can contain a references link to allow a user to view deployed application views referencing the selected connection factory.  
         [0027]    A reference page can be a child window that displays the fully qualified name for any deployed application view currently referencing the connection factory. A reference page can be accessed from a page such as a connection selection page or an application view summary page. Undeploying a shareable connection factory that has application view references can be catastrophic in certain circumstances. A reference page can allow the user to undeploy any deployed application views currently referencing the shareable connection factory.  
         [0028]    An AI deployment engine may not identify the connection factory that each application view references without extracting the descriptors from an AI repository. Such functionality may not meet the requirements for identifying and persisting this information into JNDI. The deployment interfaces can maintain a JNDI repository for each shareable connection factory. Connection factory instances can be stored in a connection factory JNDI (sub-)context, for example. This context can contain two new contexts, such as ‘shared’ and ‘references’. The shared context can contain the references sub-context, and the references sub-context can contain a sub-context for each shareable connection factory having outstanding references. The references contained in the shared context can be string objects containing the fully qualified name of an application view. The name can reference the connection factory identified by the sub-context.  
         [0029]    For each connection factory deployed, a repository can be created in the references context. The Repository can be named using the user defined connection factory name concatenated with an identifier, such as ‘_connectionFactoryReferences’. The repository can contain the fully qualified name for every application view that has a reference to the connection factory.  
         [0030]    When an application view that uses a shareable connection is deployed, the application view deployer can add a fully-qualified application view name to the references repository. Similarly, when an application view containing a reference to a shared connection factory is undeployed, an application view deployer can be responsible for removing the JNDI reference in the reference repository for the connection factory. If the application view is the only or last reference, the connection factory sub-context can be removed as well.  
         [0031]    All shareable connection factories can be re-referenced in an AI startup process. A user can ensure that the connection factories deployed through a system console are available for the deployment process. If a connection factory is not found, the application view deployment can fail.  
         [0032]    New interfaces can be added to an XCCI layer. XCCI, or XML-CCI, is a dialect of the common client interface (CCI) that uses XML-based record formats to represent data. XCCI provides the tools and framework for supporting such a record format. There are two primary components of XCCI: services and document records. Interfaces can be added, such as “ProxiedMarker” and “ProxiedConnection.” An interface such as ProxiedMarker can be implemented by a in implementation class such as “com.adapter.cci.ConnectionFactoryImpl.” The marker can be used to determine whether the associated connection is a proxy object. An interface such as ProxiedConnection can be implemented by an abstract connection class, such as “com.adapter.cci.AbstractConnection”, and can be used to return the real connection associated with the proxy. A ProxiedConnection interface can have a single method to get an adapter connection, such as a getAdapterConnection( ) interface. A method such as getAdapterConnection( ) can be defined in the abstract connection class, which can return a pointer such as a “this” pointer. A proxied connection interface can be necessary, as a proxy can only return interfaces that the proxy implements. The proxy cannot distinguish class objects in its derivation tree.  
         [0033]    To accommodate migration, certain properties can be added to an adapter properties file. Certain properties, such as navigation or “nav” properties for example, can correspond to toolbar items displayed in an application integration console. The remainder of the properties can be used as labels for the shareable connection displays. To utilize the shareable connection functionality, the adapter developer can use the latest ADK and design-time interfaces.  
         [0034]    The foregoing description of preferred embodiments of the present invention has been provided for the purposes of illustration and description. It is not intended to be exhaustive or to limit the invention to the precise forms disclosed. Many modifications and variations will be apparent to one of ordinary skill in the art. The embodiments were chosen and described in order to best explain the principles of the invention and its practical application, thereby enabling others skilled in the art to understand the invention for various embodiments and with various modifications that are suited to the particular use contemplated. It is intended that the scope of the invention be defined by the following claims and their equivalence.