Patent ID: 7650608

Claim:
A system providing applications with uniform access to data from distributed heterogeneous data sources on computer-readable storage media, comprising: a processor; a liquid data framework (LDF), wherein the liquid data framework includes: a binder that uses Extensible Markup Language (XML) schemas from the distributed heterogeneous data sources to bind requests and results to a requesting application, wherein the binder is a dynamic proxy component on a server, wherein the distributed heterogeneous data sources can include any data source that has an XML schema; a query processor that receives the requests from the binder and generates query plans, wherein each of the query plans direct individual components of the query plan to different distributed heterogeneous data sources and wherein each query plan is determined by a set of rules which can be edited to alter processing of queries; a merger to perform a merge of transformed data from a plurality of the distributed heterogeneous data sources; a plug-in mechanism that allows client or portal applications to be plugged in to the liquid data framework; and a set of unified XML views derived from the XML schemas of the distributed heterogeneous data sources, wherein the liquid data framework provides data independence for the client or portal applications in that the client or portal applications that use the system need not be changed if a source of data for an application switches from one type of heterogeneous data source to another type of heterogeneous data source, the liquid data framework uses the XML schemas of the heterogeneous data sources to determine the source of data and can change the source of data as a result of changes in the XML schema of at least one of the heterogeneous data sources; and wherein the heterogeneous data sources includes a database, and a web service, and wherein the web services communicate the query plans to resource adaptors for the distributed heterogeneous data sources and receive corresponding results that are returned from the resource adaptors, wherein the web services use Extensible Stylesheet Language (XSL) to transform the query plans and the corresponding results.