Patent ID: 7676497

Claim:
A report publication system, comprising: a first plurality of report management servers defining a first cluster supporting a common report management architecture; a first plurality of client machines operating in accordance with said common report management architecture, said first plurality of client machines being configured to access said first cluster; a second plurality of report management servers defining a second cluster supporting said common report management architecture; a second plurality of client machines operating in accordance with said common report management architecture, said second plurality of client machines being configured to access said second cluster; wherein said first plurality of report management servers and said second plurality of report management servers are interconnected through the Internet to form a federated cluster; wherein a first client machine of said first plurality of client machines invokes a report on said first cluster to form a published report with a designated destination address; wherein said published report is exchanged between said first cluster and said second cluster via the Internet in accordance with said destination address; and wherein a second client machine of said second plurality of client machines locally accesses said published report through said second cluster as a generic information object accessed via a method invocation that passes parameters to an object interface that specifies the identity and the properties that define the generic information object.