Patent ID: 7328440

Claim:
An interface stored on a computer-readeable medium for interfacing between front-end data processing systems and back-end data processing systems, the interface comprising an engine, a node layer comprising at least one node, and a utility layer comprising at least one utility, and in which: the engine is configured to receive a message containing a request from a front-end system for a transaction to be performed by a back-end system, said message not containing an operation identifier of the transaction to be performed, and interpreting said message to select a relevant node from a plurality of nodes for interfacing, wherein the engine does not contain any business logic, each node represents business logic interfaces to a back-end system, each node exposes business logic capabilities to the engine; the engine comprises means for using the exposed node business logic capabilities to automatically build a process map linking received request messages with nodes, wherein the engine uses the process map to select the relevant node from the plurality of nodes, the process map comprising script messages, each message specifying an associated node, a list of the parameters the node uses to perform operations based on the received request messages, and values which it returns for a type of incoming message; each utility is coupled as a proxy to a back-end system, and is configured for receiving a transaction request from a node, for converting said request to a back-end system request, for receiving a response from the back-end system, and for routing a response to the requesting node, each node routes a received response to the engine; and the engine routes a response to the requesting front-end system, wherein each of the engine and each node comprise an object instantiated from an object-oriented class, and wherein each of the engine and each node is configured for using a hashtable which maps keys to values for passing data and control to each other, and the engine is configured for passing a hashtable as a parameter in an execute method, a commit method, and a rollback method of a node object.