Patent ID: 7861239

Claim:
A method for converting logical data entities in a system, comprising: providing an apparatus that arranges a plurality of logical entities into a priority of dependencies wherein a dependent upper-layer entity of the plurality of logical entities is dependent upon an independent lower-layer entity of the plurality of logical entities; upon receipt of a conversion or reversion request, converting the independent lower-layer entity and the dependent upper-layer entity by: instantiating a conversion framework state machine for interacting with a component manager and updating completely the independent lower-layer entity from an earlier independent lower-layer entity version to a latest independent lower-layer entity version by iterating through a set of earlier versions of the independent lower-layer entity before proceeding with an updating of the dependent upper-layer entity from an earlier dependent upper-layer entity version to a latest dependent upper-layer entity version; and instantiating a reversion framework state machine for interacting with a component manager and reverting completely the dependent upper-layer entity from the latest dependent upper-layer entity version to the earlier dependent upper-layer version by iterating through a set of later versions of the dependent upper-layer entity before proceeding with a reverting of the independent lower-layer entity from the latest independent lower-layer entity version to the earlier independent lower-layer entity version; and wherein the updating and the reverting each comprise iteratively checking each of the plurality of logical entities to determine if a conversion or a reversion is required and valid and responsively updating or reverting the each iteratively checked logical entities if the conversion or the reversion is required.