[54] APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR
TRANSPARENT APPLICATION OF SERVICE
TO BUSINESS OBJECTS
[75] Inventors: George P. Copeland, Austin; Geoffrey
M. Hambrick, Round Rock, both of
Tex.; Eric N. Herness; Charles J.
Redlin, both of Rochester, Minn.
[73] Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, N.Y.
[21] Appl. No.: 08/939,938 [22] Filed: Sep. 29, 1997
[51] Int. CI. G06F 17 30
[52] U.S. CI 707/103; 707/104; 705/7;
705/26
[58] Field of Search 707/3, 9, 10, 100,
707/103, 104, 18; 395/182, 670, 500, 672, 683, 701, 712, 728, 800.23, 682; 705/36, 7, 26; 364/474.25; 379/201; 600/300; 345/349, 507; 380/4; 327/172
[56] References Cited
U.S. PATENT DOCUMENTS
5,233,513 8/1993 Doyle 705/7
5,406,477 4/1995 Harhen 395/670
5,446,903 8/1995 Abraham 380/4
5,724,575 3/1998 Hoover 707/10
5,732,270 3/1998 Foody 395/683
According to a preferred embodiment of the present invention, a managed object assembly (MOA) is used to abstract the business logic of a given system from the system's operational aspects or infrastructure-specific characteristics. The managed object includes a data object, a business object, a managed object, and a mixin object. By isolating the functions of the business logic from the infrastructure of the system (including database structure), a significant amount of flexibility can be obtained and system re-engineering becomes noticeably simpler. Specifically, by isolating the business logic from the system resource details, changes in the business logic can be made in a manner that is independent of any detailed knowledge of the resources accessed by the system. In addition, as the underlying infrastructure requirements and data structures are changed, only the data object portion and the mixin object portion of the MOA needs to be changed or updated to provide access to the newly modified data structures. This can create significant savings in time and money as a system is updated to provide additional capabilities.
21 Claims, 3 Drawing Sheets
