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[0027] FIG. 5 illustrates an eXtensible Markup Language (XML) schema for a weekly shipments document instance that is generated by the data collector software object of FIG. 3; |
[0028] FIG. 6A illustrates a weekly shipments document instance generated by the data collector software object of FIG. 3; |
[0029] FIG. 6B illustrates the weekly shipments document instance of FIG. 6A in serialized XML form; |
[0030] FIG. 7 is a UML model of a class from which the transform data provider software object shown in FIG. 3 is instantiated; |
[0031] FIGS. 8A and 8B illustrate an XML schema associated with the line graph widget of FIG. 3; |
[0032] FIG. 9 illustrates a transform employed by the transform data provider software object of FIG. 3 in eXtensible Stylesheet Language (XSL) notation; |
[0033] FIG. 10A illustrates a line graph document instance generated by the data collector of FIG. 3; |
[0034] FIG. 10B illustrates the line graph document instance of FIG. 10A in serialized XML form; |
[0035] FIG. 11 is a UML model of a class from which the line graph widget software object shown in FIG. 3 is instantiated; |
[0036] FIG. 12 illustrates a line graph showing application data in graphical form as may be displayed by the browser shown in FIG. 3; |
[0037] FIG. 13 illustrates a Java™ Server Page (JSP™) shown in FIG. 2 in greater detail; |
[0038] FIG. 14A is a UML sequence diagram illustrating object interaction in the computing system of FIG. 1 during system initialization; |
[0039] FIG. 14B is a UML sequence diagram illustrating object interaction in the computing system of FIG. 1 upon a browser refresh at a client computer; |
[0040] FIG. 15 illustrates in XSL notation an alternative transform that may be employed by the transform data provider shown in FIG. 3 in an alternative embodiment of the present invention; |
[0041] FIG. 16 illustrates an alternative line graph showing application data as may be displayed by the browser of FIG. 3 when the transform of FIG. 15 is employed by the transform data provider; |
[0042] FIG. 17 is a schematic diagram illustrating data flow between software components in another alternative embodiment of the computing system of FIG. 1; |
[0043] FIG. 18 illustrates a line graph showing application data as may be displayed by the alternative embodiment of FIG. 17; |
[0044] FIG. 19 is a schematic diagram illustrating data flow between software components in a further alternative embodiment of the computing system of FIG. 1; and |
[0045] FIG. 20 illustrates a bar graph showing application data as may be displayed by the alternative embodiment of FIG. 19. |
DETAILED DESCRIPTION |
[0046] FIG. 1 illustrates a computing system 10 exemplary of the present invention. Computing system 10 includes two client computers 12 and 18 in communication with a server 26 over a data network 24. The client computers 12 and 18 and the server 26 may each be located at a distinct geographical location associated wi... |
[0047] Client computers 12 and 18 (also referred to simply as “clients”) are network-aware computing devices and as such each include a processor, memory, a network interface such as an Ethernet interface, and a keyboard (all not shown). Each client also has a display 14. The memory of each of clients 12 and 18 stores ... |
[0048] Data network 24 is the Internet in the present embodiment. However, in alternative embodiments, data network 24 may be a private local area network or any other type of data network known to those skilled in the art. |
[0049] Server 26 is a network capable server. Server 26 is illustrated in greater detail in FIG. 2. |
[0050] As shown in FIG. 2, server 26 includes a processor 28 in communication with volatile memory 30 (e.g. RAM) as well as non-volatile memory 42 (e.g. a hard drive). The interconnections between the volatile and non-volatile memories 30 and 42 and the processor 28 are conventional. The server 26 includes a network in... |
[0051] The volatile memory 30 of server 26 includes an application 32; a data collector software object 34; a transform data provider software object 36; a line graph widget software object 38; a HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) server application 40 having a Java™ servlet engine 41; and a Java™ Server Page (JSP™) 46... |
[0052] Application 32 is a software application which tracks shipments and deliveries of products from a business enterprise to its customers. It will be appreciated that applications in alternative embodiments of the computing system 10 may have a different purpose. In the present example, application 32 is a legacy a... |
[0053] The data collector software object 34 (also referred to simply as “data collector” and abbreviated “DC”) is a Java™ object which is capable of receiving event notifications from the application 32 regarding application data of interest and of generating therefrom an application-data-centric data instance on requ... |
[0054] In the present embodiment, the application-data-centric schema is an XML schema, and the application-data-centric data instance generated by the DC 34 is a Document Object Model (DOM) XML document instance. As known to those skilled in the art, DOM is a World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) recommendation which define... |
[0055] Transform data provider software object 36 (also referred to simply as “transform data provider” and abbreviated “TDP”) is a Java™ object which is capable of receiving an application-data-centric data instance from an associated data collector and transforming it into a presentation-centric data instance. A pres... |
[0056] It will be appreciated that the TDP 36 is generic in the sense that it is not “hard-wired” to specific input application-data-centric schema and output presentation-centric schema. Rather, the TDP 36 is configurable at run time with an external transform (described below) which wholly governs the transformation ... |
[0057] Line graph widget software object 38 is a Java™ object capable of receiving a logical, presentation-centric data instance of line graph data from an associated data provider acting as the widget's data source and of generating displayable line graph data comprising SVG code therefrom. The received presentation-c... |
[0058] HTTP server application 40 is a conventional HTTP server application which permits the server 26 to provide HTTP pages on demand to network interconnected computing devices, such as clients 12 and 18. HTTP server application 40 may be an Apache or IBM® HTTP server or similar application for example. As will be a... |
[0059] Java™ servlet engine 41 is an add-on module to the HTTP server application 40 which permits Java™ servlets to be executed by the HTTP server application 40. |
[0060] JSP™ 46 is a dynamic web page which employs JSP™ technology for dynamic control of its content and appearance. JSP™ 46 comprises static HTML as well as embedded calls to Java™ objects (comprising DC 34, TDP 36 and widget 38) which cause the objects to cooperate to supply dynamic content to the page consisting of... |
[0061] The non-volatile memory 42 of server 26 stores a transform 44. Transform 44 is an eXtensible Stylesheet Language Transform (XSLT) which governs the manner in which the TDP 36 will transform application-data-centric data instances into presentation-centric data instances. As known by those skilled in the art, XSL... |
[0062] Application 32, data collector 34, transform data provider 36, line graph widget 38, transform 44 and JSP™ 46 may be loaded from a computer program product having a readable medium, such as a removable optical or magnetic disk 43. |
[0063] FIG. 3 is a data flow diagram 300 which illustrates the data flow between software components of computing system 10. As may be seen in FIG. 3, the computing system 10 is implemented according to the Model View Controller (MVC) paradigm. As known by those skilled in the art, the MVC paradigm dictates that a syst... |
[0064] As shown in FIG. 3, the Model component is made up of the application 32 and data collector 34. In the present embodiment, application 32 provides native-format application data to the data collector 34 by way of notification of two types of events: package shipped events 50 and package delivered events 52. Even... |
[0065] The DC 34 receives notification of the package shipment and delivery events 50 and 52 and in turn generates (on request) a logical, application-data-centric DOM XML document instance 54 (also referred to as the “weekly shipments document instance” 54) representative of the package shipments/deliveries occurring ... |
[0066] The Controller component of the computing system 10 of the present embodiment comprises the transform data provider 36 and its associated transform 44. The TDP 36 receives the weekly shipments DOM XML document instance 54 and transforms this instance 54 into the presentation-centric DOM XML document instance 56 ... |
[0067] The View component of computing system 10 includes the line graph widget 38 and the browser 16. The line graph widget 38 receives the line graph document instance 56 generated by the TDP 36 and generates therefrom (on request) displayable line graph data 58. More specifically, the widget 38 accesses document ins... |
[0068] As will become apparent, the data flow between the software components illustrated in FIG. 3 is triggered by the refresh of JSP™ 46 (FIG. 2) at browser 16 of client 12 or 18 (FIG. 1), with each refresh triggering a one-off passing of data from the DC 34 through to the browser 16. Event notification from the appl... |
[0069] FIG. 4 is a Unified Modeling Language (UML) model of a class from which the data collector software object 34 is instantiated. The DC 34 includes a weeklyShipmentsDocInstance attribute 54 which is the application-data-centric DOM XML document instance 54 that is passed to the TDP 36 (FIG. 3). The DC 34 also incl... |
[0070] The DC 34 includes a getDocument( ) method 62, a refresh( ) method 63, and an update( ) method 64. The getDocument( ) method 62 returns the weeklyShipmentsDocInstance attribute 54 (i.e. the application-data-centric data instance generated by the DC 34). The refresh( ) method 63 updates the weeklyShipmentsDocInst... |
[0071] FIG. 5 illustrates a weekly shipments document schema 500 in XML notation. It is this schema 500 to which the weekly shipments document instance 54 (FIG. 3) conforms and to which a developer may have reference when creating transform 44 (for the purpose of determining the expected application-data-centric DOM do... |
[0072] As may be seen in FIG. 5, the schema 500 defines a hierarchy of elements including a currentBusinessWeek element (line 3), a currentDay element (line 12), a day element (line 17), a packagesDelivered element (line 26), a packagesShipped element (line 27), and a shipmentData element (line 28). These elements faci... |
[0073] FIGS. 6A and 6B illustrate the weekly shipments document instance 54 of FIG. 3 as a DOM document and in serialized form, respectively. |
[0074] Referring to FIG. 6A, the document instance 54 includes a shipmentData element 602 (line 1 FIG. 6B) containing a currentBusinessWeek element 604 (line 2 FIG. 6B) having a name attribute specifying a current business week identifier of “Week 24 2002”. The currentBusinessWeek element 604 in turn contains a current... |
[0075] FIG. 7 is a UML model of a class from which the transform data provider software object 36 is instantiated. The TDP 36 includes a transformer object 57 containing business logic which, when executed, converts an application-data-centric DOM XML document instance to a presentation-centric DOM XML document instanc... |
[0076] The TDP 36 includes eight methods, namely, the setDataSource( ) method 67, the getDataSource( ) method 68, the refresh( ) method 69, the update( ) method 70, the getDocument( ) method 71, the createTransformer( ) method 72, the setTransformer( ) method 73, and the transform( ) method 74. |
[0077] The setDataSource( ) method 67 receives as an input parameter a list which contains one or more objects (e.g. data collectors). The method 67 sets the local dataSources attribute 66 to reference the passed object(s). This method provides a mechanism by which the TDP 36 is “linked” to its data source(s). |
[0078] The getDataSource( ) method 68 returns a list contains one or more objects representing the current data source(s) of the TDP 36. |
[0079] The refresh( ) method 69, update( ) method 70, and getDocument( ) method 71 are analogous in function to the methods of the data collector 34 (FIG. 4) of the same name, except that because the TDP 36 implements the DOM Document interface and is therefore itself a DOM Document, these methods in essence refresh, u... |
[0080] With reference to the update( ) method 70, this method invokes the update( ) method 64 of the associated data collector(s) (as identified by the dataSources attribute 66) to ensure that the application data received from the data collector is current, and thereafter invokes TDP's transform( ) method 74 (describe... |
[0081] The createTransformer( ) method 72 receives a “resourceLocation” input parameter representing a path to a transform 44 and creates the transformer object 57 which may be used to transform the application-data-centric DOM XML document instance 54 to the presentation-centric DOM XML document instance 56. |
[0082] The setTransformer( ) method 73 receives a “transformer” input parameter representing a transformer object and which may be used to transform the application-data-centric DOM XML document instance 54 to the presentation-centric DOM XML document instance 56, and sets the transformer attribute 57 to that received ... |
[0083] The transform( ) method 74 invokes the transformer object 57 to convert the application-data-centric DOM XML document instance 54 to the presentation-centric DOM XML document instance 56. |
[0084] FIGS. 8A and 8B illustrate in XML notation the operative presentation-centric schema 800 of the present embodiment. It is this schema 800 to which the presentation-centric DOM XML document instance 56 conforms. More specifically, schema 800 is the schema to which the author of the transform 44 may have reference... |
[0085] FIG. 9 illustrates the transform 44 employed by the transform data provider 36. As described, transform 44 is an XSLT. It will be noted that the transform 44 does not cause each element in an input application-data-centric document instance to be transformed into corresponding element in the output line graph do... |
[0086] It will be appreciated with respect to FIG. 9 that, in addition to controlling the semantic content of the line graph display mechanism (as described above), the transform 44 of the present embodiment also controls features of the line graph display mechanism that are strictly aesthetic. For example, at lines 11... |
[0087] FIGS. 10A and 10B illustrate the presentation-centric line graph document instance 56 as a DOM document and in serialized form, respectively. |
[0088] Referring to FIG. 10A, the document instance 56 includes a linegraph element 1002 (line 1 FIG. 10B) containing a lineSet element 1004 (line 2 FIG. 6B). The latter element is associated with a single line interconnecting data points of the line graph. The lineset element 1004 contains five datapoint elements 1012... |
[0089] FIG. 11 is a UML model of the line graph widget 38. The widget 38 includes a dataProvider attribute 75 which uniquely identifies the data provider from which the presentation-centric DOM XML document instances 56 are to be received. The widget 38 also includes an inputDoc attribute 76 which references the DOM XM... |
[0090] The line graph widget 38 includes three methods, namely, the setDataProvider( ) method 78, the update( ) method 80, and the generateAndSerializeToFile( ) method 81. |
[0091] The setDataProvider( ) method 78 receives a reference to a data provider object “DP” as an input parameter and sets the local dataProvider attribute 75 to reference the passed object. This method provides a mechanism by which the widget 38 is “linked” to its data source. |
[0092] The update( ) method 80 is responsible for generating displayable line graph data 58 (FIG. 3) in the form of SVG code based on the most recent line graph data. The update( ) method 80 initially invokes the getDocument( ) method 71 (FIG. 7) of the associated data provider, as determined by the dataProvider attrib... |
[0093] The generateAndSerializeToFile( ) method 81 generates SVG code from the inputDoc attribute 76 and directs it to a specified file location. |
[0094] FIG. 12 illustrates a line graph 60 showing weekly shipment application data as may be displayed by the browser 16 displaying SVG code generated by the widget 38 from the line graph document instance of FIG. 10A. Line graph 60 has various conventional line graph features including a title 1202 and a graph portio... |
[0095] FIG. 13 illustrates the JSP™ 46 of FIG. 2 in greater detail. JSP™ 46 has two code portions: initialization code 1302 and body portion 1304. As will be appreciated by those skilled in the art, the execution of initialization code 1302 occurs when the JSP™ is loaded, and does not recur for the life of the JSP™ (du... |
[0096] The operation of the present embodiment is illustrated in the UML sequence diagrams of FIGS. 14A and 14B respectively, with additional reference to FIGS. 1-4, 7, and 11-13. UML sequence diagram 1400 of FIG. 14A illustrates interaction between software components of the computing system of FIG. 1 during system in... |
[0097] Referring to FIG. 14A, it is initially assumed that the application 32 (FIG. 2) is executing and that a user at client 12 or 18 has initially invoked the browser 16 and directed it to a URL at which the JSP™ 46 (FIG. 13) resides. The loading of JSP™ 46 causes the initialization code 1302 to be processed. |
[0098] Processing of the “useBean” Java™ tag at line 10 (FIG. 13) triggers the instantiation 1402 (FIG. 14A) of the specified object DC 34, which is identified by the useBean element's “id” attribute value “shipmentDC”. The value “application” of the “scope” attribute of the useBean element causes the instantiated data... |
[0099] Transform data provider 36 is instantiated next (at 1404 of FIG. 14A) upon the processing of the “useBean” tag at line 13 (FIG. 13), in a similar manner. |
[0100] Subsequently, the setDataSource( ) method 67 of the TDP 36 is called at 1406 (line 17 of FIG. 13), a list containing the newly instantiated DC 34 being passed in as the input parameter. This call 1406 effectively sets the DC 34 as the data source for the TDP 36. |
[0101] Thereafter, a call 1408 is made to the createTransformer( ) method 72 of the TDP 36 (line 19 of FIG. 13). This call 1408 causes the transform 44 (FIG. 2) specified by the input “resourceLocation” parameter to be accessed and business logic to be generated therefrom for converting an application-data-centric DOM ... |
[0102] The line graph widget 38 is instantiated next at 1410 upon the processing of the “useBean” tag at line 24 (FIG. 13). Subsequently, a call 1420 is made to the setDataProvider( ) method 78 (FIG. 11) of the widget 38 (line 27 of FIG. 13), with a reference to the TDP 36 being passed as an input parameter. This call ... |
[0103] Following initialization, the DC 34 receives event notifications of shipment and delivery events 50 and 52 (FIG. 3) from the application 32 as the events occur, in a conventional manner. It will be appreciated that these event notifications may pertain to previously occurring events (e.g. data regarding a previo... |
[0104] At this stage, and every time that a person at client computer 12 or 18 using a browser 16 (FIG. 1) with the JSP™ 46 loaded thereinto subsequently refreshes his or her browser screen, a transmission of the JSP™ 46 from the server 26 to the browser 16 by HTTP server application 40 (FIG. 2) is triggered. Before su... |
[0105] Processing of the code at line 37 of FIG. 13 causes the update( ) method 70 (FIG. 7) of the TDP 36 to be invoked at 1452 (FIG. 14B). The update( ) method 70 initially invokes the update( ) method 64 (FIG. 4) of the associated DC 34 at 1454. Upon being invoked, the latter update( ) method 64 generates a current v... |
[0106] Subsequently, processing of the code at line 38 of FIG. 13 causes the update( ) method 80 (FIG. 11) of the line graph widget 38 to be invoked at 1460. Upon being invoked, the update( ) method 80 initially invokes the getDocument( ) method 71 (FIG. 7) of the TDP 36 at 1462 to retrieve the now-updated line graph d... |
[0107] It will be appreciated that the processing illustrated in sequence diagram 1450 (FIG. 14B) occurs at the server 26 rather than at clients 12 or 18 (FIG. 1). Advantageously, the loading of client computers 12 and 18 is thereby limited. |
[0108] Each refresh of the browser will cause the steps associated with sequence diagram 1450 (FIG. 14B) to be repeated, thus repeated refreshes may cause the application data being monitored to be updated in near real-time, depending of course on such factors as the frequency of refresh requests, the frequency of even... |
[0109] It will be appreciated that, because widgets are not “data-aware”, the architecture of the instant embodiment permits “hot-swapping” of a widget's data sources at run time. For example, if it is desired to view an alternative category of application data (e.g. employee attendance) in the form of a line graph, th... |
[0110] In the event that it is desired to change the display device from a display 14 on a client computer 12 or 18 to, say, a wireless display device, the computing system 10 may be easily modified to accommodate the new display device. In this case, a new widget may be substituted for the line graph widget 38 which g... |
[0111] FIG. 15 illustrates an alternative transform 44a which may be substituted for the transform 44 (FIG. 9) of the computing system 10 of FIG. 1 to change the semantic and aesthetic content of the displayable line graph. Changes from the previous transform 44 of FIG. 9 are indicated in bold. The semantic changes inc... |
[0112] Prior to operation, the transform 44a is substituted for transform 44 in non-volatile memory 42 (FIG. 2). Thereafter, operation of the computing system occurs as shown in FIGS. 14A and 14B, except that when the createTransformer( ) method call 1408 (FIG. 14A) is made during system initialization, the transformer... |
[0113] As may be seen in FIG. 16, the values of the data points comprising line 1622 have changed due to the fact that deliveries, not shipments, are now graphed. The Y-axis title 1607 “Number of Shipments Delivered” (formerly “Number of Shipments”) is updated to reflect this change. In addition, although not apparent ... |
[0114] Advantageously, both the semantic and aesthetic content of the displayed application data has been changed by changing only the external transform, without any need for software source code updates or a software rebuild. The person updating the software need not even understand the interaction between the softwa... |
[0115] FIGS. 17 and 18 illustrate the capacity of the computing system 10 to be linked to (and to thereby reuse) existing monitoring architecture components (prepared according to the present architecture) from other applications. In particular, an alternative embodiment of the system is illustrated which incorporates ... |
[0116] Referring to FIG. 17, a data flow diagram 1700 illustrates the alternative embodiment of computing system 10 with two added software components: a legacy application 84 and a legacy data collector 86. Application 84 is a legacy software application which tracks purchase orders generated by a business enterprise ... |
[0117] To implement the alternative embodiment, the system architect, desirous of incorporating purchase order information into the line graph 12, determines through appropriate inquiries that application 84 is the appropriate source for the desired purchase order information, and further learns that the data collector... |
[0118] Using the retrieved schema, as well as the published application-data-centric schema associated with weekly shipments document instance 54, the system architect authors a new transform 44b as a replacement for the transform 44 used in the first-described embodiment. New transform 44b is an XSLT which governs the... |
[0119] Operation of the amended version of computing system 10 occurs as shown in FIGS. 14A and 14B, with several exceptions. First, the setDataSource( ) method 67 sets both of DC 34 and DC 86 as data sources for the TDP 36 rather than just for the single DC 34. Second, when the createTransformer( ) method call 1408 (F... |
[0120] As may be seen in FIG. 18, the generated line graph 96 has many of the features of line graph 60 of FIG. 12, including the line 1222 of data points representative of the number of package shipments occurring on each day of the current business week. However, line graph 96 additionally includes a line 1802 of dat... |
[0121] Advantageously, the instant dynamic business application data monitoring architecture has facilitated reuse of the legacy data collector 86 as well as the incorporation of application data from a legacy application into the displayed line graph with only the substitution of a transform and an update to the dynam... |
[0122] FIGS. 19 and 20 illustrate the capacity of the computing system 10 to be easily modified to display application data by way of multiple display mechanisms. FIGS. 19 and 20 also illustrate the capacity of a data provider to use another data provider as a data source. |
[0123] Referring to FIG. 19, a data flow diagram 1900 illustrates another alternative embodiment of computing system 10 with two added software components: a second transform data provider 100 and a bar graph widget 106. The purpose of these added components is to support a new bar graph display mechanism which has bee... |
[0124] Bar graph widget software object 106 is a Java™ object capable of receiving the presentation-centric data instance 104 comprising bar graph data from transform data provider 100 and generating displayable bar graph data comprising SVG code therefrom. The bar graph widget 106 has a similar structure to line graph... |
[0125] Operation of this alternative embodiment of computing system 10 occurs as shown in FIGS. 14A and 14B, with several exceptions. During system initialization, method calls analogous to those appearing at lines 13 to 20 of the JSP™ 46 (FIG. 13) are made in order to instantiate the new TDP 100, to set the TDP 36 as ... |
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