Disparate data store services catalogued for unified access

Abstract

A data store catalogue service model is disclosed for exposing disparate data store services to clients without requiring explicit knowledge on how to interact with each disparate service. The data store catalogue service model may maintain interaction details for each data store service that clients may access for interacting with those services. The model may also maintain metadata that may describe the different types of services available for access by clients, the data types used by those services, how to access the data provided by the services, and how to communicate semantically with the services for accessing the service's data. Additionally, the data store may include metadata that enables clients to interact with one or more registered data stores in a number of ways, such as for discovering registered data store services, entities, classes, and/or any associations between related entities within the same or among disparate services.

1 . At least one computer-readable medium having at least one instruction stored thereon, which when executed by at least one processing system in conjunction with at least one application program, causes the at least one application program to access metadata maintained for one or more registered data store services, the at least one medium comprising at least one instruction for: 
 at least one first parameter in an access interface for requesting at least a portion of the metadata describing the one or more registered data store services; and    at least one second parameter in the unified access interface for providing the requested metadata describing the one or more registered data store services for enabling at least one requesting client to interact with the one or more described data stores services without requiring data store-specific code.    
   
   
       2 . The at least one medium as set forth in  claim 1  wherein the at least one first parameter comprises information requesting enumeration of the one or more registered data store services.  
   
   
       3 . The at least one medium as set forth in  claim 1  further comprising at least one third parameter for returning information identifying one or more registered data store services.  
   
   
       4 . The at least one medium as set forth in  claim 1  wherein the at least one first parameter comprises information requesting enumeration of at least one of either one or more entities or one or more classes associated with the one or more registered data store services.  
   
   
       5 . The at least one medium as set forth in  claim 1  further comprising at least one third parameter for returning information enumerating at least one of either one or more entities or one or more classes associated with the one or more registered data store services.  
   
   
       6 . The at least one medium as set forth in  claim 1  wherein the at least one first parameter comprises information requesting enumeration of one or more related entities.  
   
   
       7 . The at least one medium as set forth in  claim 6  wherein the one or more related entities comprise at least one of either corresponding entities from any one of the one or more registered data store services or corresponding entities from at least one of the registered data store services and at least another one of the registered data store services.  
   
   
       8 . The at least one medium as set forth in  claim 1  further comprising at least one third parameter for returning information enumerating at least one of either one or more related entities from any one of the one or more registered data store services or one or more related entities from at least one of the registered data store service and at least another one of the registered data store services.  
   
   
       9 . The at least one medium as set forth in  claim 1  wherein the at least one first parameter comprises view information identifying one or more property fields of one or more entities for which information is being requested.  
   
   
       10 . At least one computer-readable medium having at least one instruction stored thereon, which when executed by at least one processing system, causes the at least one processing system to provide metadata maintained for one or more registered data store services that enables interacting with the registered data store services, the at least one medium comprising at least one instruction for: 
 identifying the one or more registered data store services maintained in a data store service registration repository that are associated with at least one interaction request from one or more clients; and    providing at least a portion of the metadata associated with the one or more identified data store services that can be used by the one or more clients for requesting at least one server to implement the at least one interaction request without requiring the clients to provide data store-specific code for implementing the at least one interaction request.    
   
   
       11 . The medium as set forth in  claim 10  further comprising obtaining data store-specific code for execution by the at least one server for implementing the at least one interaction request responsive to receiving at least another portion of the metadata associated with the one or more registered data store services in the data store service registration repository.  
   
   
       12 . The medium as set forth in  claim 11  wherein the at least one server executes the data store-specific code on behalf of the one or more clients to implement the at least one interaction request.  
   
   
       13 . The medium as set forth in  claim 10  wherein providing at least a portion of the metadata associated with the one or more identified data store services further comprises returning information naming the one or more identified data store services.  
   
   
       14 . The medium as set forth in  claim 10  wherein providing at least a portion of the metadata associated with the one or more identified data store services further comprises returning information enumerating at least one of either one or more entities or one or more classes associated with the one or more identified data store services.  
   
   
       15 . The medium as set forth in  claim 10  wherein providing at least a portion of the metadata associated with the one or more identified data store services further comprises returning information enumerating at least one of either corresponding entities from any one of the one or more identified data store services or corresponding entities from at least one of the identified data store services and at least another one of the identified data store services.  
   
   
       16 . The medium as set forth in  claim 10  wherein providing at least a portion of the metadata associated with the one or more identified data store services further comprises providing one or more property fields describing one or more entities for which information is being requested based upon one or more views identified by the one or more clients.  
   
   
       17 . A method for discovering one or more objects associated with one or more registered data store services, the method comprising: 
 identifying one or more data store services registered in at least one data store repository that are associated with at least one client request for information describing the one or more data store services; and    providing metadata obtained from the at least one data store repository that describes the one or more registered data store services.    
   
   
       18 . The method as set forth in  claim 17  wherein providing metadata obtained from the at least one data store repository that describes the one or more registered data store services further comprises enumerating at least one of either one or more instances of the registered data store services or one or more entities or one or more classes associated with the one or more identified data store services.  
   
   
       19 . The method as set forth in  claim 17  wherein providing metadata obtained from the at least one data store repository that describes the one or more registered data store services further comprises enumerating at least one of either corresponding entities from any one of the one or more registered data store services or corresponding entities from at least one of the registered data store services and at least another one of the registered data store services.  
   
   
       20 . The method as set forth in  claim 17  wherein providing metadata obtained from the at least one data store repository that describes the one or more registered data store services further comprises providing one or more property fields describing one or more entities for which metadata is being requested based upon one or more views identified by the one or more clients.