Method for an identification and classification mechanism for discoverable software services

Method for an identification and classification mechanism for discoverable software services

Disclosed is a method for an identification and classification mechanism for discoverable software services. Benefits include an improved classification and identification scheme for a common tag to be used in the discovery of software services. This method provides taxonomy and a guide for identifying the service that may be discovered.

Problem being addressed

              No conventional method exists to identify conforming candidates during the assembly of a compound application using components from various vendors/locations. For example, a user might want to discover and use a shopping cart component for an e-commerce Web site. The software service can be discovered in a variety of ways, but each discovery method imposes its own lookup methodology based on strings, vendor name, or other method.

              Some of these discovery services provide unique naming via UIDs or GUIDs, but each discoverable name-to-service mapping is independent of the type of the service. Although two services might work equally well for the application, the component’s mapping scheme must be described to the compound application. The use of a universal software service code that provides a common classified identification would solve the problem without having to code the alternatives into the compound application.

General description

              Each software component service should provide as an attribute, a number based on an extension of the United Nations Standard Product and Services Classification (UNSPSC). This classification scheme currently provides universal markings for consumer products and for personal services (such as database programming and financial accounting). An extension to this classification provides for a common universal identification of all shopping carts (as in the example above), for all geographic coordinate transforms, or, in general, for all software services that are similar.

Detailed description

              The current format of the identifiers is contained in Figure...