Unified metadata model translation framework

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11138206-B2
Application number	US-201816225742-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Dec 19, 2018
Priority date	Dec 19, 2018
Publication date	Oct 5, 2021
Grant date	Oct 5, 2021

Abstract

Techniques and solutions are described for transferring metadata between software applications. A translation framework stores metadata models in a standard format. Source applications can cause metadata models to be stored in the translation framework in the standard format. A target application can receive metadata models, or elements thereof, from the translation framework, which metadata models can be optionally converted from the standard format to a target format used by the target application. The translation framework can store annotations to a metadata model in the form of custom metadata types. The custom metadata types can be used by one or both of the target application and a source application. Source applications can cause values to be stored for annotations they support. Target applications can read values for annotations they support. Source applications and target applications do not write or read, respectively, unsupported annotations.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method, implemented in a computing system comprising one or more processors and one or more memories coupled to the one or more processors, the one or more memories comprising computer-executable instructions for causing the computing system to perform operations comprising:
with a first software application, defining one or more metadata models in a first format, the first format comprising a first plurality of metadata elements, each metadata element having an identifier, wherein each metadata element can be associated with one or more values;
transforming at least one of the one or more metadata models into a second format to provide a transformed metadata model, the second format being a standard format used by a translation framework, the standard format being a common metadata model format for a plurality of software applications, the plurality of software applications comprising the first software application and at least a second software application, wherein the transforming comprises:
transforming one or more metadata elements of the first plurality of metadata elements to one or more standard metadata elements of the second format; and

transforming at least one of the first plurality of metadata elements to a custom metadata element of the second format, wherein a custom metadata element indicates a metadata element of the second format that extends the standard format and may be used by software applications that support the custom metadata element but the custom metadata element is not useable by software applications that only support the standard format, and wherein the custom metadata element is indicated as a custom metadata element in the second format using one or more semantic elements comprising one or more tokens of the second format; and
sending the transformed metadata model in the second format to the translation framework, wherein the translation framework is accessible to a plurality of software applications, the plurality of software applications comprising the first software application and at least a second software application, wherein the at least a second software application is not configured to receive data in the first format.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the second format has hierarchically organized metadata types, and wherein the custom metadata element of the second format is associated with a particular hierarchical level.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the standard metadata elements comprise metadata elements of an entity-relation model comprising entities and fields.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the transforming is carried out by the first software application.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the transforming is carried out by the translation framework.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the transforming is carried out using a transformation template.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein the second format comprises a plurality of hierarchically related metadata models, and the first format corresponds to a model of the plurality of hierarchically related metadata models.

8. The method of claim 1 , wherein the transformation comprises converting a value associated with a metadata element of the first plurality of metadata elements from a first data type used with the first format to a second data type used with the second format.

9. The method of claim 1 , wherein the transformation comprises altering a data source referenced by a value of a metadata element of the first plurality of metadata elements of the first format.

10. The method of claim 1 , wherein at least one metadata element of the first format specifies a data processing type to be used with a first metadata model of the one or more metadata models.

11. The method of claim 10 , wherein the data processing type is a JOIN type.

12. The method of claim 1 , wherein the transforming comprises adding one or more metadata elements in the second format that describe a metadata element of the first format.

13. A computing system comprising:
memory;
one or more processing units coupled to the memory; and
one or more non-transitory computer readable storage media storing instructions that, when executed, cause the computing system to perform operations comprising:
with a first software application, defining one or more metadata models in a first format, the first format comprising a first plurality of metadata elements, each metadata element having an identifier, wherein each metadata element can be associated with one or more values;
transforming at least one of the one or more metadata models into a second format to provide a transformed metadata model, the second format being a standard format used by a translation framework, the standard format being a common metadata model format for a plurality of software applications, the plurality of software applications comprising the first software application and at least a second software application, wherein the transforming comprises:
transforming one or more metadata elements of the first plurality of metadata elements to one or more standard metadata elements of the second format; and
transforming at least one of the first plurality of metadata elements to a custom metadata element of the second format, wherein a custom metadata element indicates a metadata element of the second format that extends the standard format and may be used by software applications that support the custom metadata element but the custom metadata element is not useable by software applications that only support the standard format, and wherein the custom metadata element is indicated as a custom metadata element in the second format using one or more semantic elements comprising one or more tokens of the second format; and
sending the transformed metadata model in the second format to the translation framework, wherein the translation framework is accessible to a plurality of software applications, the plurality of software applications comprising the first software application and at least a second software application, wherein the at least a second software application is not configured to receive data in the first format.

14. The computing system of claim 13 , the operations further comprising:
receiving from the second software application at least a second annotation in the form of a custom metadata element type;
storing the at least a second annotation in a definition of the transformed metadata model;
receiving a request from a third software application, which can be the first software application or the second software application, for one or more metadata element types of the transformed metadata model; and
sending the one or more metadata element types of the transformed metadata model to the third software application in response to the request.

15. One or more non-transitory computer-readable storage media storing computer-executable instructions for causing a computing system to perform operations comprising:
with a first software application, defining one or more metadata models in a first format, the first format comprising a first plurality of metadata elements, each metadata element having an identifier, wherein each metadata element can be associated with one or more values;
transforming at least one of the one or more metadata models into a second format to provide a transformed metadata model, the second format being a standard format used by a translation framework, the standard format being a common metadata model format for a plurality of software applications, the plurality of software applications comprising the first sof

Assignees

• Sap Se

Inventors

• Siebeking Ingo
• Balzar Andreas
• Krause Gerald
• Teichmann Jan

Classifications

• G06F16/907

  Retrieval characterised by using metadata, e.g. metadata not derived from the content or metadata generated manually · CPC title

• G06F16/24573 Primary

  using data annotations, e.g. user-defined metadata · CPC title

• G06F16/2456

  Join operations · CPC title

• G06F16/84 Primary

  Mapping; Conversion · CPC title

• G06F9/541

  via adapters, e.g. between incompatible applications · CPC title