Mechanism for configuring service endpoints in native client applications at runtime

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9553935-B2
Application number	US-201313842808-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Mar 15, 2013
Priority date	Sep 29, 2012
Publication date	Jan 24, 2017
Grant date	Jan 24, 2017

Abstract

A system and method for facilitating efficient interaction between a client device and a server. An example method includes receiving at a server, a request for server configuration information sent to the server by a client device, and then employing a first web service in communication with the server to convey configuration information about a server to a client device in response to the request message received therefrom by the server. The configuration information includes information pertaining to known capabilities that may be offered by the server to the client device. Generally, embodiments described herein provide various features for facilitating configuring service endpoints in native client applications at runtime, thereby enabling implementation of changes to server-side components that a client application invokes or communicates with, without needing to change the client application.

First claim

I claim:

1. A method for facilitating efficient interaction between a client device and a server, the method comprising:
receiving, at a server, a request for server configuration information, wherein the request is sent to the server by the client device;
employing a first web service in communication with the server to convey configuration information to the client device in response to the request, wherein the configuration information includes information pertaining to known capabilities that may be offered by the server to the client device and information pertaining to one or more of at least one first change in web service parameters and at least one second change to web service addresses; and
enabling the client device to access the known capabilities at runtime based on one or more of the at least one first change and at least one second change, wherein access of the known capabilities is independent of updates to a client application running on the client device,
wherein the configuration information further includes instructions indicating how the client device may access or use the known capabilities of the server, and wherein the method further includes using a client application running on the client device and the configuration information to access one or more capabilities indicated in the configuration information via one or more web services,
wherein the server communicates with one or more additional web services to be called by software running on the client device after the client device calls the first web service, and wherein the one or more additional web services are characterized by one or more web service addresses,
wherein the one or more additional web services include one or more web services hosted on a server that is a different server than the server receiving the request for server configuration information from the client device,
wherein the configuration information includes service endpoint mappings that map one or more relative network service addresses of a web service to be called by the client device to one or more physical network addresses of the web service to be called by the client device, and
wherein the method further comprises:
employing the first web service to maintain web service address information, as part of the configuration information, wherein the web service address information includes web service addresses pertaining to the one or more additional web services;
forwarding the web service address information to the client device in response to communications initiated by the client device with the server;
forwarding configuration information pertaining to all web services that a client application running on the client device will call as part of one or more operations initiated by the client device, in response to the client application accessing the first web service via a uniform resource locator (URL) identifying a network address of the first web service, wherein the configuration information includes information pertaining to one or more service methods used by the one or more additional web services, wherein the configuration information further includes information indicating one or more web service parameters to be input to the one or more web services when the client application calls the one or more web services, wherein the client application is adapted to facilitate displaying a user interface that includes one or more user interface (UI) elements that are adapted to call the one or more services, for which configuration information has been received by the client application from the server, in response to user selection of the one or more UI elements;
associating a URL received by the server from the client application with a set of one or more web services;
configuring the client application to communicate with the one or more web services based on configuration information pertaining to the one or more web, services that is forwarded from the server to the client application in response to receipt by the server of a URL identifying a configuration service for use with the client application;
sending a signal from the server to the client device that is effective to trigger disabling on the client device of one or more capabilities or features supported by the client device but not indicated, by the configuration information, as being supported by the server;
employing the client device to store configuration information from the server in memory on the client device, and using the stored configuration information in, the request from the client device to the server when an application of the client device requests use of a capability of the server;
employing a capabilities assessor module running on the client device to verify capabilities and associated web services to be loaded by a client application running on the client device; and
employing the capabilities assessor module to send a request for capabilities information from the server, wherein the capabilities information includes configuration information pertaining to web services associated with capabilities verified by the capabilities assessor module.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the server communicates with one or more additional web services to be called by software running on the client device after the client device calls the first web service, and wherein the one or more additional web services are characterized by one or more web service addresses.

3. The method of claim 2 , wherein the one or more additional web services include one or more web services hosted on a server that is a different server than the server receiving the request for server configuration information from the client device.

4. The method of claim 3 , wherein the configuration information includes service endpoint mappings that map one or more relative network service addresses of a web service to be called by the client device to one or more physical network addresses of the web service to be called by the client device.

5. The method of claim 2 , further including employing the first web service to maintain web service address information, as part of the configuration information, wherein the web service address information includes web service addresses pertaining to the one or more additional web services.

6. The method of claim 5 , further including forwarding the web service address information to the client device in response to communications initiated by the client device with the server.

7. The method of claim 5 , further including forwarding configuration information pertaining to all web services that a client application running on the client device will call as part of one or more operations initiated by the client device, in response to the client application accessing the first web service via a uniform resource locator (URL) identifying a network address of the first web service.

8. The method of claim 7 , further including associating a URL received by the server from the client application with a set of one or more web services.

9. The method of claim 8 , further including configuring the client application to communicate with the one or more web services based on configuration information pertaining to the one or more web services that is forwarded from the server to the client application in response to receipt by the server of a URL identifying a configuration service for use with the client application.

10. The method of claim 7 , wherein the configuration information includes information pertaining to one or more service methods used by the one or more additional web services.

11. The method of claim 7 , wherein the configuration information further in

Assignees

• Oracle Int Corp

Inventors

• Johnson Mark A

Classifications

• H04L67/34 Primary

  involving the movement of software or configuration parameters  (network booting or remote initial program loading [RIPL] G06F9/4416) · CPC title

• H04L67/16 Primary

  Electricity · mapped topic

• H04L12/06

  Answer-back mechanisms or circuits · CPC title

• H04L67/51

  Discovery or management thereof, e.g. service location protocol [SLP] or web services · CPC title

• H04L67/146

  Markers for unambiguous identification of a particular session, e.g. session cookie or URL-encoding · CPC title