Transformation engine for datacenter colocation and network interconnection products

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9806954-B2
Application number	US-201414294552-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jun 3, 2014
Priority date	Jun 3, 2014
Publication date	Oct 31, 2017
Grant date	Oct 31, 2017

Abstract

In general, techniques for integration of diverse software applications in i) a co-location facility, ii) communication interconnection network facility, or iii) both, are described. For example, a transformation engine for datacenter colocation and network interconnection products may assist in a dynamic i) transformation of commands and ii) data structure translation as well as data structure transformation between a source application (SA) and a target application (TA) via two or more translation assist templates.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A transformation engine comprising:
at least one memory; and
one or more electronic hardware components operably coupled to the at least one memory, the transformation engine for i) a datacenter co-location facility, ii) a communication interconnection network facility, or iii) both,
where the transformation engine comprises two or more modules coded to assist in a dynamic i) transformation of commands and ii) data structure translation as well as data structure transformation between a first source application and a first target application, where a nature of both the first source application and the first target application are for use in conjunction with the i) co-location facility, ii) communication interconnection network facility or iii) both;
where the transformation engine is configured to, at runtime, dynamically update configuration information used to dynamically transform the commands and data structures based on the updated configuration information occurring due to any of: i) an addition of another source application, another target application, or new colocation or network interconnection product, ii) a change to an existing source application, an existing target application, or an existing colocation or a network interconnection product, or iii) any combination of both;
where the transformation engine is configured to generate two or more translation assist templates correlating to different combinations of the existing source applications, the existing target applications, and the new colocation or network interconnection product, where the network transformation engine is configured to generate a new translation assist template when information regarding a new or updated application or product is loaded into a database;
where the transformation engine is configured to then send the new translation assist template to a cache used by an integration services middleware software layer to assist in the dynamic translation of any data structures and the dynamic transformation of any commands and data structures to dynamically map out how a grammar and structure of the first source application correlates to the first target application, where the new translation assist template enables any structure and attribute changes to i) the colocation or network interconnection product or ii) the first source application or the first target application, or iii) any said combination of both, to be made dynamically by updating the configuration information loaded into the database without having to make any code modifications to the integration services middleware software layer configured to perform the dynamic translation and transformation between the grammar and the structure of the first source application over to the grammar and the structure of the first target application; and
a plug-in module of the transformation engine having self-executing code configured to plug into and communicate with the integration services middleware software layer when that integration services middleware software layer uses i) eXtensible Markup Language (XML), ii) an XML variant, or iii) an XML derivative software language.

2. The transformation engine of claim 1 , where the transformation engine further includes one or more modules to perform its configured functionality, the one or more modules including a rules engine module configured to process configuration rules for each said new colocation or said network interconnection product and the source application and the target application combination, an XPATH builder module configured to compute transformation rules stored in the database and send an expression used to construct the new translation assist template, and a software language transformation engine configured to read and understand the grammar and the structure of the configuration information expressed in multiple software applications formats.

3. The transformation engine of claim 1 , where the database with the two or more translation assist templates for the combinations of the source applications, the target applications, and the new colocation or said network interconnection products forms a library that stores product structures and rules for multiple product transformations that can automate a mapping process for the dynamic translations and the dynamic transformations occurring between the first source application and the first target application in order to allow both said applications to communicate and integrate with each other.

4. The transformation engine of claim 1 , where the transformation engine is further configured to supply the two or more translation assist templates to the cache in order to translate the commands and the data structures to a simplified flat hierarchical structure required by the first target application, and where the cache stores all the two or more translation assist templates for product-target and application-source application combinations, and where the two or more translation assist templates are used by the integration services middleware software layer to translate an incoming command or a data message that has a complex, hierarchical, product structure form and format from the first source application over to a simplified flat format that the first target application understands.

5. The transformation engine of claim 2 , where the database contains two or more tables that can be referenced by the rules engine module, including a master table that contains information regarding the first source application and first target application interfaces along with a product identifier, and an attribute table that contains the information regarding the first source application's and corresponding target application's attributes along with a level at which they occur as well as a direction with respect to the first source application.

6. The transformation engine of claim 2 , further comprising:
a first module in the transformation engine configured to trigger a request to the software language transformation engine when the updating of the configuration information loaded into the database occurs, wherein when the software language transformation engine receives the request that the configuration information for either the new colocation or network interconnection product or an update to the existing colocation or network interconnection product has been loaded into the database, the first module is configured to cause the software language transformation engine to process the grammar and format of the new product or the updated product.

7. The transformation engine of claim 6 , where the software language transformation engine reads the grammar of the first source application and sends the grammar along with metadata indicating the first source application and the first target application to the rules engine module, which reads multiple tables each with their own category of information such as variable attributes or conditional attributes, and gets structured detailed variables, and then reads product information and communicates the variable attributes, the conditional attributes, and the structured detailed variables to the XPath builder module that then creates an XPath expression to be used to create the new translation assist template.

8. The transformation engine of claim 2 , where the software language translation engine in the network transformation engine is configured to generate the new translation assist template based on a latest configuration information in a set of tables stored in the database, where the software language transformation engine is configured to understand the grammar and the structure of the configuration data expressed in a first software application's format as well as unders

Assignees

• Equinix Inc

Inventors

• Gundugola Prabhakar
• Doraiswamy Vijaay
• Jeyapaul Jaganathan
• Lillie Brian James

Classifications

• H04L41/0806

  for initial configuration or provisioning, e.g. plug-and-play · CPC title

• H04L41/0843

  based on generic templates · CPC title

• H04L41/145 Primary

  involving simulating, designing, planning or modelling of a network · CPC title