Model-Driven Business Application Development Using Layered Meta-Models
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Current methods for developing database-intensive business applications are computationally costly and time-consuming, especially when creating applications for different enterprises within the same business domain, leading to maintenance and evolution problems due to specification redundancy and lack of adaptability across varying dimensions like functionality, business process, design decisions, architecture, and technology platforms.
Innovation Solution
A computationally efficient system using model-driven techniques that defines database-intensive business application specifications as a single family with well-defined commonality and variability, decomposing them into GUI, application, and database layers, creating meta-models for each layer, integrating them into a unified meta-model, and generating implementation across multiple technology platforms, supporting configuration at design, installation, and runtime stages.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If traditional methods are used to develop database-intensive business applications for different enterprises, then each application can be customized to specific enterprise needs, but the development process becomes computationally costly and time-consuming due to specification redundancy
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the business application development into distinct layers (GUI layer, application layer, database layer) with separate meta-models for each. This segmentation allows independent modeling and generation of each layer, reducing the computational overhead of developing complete applications from scratch for each enterprise while maintaining the ability to customize enterprise-specific requirements through selective configuration of layered components.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent creates a universal framework with core meta-models that can serve multiple enterprises within the same business domain. The unified meta-model integrates commonality across enterprises, enabling a single framework to generate applications for different enterprises by configuring specific variants rather than developing separate applications, thus reducing development time and computational costs.
2Reliability
If traditional development approaches are used, then applications can be built with full functionality, but maintenance and evolution become problematic due to specification redundancy across multiple applications
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a new dimension of organization by moving from application-centric development to a meta-model-centric approach. Instead of maintaining separate specifications for each application, the system maintains a unified meta-model that defines the structure and behavior across all applications. This dimensional shift enables centralized maintenance and evolution of the meta-model, which automatically propagates to all generated applications, significantly easing maintenance and evolution while preserving full functionality.
3Productivity
If a unified approach is used to reduce development costs, then computational efficiency improves, but the system must handle complex variability across multiple dimensions (functionality, business process, design decisions, architecture, technology platform)
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the complexity management into layered meta-models, each handling specific aspects of the system (GUI, application logic, database). This segmentation allows the system to manage complex variability across multiple dimensions by addressing each dimension at the appropriate layer, improving productivity while controlling system complexity through structured organization.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces a unified meta-model as an intermediary between the variability requirements and the generated applications. This intermediary captures and manages the complex variability across functionality, business process, design decisions, architecture, and technology platform dimensions, transforming it into a structured form that can be efficiently processed to generate customized applications, thereby improving productivity without overwhelming system complexity.
4Adaptability or versatility
If applications are developed without a standardized framework, then each application can be uniquely tailored, but configurability and extensibility are limited
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements a dynamic framework where the unified meta-model can be configured at runtime to adapt to different enterprise requirements. The system allows dynamic instantiation of applications from the meta-model, enabling configurability and extensibility without requiring a complex static framework structure. This dynamic approach maintains high customization capability while keeping the framework structure manageable through parameterized configurations rather than hard-coded complexity.
Data Source
AI summary
The present invention provides a computationally efficient system for developing configurable, extensible business application product lines using model-driven techniques. The invention enables to create a common business application with a set of pre-defined variants, selection of a suitable variant from the pre-defined set, and composition of the common application with the selected variant into a purpose-specific business application and also provides for modeling of commonality and variability thus leading to a single specification. The invention provides model-based solution to address extensibility and configurability of both structural and behavioral aspects in a functionality dimension of database intensive business application and it supports configuration process at three different stages of application development (i.e. design time, installation time and run time) of database intensive business application. The invention reduces the cost as well as computational time for creating new business applications, and leads to effective maintenance and smooth evolution.