Semantic Functional Wrappers for Legacy System Porting

Resolve Bottlenecks,
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions

Solution Overview

Problem

The process of updating businesses to adapt to new technology and work patterns is costly and risky due to the challenges of porting legacy software systems to new computing architectures without inadvertently changing the underlying business process.

Innovation Solution

The use of semantic functional wrappers, which capture business logic as invocable functions and map semantic intents to series of user interface interactions, allowing legacy systems to be ported to new architectures while preserving business processes.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Adaptability or versatility

If legacy software is ported to new computing architectures, then adaptability to new technology is improved, but reliability of business logic is worsened due to potential porting errors

Engineering Contradiction:

Improveadaptability to new computing architecturesVSAvoidreliability of business logic

Core Design Contradiction:

Adaptability or versatilityVSReliability

Solution Approach 1:

The patent introduces semantic wrappers as an intermediary layer between the user interface and the legacy application logic. These wrappers capture the semantics of user interactions and translate them into appropriate actions, allowing the legacy system to be accessed through modern interfaces without modifying the core business logic. This mediator approach enables adaptation to new computing architectures while preserving the reliability of existing business processes.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #24Intermediary (Mediator)

Solution Approach 2:

The patent segments the legacy application into distinct functional components wrapped by semantic wrappers. Each wrapper encapsulates specific user interface interactions and their corresponding business logic, allowing independent verification and testing of each segment. This segmentation enables gradual migration and reduces the risk of introducing errors during the porting process.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #1Segmentation

2Adaptability or versatility

If legacy software is ported to new computing architectures, then adaptability is improved, but cost of porting is worsened due to expensive and risky porting processes

Engineering Contradiction:

Improveadaptability to new computing architecturesVSAvoidease of porting

Core Design Contradiction:

Adaptability or versatilityVSEase of manufacture

Solution Approach 1:

The patent creates semantic copies of user interface interactions that capture the essential semantics without requiring a complete rewrite of the legacy application. These semantic wrappers serve as lightweight copies that interface with modern systems while the original legacy application remains unchanged, significantly reducing porting costs and risks.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #26Copying

Solution Approach 2:

The patent performs preliminary analysis and semantic modeling of user interactions before implementing the porting solution. By capturing the semantics of user actions in advance and creating a formal model of the application's behavior, the porting process becomes more systematic and less costly, as the core business logic is understood and preserved before any technical migration occurs.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #10Preliminary action

3Productivity

If business processes are automated with computer programs, then productivity is improved, but adaptability to changing computing paradigms is worsened as systems become tied to specific architectures

Engineering Contradiction:

Improveproductivity through automationVSAvoidadaptability to computing paradigm changes

Core Design Contradiction:

ProductivityVSAdaptability or versatility

Solution Approach 1:

The patent introduces a new dimensional layer of semantic abstraction between the user interface and the automated business logic. This semantic dimension allows the automated system to be accessed and controlled through multiple different interfaces and computing paradigms without changing the core automation logic, thereby maintaining productivity while improving adaptability.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #17Another dimension (Dimensionality change)

Data Source

PatentUS12314714B2Semantic functional wrappers of services

Publication Date: 2025.05.27 SNOWFLAKE INC

AI summary

Functional wrappers are scripts and related software that provide a way to group and invoke functionality comprising semantic intent in a legacy application. These functional wrappers allow programmatic access to functionality in legacy applications in contemporary software architectures without risk of porting errors. Additional functionality to provide features with presently expected, but not available at the time the legacy applications were developed, such as functional wrappers to provide parallelism and scaling, are disclosed. Finally, automatic generation of the functional wrappers are also disclosed.