Method and apparatus for creating an adaptive application

Abstract

An Adaptive Software Application consists of several types of modules, called Adaptive Units, which are highly parameterized such that they can adapt to varying business requirements by virtue of externally provided parameters. An Adaptive Application is assembled through repeated use of various combinations of different types of Adaptive Units. Large and complex business systems can be rapidly implemented through this approach. An Adaptive Unit includes an interface component that can present information to and accept information from the outside world (such as a web page or a system interface), a processing logic component that can manipulate and evaluate information based on received parameters received (such as comparisons and decisions as in the case of data dependency decisions), and a data persistence logic component that retrieves, adds, updates, and deletes data targeting one or more Occurrence Databases. All three components of an Adaptive Unit are parameter driven. These parameters are not specific to any particular business. One embodiment for providing parameters to these components includes a Definition Database. There may be one or more Occurrence Databases depending on the number of business processes supported by the business application for which the Adaptive Application is being adapted. The Occurrence Database includes generic (also referred to as meta model driven) tables that are not specific to any particular business.

Description

STATEMENT OF RELATED APPLICATIONS [0001] This application is a divisional application and claims the benefit of priority of copending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10 / 173,145, filed Jun. 17, 2002, entitled “Method and Apparatus For Creating An Adaptive Application,” which is incorporated herein by reference. This application is also related to co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. ______ (attorney docket number 1013 / 1 D2), also entitled “Method and Apparatus For Creating An Adaptive Application,” which is filed on even date herewith and incorporated by reference herein.FIELD OF THE INVENTION [0002] The present invention relates generally to methods and apparatuses for developing software, and more particularly to a method and apparatus for developing software for business solutions in a rapid manner. COPYRIGHT NOTICE [0003] A portion of the disclosure of this patent document contains material that may be subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has no objection ...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0017] The Adaptive Application disclosed herein accelerates business software implementation, reduces the cost of system development and system evolution, improves overall system quality and usability, enables a business to take advantage of previously unapproachable niche product opportunities, and mitigates project risks associated with large systems initiatives.

[0018] While the Adaptive Application invention can be employed for many types of business applications, an exemplary embodiment of an apparatus can be used for creating, managing and administering insurance policies, which is referred to as PolicyWriter. This embodiment can be programmed in Java and HTML code. The system is highly portable and can utilize any JDBC compliant data base management system (e.g., DB2, Oracle, Sybase, MS SQL Server). The embodiment includes an XML oriented database architecture making it readily able to provide enterprise application integration with other systems and communicate externally with other business partners.

[0019] According to one aspect of the present invention, embodiments herein utilize software templates that make it possible to reuse all of the business logic without limiting the ability to customize these templates as needed. This represents a major leap to what is currently available in the marketplace.

[0020] The embodiment is a comprehensive policy administration system that offers unprecedented speed, flexibility, and functionality at an attractive price. It enables a significant reduction in planned costs, time, and resources.

Problems solved by technology

To date, software applications for businesses have required significant development time and once built cannot be easily modified to adapt to changes in business needs.

Given the length of the development cycle vis-à-vis the length of the business cycle, this almost always leads to software systems that are outdated the moment they are completed.

These large software systems took years to implement and are not flexible enough to evolve with the business.

As a result, most insurance companies today have out-of-date and inflexible systems and are confronted with excessive costs and delays in introducing new technologies and maintaining legacy systems.

For example, the cost of handling year 2000 issues in the insurance industry was exorbitant.

An insurance executive who decides to address these issues and surveys similar projects recently undertaken by other insurance companies will find an inadequate value proposition.

In addition, the project has a very high risk of failure.

Most projects far exceed the planned cost and time.

Those that are implemented often lack the functionality and flexibility initially envisioned, resulting in yet another “legacy” system.

In reality, considerable programming effort is required to implement component-based systems to coordinate the functionality of all the components.

Therefore, by itself componentized software is not a solution to the above problem.

However, the use of this approach introduces a large overhead and imposes certain restrictions that are idiosyncratic to each code synthesizer.

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