KR20080069409A - Rfid business event framework for applying of rfid applications in various platforms - Google Patents

Abstract

An RFID(Radio Frequency IDentification) business event framework for supporting various heterogeneous RFID applications is provided to offer efficient troubleshooting ability, efficient management function, and an effective RFID application development environment by defining an application manager for supporting the applications developed in the heterogeneous platforms and business event spec for RFID developers. An application manager block(700) performs a function for receiving a subscribe request from an application, recognizing destination information, and transferring a current event to the final destination, and manages lots of application instances at the same time to manage lots of applications. A business event core block(730) generates a business event corresponding to a business rule by using an ECReport and reference data. An event queue manager block(720) transfers the event received from an event queue through the application manager block to the instance. A business event framework manager block(710) manages connection between the application instance and the queue, and measures load of the application instance and the queue.

Description

RFID Business Event Framework for supporting various heterogeneous RDF applications

1 is a block diagram of an EPC network presented by EPCGlobal

2 is a block diagram of a BEA integrated RFID system

3 is a block diagram of an RFID middleware platform for supporting various applications according to the present invention

4 is a configuration diagram of an RFID business event framework for supporting various heterogeneous RFID applications according to the present invention.

5 is a block diagram showing the relationship between activities of the RFID business wear language according to the present invention.

6A-6G are schematic diagrams illustrating DTDs of activities of an RFID business wear language according to the present invention.

7 is a detailed configuration diagram of the RFID business event framework according to the present invention

8 is a block diagram of an application manager package of the BEF according to the present invention

9 is a block diagram of a business event core block package of a BEF according to the present invention

10 is a block diagram of an event queue manager package of a BEF according to the present invention;

11 is a block diagram of an external access block package of the BEF according to the present invention.

12 is a block diagram of a BEF business event framework manager package according to the present invention

13A to 13L are screen configuration diagrams at each step of the RFID business case tool according to the present invention.

14A and 14B are a layout diagram and a product shipment sequence diagram applying the RFID business event framework according to the present invention.

* Description of the symbols for the main parts of the drawings *

700. Application Manager Block

710. Business event framework manager block

720. Event Queue Manager Block

730. Business Event Core Blocks

740. External access block

The present invention relates to a Radio Frequency IDentification (RFID) system, and specifically, to an application manager (AppManager) and an RFID related technology for supporting applications developed on various heterogeneous platforms, a business event specification (BESpec) for developers. The present invention relates to an RFID business event framework for supporting a variety of heterogeneous RFID applications that enables various supports for the introduction of an RFID system.

RFID is a method of recognizing a corresponding object by using a tag that responds to a radio signal.

RFID tags are distinguished in terms of recognition distance, data size, and the like. For example, RFID can recognize several at once from a long distance to send and receive radio signals, can recognize individual products, and tag additional information.

In addition, the characteristics of RFID events are generated quickly in a short time, and each generated RFID event form is simple, but the total data size of the events is very large. Therefore, RFID middleware systems that handle RFID events with this feature have recently been developed by several Grobal software companies such as Sun, IBM, and Oracle.

As a result, many additional systems that can be used in the RFID environment have been developed, but the existing RFID system still has a complex knowledge of various knowledge about RFID and communication methods in order to process business events of the corresponding application.

In addition, there are difficulties in supporting the development of heterogeneous applications. To develop RFID applications, developers also need to learn how to use the ALE interface, as well as interfaces provided by supporting systems such as Electronic Product Code Information Service (EPCIS) and Object Name Service (ONS). In addition, various protocols must be used for communication with the system.

Hereinafter, an EPC network and an integrated RFID system of a general RFID system will be described with reference to the accompanying drawings.

1 is a configuration diagram of an EPC network presented by EPCGlobal, and FIG. 2 is a configuration diagram of an integrated RFID system of BEA.

The current standard of RFID middleware is based on EPC Network Architecture proposed by EPCGlobal.

The architecture of FIG. 1 has changed from a middleware called Servant to a new structure with ALE Engine as the center. In the current architecture, the ALE Engine exists as middleware and applications are connected on top of this middleware.

In addition, there are external systems such as EPCIS, which provides detailed information about the product, and ONS, which indicates the location of EPCIS where detailed information related to a specific electronic product code (EPC) is stored, and the application communicates with these systems. .

As such, EPCglobal's architecture requires applications to exchange information with various systems. This complicates the application, increasing development costs and time, making it difficult to use RFID technology. For this reason, there is a need for a study on how to use RFID events in an application conveniently and effectively.

In addition, there is a great deal of interest in architecture through the use of RFID.

FIG. 2 is a solution developed by a representative BEA company of such an integrated RFID system, and it is possible to build and manage a large-scale RFID infrastructure in several regions.

BEA solutions provide centralized EPC management for centralized EPC event management, data integration between facilities, and distributed tagging tasks. However, there is still a lack of consideration for the real application developers involved between RFID Enterprise and Edge. In addition, research is needed to support business events for applications developed on heterogeneous platforms.

In other words, in a RFID environment, a large amount of tag data is collected and continuously comes in continuously. An RFID application must classify necessary information from such data and process it efficiently in real time. RFID middlewares are being developed to efficiently handle large quantities of RFID events occurring in a short time.

However, since the value of RFID events coming out of RFID middleware is still just a tag value, RFID applications must take these values and convert them into meaningful values in their applications. To this end, it is necessary to analyze RFID events and communicate with external information servers such as EPC Information Service (EPCIS) and Object Name Service (ONS) for each tag value to get the corresponding property values.

RFID application developers need to know all of the interfaces to multiple external systems for this processing, as well as their knowledge of communication protocols and programming for multithreaded processing.

Therefore, there is a problem that the RFID technology of the prior art does not provide an effective RFID application development environment.

The present invention is to solve such problems and to provide an efficient problem coping capability and management function and an effective RFID application development environment required by the RFID system, various heterogeneous RFID to enable a variety of support for the introduction of the RFID system Its purpose is to provide an RFID business event framework for supporting applications.

The present invention provides a variety of heterogeneous RFID applications by defining a Business Event Spec (BESpec) for an application manager (AppManager) and RFID related technology for supporting applications developed on various heterogeneous platforms. Its purpose is to provide an RFID business event framework for support.

An object of the present invention is to provide an RFID business event framework for supporting various heterogeneous RFID applications having an integrated interface technology for simultaneously supporting various heterogeneous applications and an ALE event collection and management technique for supporting various applications.

According to the present invention, an RFID business event framework for supporting various heterogeneous RFID applications according to the present invention is configured between an application layer and an RFID middleware layer. After receiving a subscribe request from an application, it is responsible for recognizing information from the destination and delivering the current events to the final destination, and managing multiple application instances simultaneously to manage multiple applications. Defining an RFID business event that can be utilized by an RFID application by incorporating (AppManager) and combining the RFID event delivered through the RFID middleware layer by the RFID Business Aware Language with reference data and business rules. It characterized.

RFID business event framework for supporting various heterogeneous RFID applications according to the present invention for achieving another object is an RFID business event framework configured between the application layer (RFID middleware layer), After receiving a subscribe request from an application, the application manager block (AppManager) manages multiple application instances at the same time to recognize the information from the destination and deliver the current event to the final destination. A business event core block (BizCore) that performs the process of generating a business event that conforms to business rules using ECReport and reference data; instantiates the event received from the event queue through the application manager block. An event queue manager block (EventManager) that performs the function of delivering; a business event framework manager block that manages the connection of the application instance and the queue, and measures the load of the application instance and the queue; RFID Businessware Language By combining the RFID event received through the RFID middleware layer with the reference data and business rules, it defines an RFID business event that can be utilized by the RFID application.

Hereinafter, a preferred embodiment of an RFID business event framework for supporting various heterogeneous RFID applications according to the present invention will be described in detail.

Features and advantages of the RFID business event framework for supporting various heterogeneous RFID applications according to the present invention will become apparent from the detailed description of each embodiment below.

3 is a block diagram of an RFID middleware platform for supporting various applications according to the present invention.

4 is a configuration diagram of an RFID business event framework for supporting various heterogeneous RFID applications according to the present invention.

The present invention proposes a method for supporting RFID application development on heterogeneous and diverse platforms.

To this end, we define business events that can be used directly in business logic, unlike previous RFID events. Business events, unlike RFID events, have a meaning that is immediately known in the application.

It presents a business event framework for creating and passing business events. In this case, you provide a business event specification as a way to define the business event that you want. In addition, the application manager is defined as a way to support RFID applications on various heterogeneous platforms.

Therefore, developers can develop RFID applications by using the business event framework to deliver only the business events needed to execute business logic.

The present invention provides a business event framework that supports business events for RFID applications run or developed on heterogeneous platforms, and provides an interface for supporting various ALE engines and supports application developers to acquire minimum RFID related technologies. Suggest.

In the RFID middleware platform for supporting various applications according to the present invention, as shown in FIG. 3, an RFID business event framework between an application layer 60 and an RFID middleware layer 40 is provided. Event framework (50) is configured, and various reference data supplied from an external information server as well as low-level RFID events received from the reader layer 30 through an RFID middleware layer 40. By combining and processing together to create a richer, higher-level RFID business event.

The RFID Business Event Framework 50 according to the present invention supports an RFID application that operates based on various platforms such as .NET and J2EE, as shown in FIG.

It begins by receiving BESpec for business event registration from heterogeneous platform-based applications above the RFID business event framework.

This BESpec defines which readers will receive RFID events, when they will receive RFID events, or what processing will be done using these received RFID events.

The generated ECSpec is passed to ALE Engine to collect data from the reader. And it analyzes ECReport received from ALE Engine and processes according to data.

Apply BEReport to the application by applying business data and reference data such as ONS, EPCIS, EPCIS DS.

Such a business event framework is largely composed of an application manager (Apps Management), a business event core (Biz Event Core), an event queue manager (Event Queue Manager), a BEF manager (Monitoring & Management).

As described above, the present invention enables to generate a richer high-level business event by combining and processing various reference data supplied from an external information server as well as an RFID event through an RFID business event framework.

And to reduce the maintenance costs of applications and the time to develop RFID applications, an effective environment for developing RFID applications without requiring deep knowledge and dependence on RFID technology is required.

According to the present invention, an application developer can more conveniently define various processes previously written in code using the RFID Business-Aware Language (RFID BizAL) according to the present invention.

Defined business events are processed through the RFID Business Aware Framework, allowing developers to develop applications using only the information required for the application from the middleware.

As such, RFID Business-Aware Language (RFID BizAL), RFID Business Event Framework, RFID Business Case Tool (RFID) constituting a middleware platform for supporting RFID applications according to the present invention. Business Case Tool (RFID BizCT) can provide an effective RFID application development environment.

A detailed technical configuration of the RFID business event framework according to the present invention will be described later with reference to FIGS. 7 to 12, and first, an RFID Business-Aware Language (RFID BizAL) will be described.

5 is a block diagram showing the relationship between the activities of the RFID business wear language according to the present invention, Figures 6a to 6g is a block diagram showing the DTD of activities of the RFID business wear language according to the present invention.

The RFID Business-Aware Language (RFID BizAL) according to the present invention is composed of a variable part and an activity part defining a process.

In the variable part, a variable used in event-related data delivery or intermediate processing is defined. In addition to the general type, the variable supports a unique RFID type.

In the Activity section, you define detailed activities for generating an RFID business event from an RFID event.

First, the variable part of the RFID business wear language will be described.

When the tag information is read, it goes through several processes according to the Business Event Specification (BESpec) to define the business event already defined.

Each process is performed independently and uses variables as parameters to pass the necessary information between each process. In each process, the results are stored in variables or used as inputs.

Variables support not only general types such as int but also types specific to RFID system, which increases the ease of use of BESpec. For example, the ALE engine provides a data type, such as a tag list, that can store tag lists that are passed during an event cycle at one time, making it easier to read and write in a BESpec.

Variables in the RFID business wear language classify basic types, RFID-specific types, and list types.

First, basic types support data types that are supported by general programming languages. These data types are used for calculations, or for data storage during conditional processing or final event generation. Supported data types are int and string types, and operations between data types are handled differently by type.

In addition, the RFID specialized type is a unique type used only for an RFID system, and in an RFID system, there are uniquely used data such as EPC, Tag, RawHex, and RawDecimal. Improves readability and ease of use.

EPC may use the entire code, or only some of the code. To support these features, the EPC data type also provides a way to refer to the entire code and to use internal sub-elements.

Developers can easily define BESpecs by using EPC data types directly or by using a partial approach as needed. For example, if you want to know the production date for an individual product, you can use the variable directly because you need the whole EPC. If you want to know the name, specification, etc. of a specific product type, you only need the class code of the EPC. You can easily access parts of your code using methods like .class'.

And because the list type is due to the nature of RFID, several tags in the range are read at once and transferred to the list when reading the tag information using the reader. It is for convenience of data processing depending on the characteristics.

This list type is used in the extended form for all defined basic types and RFID-specific types. If you set the list option when declaring another type, a list of that type can be created and used.

This section describes the activities of the RFID Business Aware Language.

In order to generate business events, ALE needs to read information from the leader and exchange information with EPCIS or ONS. These actions can be performed independently without interfering with each other, and the present invention defines an activity as follows to define this independent process.

Activities basically define the interaction with ALE, EPCIS or ONS. In addition to defining interactions with external systems, there are additional activities for defining internal processing and event delivery.

Place these activities in a sequence of processing steps to generate business events.

Table 1 shows the types of activities related to the occurrence of RFID business wear language events. Of course, there are also activities of tasks that need to be performed as a result of event occurrences.

Kinds name Explanation Primitive ALE Get information about tags from ALE Primitive EPCIS Get detailed information about EPC Primitive ONS Obtain the address of the EPCIS that stores detailed information about the EPC Contain List Iteration over the list type Contain Event Generate events based on conditions Primitive Compute Arithmetic Operations Processing Primitive Terminate Stop process processing

Activities are divided into activities that can have different activities inside and activities that cannot have primitive activities.

For example, as shown in FIG. 5, the list activity may include other activities such as a compute activity or an EPCIS activity.

The activity part of the RFID business wear language will be described in detail.

6A to 6G are diagrams illustrating DTDs of activities of an RFID business wear language according to the present invention.

First, ALE activities define the communication with the ALE engine. The ALE engine provides an ECSpec so that applications can register the necessary events, and generates and delivers an ECReport as a result of the registered ECSpec.

ALE activities define which ECSpecs to create and register in the ALE engine and how to handle the resulting ECReport. The ECSpec consists of a list of readers to read tag information therein, a boundary that sets a time to read a tag, and a reportSpec to set which tag to read. The overall configuration of the ECSpec is as shown in FIG. 6A.

The definition of ECSpec is to define the needs of developers, so BESpec is provided without any omission so that the function can be directly controlled. However, some minor changes can be made to make minor modifications for convenience and result handling, and the rest are set by the developer.

And when ECReport comes over as a result of ECSpec, it expands the output part to handle this. Each group sets the data to be included in the report. This result can be set in a list type variable. In the following activities, you can use the data set in this variable to check the data in ECReport.

The detailed syntax follows the standard document for EPCglobal's ALE interface and the extended part is as in FIG. 6B which shows the DTD of the ALE activity.

Second, the EPCIS activity stores detailed information of products corresponding to the EPC. The EPCIS provides an interface for making this information available to other systems.

BEF generates and delivers business events, which may require getting detailed information about the code read from the tag. However, the saving process after processing is done after executing business logic. Therefore, among the functions provided by EPCIS, only functions related to inquiry are available without supporting functions related to saving or modifying.

In addition, EPC and EPC classes can be used to generate events, so they are supported. Accordingly, the EPCIS activity provides the interface shown in Table 2 and the DTD for the XML grammar of the EPCIS activity is as shown in FIG. 6C.

Operation Explanation getAttributeDataEPC Query attribute information for EPC getSchemasOfEPC Query schema information for EPCdp getAttributeDataOfEPCClassCode Query attribute information for EPC Class getSchemasOfEPCClassCode Query schema information for EPC Class

Third, ONS (Object Name Service) is a system that informs which EPC Information Service (EPCIS) the detailed information of the product corresponding to the EPC, the interface provided by ONS is shown in Table 3.

 In the ONS activity, only the search for the address of the EPCIS in which the detailed information of the product corresponding to the event is stored is required. Therefore, only searchEPCIS is provided in the definition, and the defined XML grammar is expressed in the DTD as shown in FIG. 6D.

Operation Explanation serchEPCIS Returns the address of the EPCIS containing the EPC information. insertEPCIS Stores the address of the EPCIS containing the EPC information. deleteEPCIS Delete the address of the EPCIS that contains the EPC information.

Fourth, the List activity is provided to perform the following tasks.

Due to the characteristics of the RFID system, the results read from the reader are transferred to the list. To facilitate the processing of the list, BEF provides a list type.

However, there may be times when you need to perform individual operations on data stored in lists. In this case, the List activity is provided to allow different processing for each item stored in the list.

The List activity receives as input a variable of type List, which contains a list of other activities. In execution, the operation is repeated as many times as the data set in the input List variable.

The DTD for the XML grammar of the List activity is as in FIG. 6E.

The List activity starts with the list tag and has two variables as attributes.

In source, a variable of type list is defined and processed as many times as there are data in the variable. In assign, a specific value is assigned among list-type data and can be used in internal activities. Inside, you can define other activities.

Fifth, the Compute activity must process received RFID events to generate business events, in which case arithmetic or logic processing is required to support these processing tasks.

Compute activities enable arithmetic and logic operations between variables that are supported by common programming languages. These operations allow developers to define the intermediate processing required to generate business events.

The DTD for the XML grammar of the Compute activity is as in FIG. 6F.

Sixth, Event activity defines event creation according to condition.

Event activities are divided into three parts according to the general event format. The first part is a condition statement. The condition statement determines whether or not to raise the corresponding event by using a formula and executes the corresponding event activity only when the condition is satisfied.

The second part of the Event activity is the action statement. The action statement defines the additional processing required to generate an event. For example, when a reader is installed in a doorway and a person opens and closes the door, only the authorized user needs to know the name of the tag that is read by the door reader only if he or she is authenticated. do. For this case, other activities can be used in the action clause.

And finally, the third part is the generate statement. The generate statement actually generates the event. The generated event is delivered to the application according to the defined protocol. In addition to the event name, the event also includes data related to the event so that the application can use it. The DTD for the XML grammar of the Event activity is as in FIG. 6G.

Hereinafter, a detailed technical configuration of the RFID business event framework according to the present invention will be described.

7 is a detailed block diagram of an RFID business event framework according to the present invention.

BESpec described in the present invention is a specification for generating the final event desired by the application developer. Several elements are predefined in this specification, allowing application developers to use these elements to achieve the desired results.

BESpec is in XML format for ease of writing and future extensibility. The grammar for each element is defined in XML format so that users can easily create BESpecs using tags for each activity.

According to the present invention, the RFID business event framework receives a BESpec and receives a subscribe request from an application, as shown in FIG. 7, and recognizes information from a destination and delivers a current event to a final destination. In order to manage multiple applications, the application manager block (AppManager P) 700, which manages multiple application instances at the same time, takes the function of receiving XMLl files and converting them into internal objects that can be processed. Business event core block (BizCore P) 730 and the application manager block 700 to perform the process of generating business events that conform to business rules using ECReport and reference data. Forward events received from An event queue manager block (EventManager P) 720 that performs functions and monitors the real-time information of the internal event flow and load of the business event framework. Business event framework manager block (BizAFManager P) 710 for measuring the load of the server and external access including EPCIS connectors, ONS connectors, and EPCIS DS connectors to perform and receive EPCIS URL requests and EPC information requests. It includes and is configured a block (ExternalAccessor P).

Here, the business event core block 730 is a conceptual part, and is composed of elements that can be referred to as activities in a language and agents in a framework according to areas. Specific types include ALE, EPCIS, EPCIS DS, and events.

In addition, the event queue manager block (EventManager P) 720 is to secure a base for supporting multiple applications at the top and various types of ALE at the bottom, and to secure liquidity from an administrative point of view. The main function of the queue is ECReport. The receiving data structure.

The business event framework manager block (BizAFManager P) 710 is responsible for setting up and controlling internal elements of the business event framework, controlling access of administrators, restricting registration of BESpecs, and managing deployment and release of applications.

Such a detailed configuration of the RFID business event framework according to the present invention will be described.

8 is a block diagram of an application manager package of the BEF according to the present invention.

9 is a configuration diagram of a business event core block package of a BEF according to the present invention, and FIG. 10 is a configuration diagram of an event queue manager package of a BEF according to the present invention.

11 is a configuration diagram of an external access block package of a BEF according to the present invention, and FIG. 12 is a configuration diagram of a business event framework manager package of a BEF according to the present invention.

First, the configuration of the application manager package of the RFID business event framework is the same as in FIG.

First, a subscription request unit 801 and a subscription request unit 801 that receive BESpec and subscription messages for registering business events from RFID applications operating on various platforms such as .NET and J2EE are provided. Receives BESpec and subscription messages delivered through the application and is responsible for recognizing information from the destination and delivering current events to the final destination, and managing multiple application instances simultaneously to manage multiple applications. A business event publisher (BizEventPublisher) that receives a manager message (AppManager) 804, a subscription message of the application manager (AppManager) 804 and BEReport from the business event core block 730, and publishes a business event ( 803) and the business event publication (BizE) and a BEReport Notifier 802 for delivering the BEReport from ventPublisher 803 to RFID applications operating on various platforms such as .NET and J2EE.

And the configuration of the business event core package of the RFID business event framework is the same as in FIG.

First, a business event core manager (BizCoreManager) that manages a process of generating a BESpec from an application manager block 700 as an ECSpec in XML format and a process of generating a business event according to a business rule using ECReport and reference data. (900), BESpec analysis unit (BESpecParser) (901) for receiving and analyzing the BESpec through the BizCoreManager (900) and outputs trigger information and control messages, BESpec analysis unit (BESpecParser) ( A trigger timer (TriggerTimer) 902 for outputting a trigger message according to the trigger information and control message of 901, and a trigger buffer (TriggerBuffer) 904 for buffering and outputting a trigger message of the trigger timer (TriggerTimer) 902; Business events by receiving messages, trigger messages, and trigger information and control messages from the BESpec parser (BESpecParser) 901 The business event processing unit (BizProcess) 903 that outputs each processing message for the surname and the business message processing by the business event processing unit (BizProcess) 903 to process the business event generation by outputting BEReport The EPCIS processing unit (EPCISProcess) that performs the EPCIS URL request (Query EPCIS URL) and the reception for receiving the reference data by the processing messages of the event processing unit (EventProcess) 905 and the business event processing unit (BizProcess) 903. A906 processing, arithmetic processing, and the like required for generating business events by the ONS processing unit (ONSProcess) and the processing message of the business event processing unit (BizProcess) 903 and the EPC information request (Query EPC Info) and the receiving message. ALE processing unit (ALEProcess) (907), compute processing unit (ComputeProcess) (908) for performing the list processing, respectively It includes the Rosedale singbu (ListProcess) (909) and configured.

The configuration of the event queue manager package of the RFID business event framework is the same as in FIG. 10.

First, an event queue manager 1000 that delivers an event received from an event queue to an instance through an application manager block 700, and an ECSpec and a scribe message are received through an event queue manager 1000 to receive an ALE engine. The first connection (LITAleConnection) 1001 and the ECSpec and scribing message transmitted through the first connection (LITAleConnection) 1001 to perform the connection with the ECReport of the ALE engine and deliver the ECReport of the ALE engine to the event queue manager 1000. A first sender (LITALESender) 1003 for transmitting to the ALE engine, a first receiver (LITAleReceiver) 1004 for receiving an ECReport from the ALE engine and delivering it to the first connection (LITAleConnection) 1001, and an event queue manager. A second connection (CTAleConnecti) that receives the ECSpec and the scribe message through the 1000 and performs the connection with the ALE engine and delivers the ECReport of the ALE engine to the event queue manager 1000. on) 1002, a second transmission unit (CTALESender) 1005 for transmitting ECSpec and scribing messages transmitted through the second connection unit (CTAleConnection) 1002 to the ALE engine, and receiving an ECReport from the ALE engine And a first receiver (LITAleReceiver) 1006 for transmitting to the second connection (CTAleConnection) 1002.

And the configuration of the external access package of the RFID business event framework is the same as in FIG.

The external access package includes an EPCIS URL request and an EPCIS access processing unit 1102 that receives this information, an ONS access processing unit 1103 that performs an EPC information request and receives these information, and a message request of the business event core block 730. According to (Query Message), the EPC information processing unit (EPCInformation) 1101 which delivers the reference data (Info Message) received through the EPCIS access processing unit 1102 and the ONS access processing unit 1103 to the business event core block 730. Included and configured.

The configuration of the business event framework manager package of the RFID business event framework is the same as in FIG. 12.

The Business Event Framework Manager package monitors the real-time information of the internal event flow and load of the Business Event Framework. The Business Event Framework Manager package includes a Business Event Framework Server (BizAFServer) 1202 that outputs control messages for application management and queue monitoring. And an application manager monitor 1201 that receives a status message from the application manager block 700 and passes control messages from the business event framework server (BizAFServer) 1202 to the application manager block 700. A queue monitor 1203 that receives a status message from the event queue manager block 720 and forwards a control message from the business event framework server (BizAFServer) 1202 to the event queue manager block 720. It consists of.

Hereinafter, an RFID business case tool (RFID BizCT) for supporting an easy modeling of RFID business events and RFID business tasks required by the RFID application application will be described in detail.

13A to 13L are screen configuration diagrams at each step of the RFID business case tool according to the present invention.

RFID Business Case Tool (RFID BizCT) applied to the present invention is a tool for easily modeling RFID business events and RFID business tasks, and has a visual environment that supports convenient modeling and input of various attributes. .

The RFID Business Case Tool is a tool that defines the activities expressed in the Business Aware Language (RFID BizCT) in GUI format.The Navigator, MainView, ActivityView, and ActivityView It has windows like PropertyView and MessageView.

First, the File window of the Navigator displays the information of the files in each folder on the user's computer. You can see the files of the BE Spec in each folder. And the Model window shows the activities that make up the BE Spec.

The user can drag the activity represented in the model window and drop it in the main view.

And the main view shows BE Spec in the form of XML or in the form of GUI and can be edited in each form.

And Activity View shows the list of available activities and tasks. You can create BE Spec by dragging each activity and placing it in Diagram View of MainView.

Property view expresses detailed property value of each activity, and message view expresses error message and notification message.

Screen configuration and characteristics of each step of the RFID Business Case Tool (RFID BizCT) will be described.

First, FIG. 13A illustrates an initial screen of an application executed, and displays windows such as a navigator, a main view, an activity view, a property view, a property view, and a message view. do.

13B illustrates a process of registering, modifying, and deleting a reader. When a reader list dialog is displayed and a register is selected, a register reader dialog is displayed. Enter the name of the reader you wish to register, press OK, and press OK in the leader list to complete the registration. To modify and delete, select the leader from the leader list and perform the same.

13C illustrates a process of creating a new file. When New is selected from the File menu, a screen for generating a new file is displayed in the main view.

13D illustrates a process of adding, modifying, and deleting a variable. When the document icon of the main view is clicked, the Variables dialog window appears. If you press the Add button to add a variable, the AddVariable dialog window appears. After inputting the property of the variable to add, press OK to add the variable. When modifying or deleting a variable, you can modify or delete it by selecting the variable from the table in the Variables dialog window.

FIG. 13E illustrates a process of creating an activity, moving an activity, and deleting an activity. Dragging an activity of an activity view with a mouse and dragging the activity from the diagram view window of the main view to "Drop Activity Here" When placed in a written location, the activity is created and added to the BE Spec.

You can move an activity by clicking on it and dropping it in a different location. Clicking on an activity and pressing the Delete key deletes the selected activity.

Then drag a task activity and drop it on the event activity, which adds the task to the event activity.

13F to 13J illustrate a process of setting activity properties.

First, FIG. 13F illustrates an ALE attribute input process. When the ALE diagram of the MainView is double-clicked with a mouse, an ALE dialog appears and LogicalReaders, BoundarySpecs, and ReportSpecs can be set.

13G illustrates an event property setting process. When a user double-clicks an event diagram of the main view with a mouse, an event dialog appears and conditions and generate can be set.

13H illustrates List property setting. When the user double-clicks the list diagram of the main view with the mouse, the following list dialog appears and the attribute can be set.

13I illustrates an EPCIS property setting process. When the EPCIS diagram of the main view is double-clicked with a mouse, the following EPCIS dialog appears and the expression can be set.

13J illustrates a mail task property setting process. When the mail task diagram is double-clicked with a mouse, the MailTask dialog box shown below appears and each property value can be set.

13K illustrates an activity copying process. If a user drags an activity to copy from the model view of the Navigator window and places it in a copy position of the main view, the corresponding activity is copied, and the attribute values of the activity are also copied.

13L illustrates a view / source conversion process. When an activity is added to a diagram view of a main view and a value is set, pressing the Source tab generates a corresponding BESpec. You can also add, modify, or delete activities in the Source pane, set new values, and click the Diagram View tab to create a modified diagram.

The product incoming and outgoing sequence applying the RFID business event framework according to the present invention described above is as follows.

14A and 14B are a layout diagram and a product shipment sequence diagram applying the RFID business event framework according to the present invention.

14A is an application for displaying product information on a console when a product is received in and out of a warehouse, and the inventory monitoring service implementing a warehouse monitoring application and a service for providing an inventory of a product on the web to the warehouse through a business event framework. The structure applied to the RFID system environment is shown.

The diagram of FIG. 14A illustrates RFID event management using queues, which is a key feature of the business event framework, and supports various interfaces to various types of ALE Engines and heterogeneous development platforms.

And it shows the structure including communication and interface of heterogeneous applications and ALE Engine running on business event framework. The higher level applications are warehouse monitoring applications developed on the J2EE platform and inventory services developed on the .Net platform.

14B is a diagram showing interactions with events that occur in the process of entering and leaving the product.

In the case of product inbound and outbound products, the EPC read from the reader is input to the ALE Engine, and an ECReport is generated and delivered to the business event framework.

In addition, the business event framework generates business events using reference data and business logic in the received EPC attribute information and delivers them to the application as BEReport.

The present invention described above relates to an RFID business event framework that supports convenient development of RFID applications developed and operated on heterogeneous various platforms.

In other words, in the previous RFID system architecture proposed by EPCglobal, there are external systems such as ALE Engine, EPCIS, ONS, etc. and use the functions of these external systems when developing applications. This increases the knowledge that application developers must learn and makes development difficult.

In order to solve this problem, the present invention defines a business event that directly executes business logic, generates and delivers such a business event to an application, and implements a business event framework including an application manager for managing heterogeneous applications. Define a BESpec to define the business events you need.

Those skilled in the art will appreciate that various changes and modifications can be made without departing from the spirit of the present invention.

Therefore, the technical scope of the present invention should not be limited to the contents described in the embodiments, but should be defined by the claims.

Such an RFID business event framework for supporting various heterogeneous RFID applications according to the present invention implements the following effects.

First, the RFID business event framework is effective in providing efficient problem coping and management functions required for RFID systems and providing an effective RFID application development environment.

Second, it implements the RFID business event framework for supporting various heterogeneous RFID applications that enable various support for the introduction of the RFID system.

Third, support various heterogeneous RFID applications by defining Business Event Spec (BESpec) for application manager and AppManager and RFID related technologies to support applications developed on various heterogeneous platforms. This is possible.

Fourth, there is an effect of providing an integrated interface technology that supports heterogeneous applications at the same time and ALE event collection and management technology to support various applications.

Fifth, by implementing an RFID business event framework to support various heterogeneous RFID applications, it supports RFID application development and supports easy modeling process of RFID business events and RFID business tasks. It is effective to increase efficiency.

Sixth, application developers using ALE-based RFID middleware can design RFID data-centric application logic using RFID businessware language and RFID business event framework.

Seventh, by developing a single RFID business aware language, and based on it to describe the rules of the company used in the operation of the application as a business event, it is possible to increase the sharing or reuse of rules between different applications.

Eighth, it implements efficient RFID business event generation function using RFID event, reference data and business rules, and automatically executes related business task when predefined RFID business event occurs based on agent.

Claims (15)

An RFID business event framework configured between an application layer and an RFID middleware layer, After receiving a subscribe request from an application, the application manager block (AppManager) manages multiple application instances at the same time to recognize the information from the destination and deliver the current event to the final destination. ), RFID for supporting various heterogeneous RFID applications characterized by defining RFID business events that can be utilized by RFID applications by combining RFID events delivered through the RFID middleware layer by the RFID Business Aware language with reference data and business rules. Business event framework. An RFID business event framework configured between an application layer and an RFID middleware layer, After receiving a subscribe request from an application, the application manager block (AppManager) manages multiple application instances at the same time to recognize the information from the destination and deliver the current event to the final destination. ); A business event core block (BizCore) that performs a process of generating a business event conforming to a business rule using ECReport and reference data; An event queue manager block (EventManager) that performs a function of delivering an event received from an event queue to an instance through an application manager block; A business event framework manager block that manages the connection of the application instance and the queue, and measures the load of the application instance and the queue; RFID for supporting various heterogeneous RFID applications characterized by defining RFID business events that can be utilized by RFID applications by combining RFID events delivered through the RFID middleware layer by the RFID Business Aware language with reference data and business rules. Business event framework. The method of claim 2, wherein the business event framework manager block, RFID business event frame for supporting various heterogeneous RFID applications, which is responsible for setting up and controlling internal elements of the business event framework, controlling access of administrators, restricting registration of BESpecs, and managing deployment and release of applications. work. The method of claim 1 or 2, wherein the application manager block, Subscription request unit for receiving BESpec and subscription messages for business event registration from RFID applications operating on various platforms such as .NET and J2EE, Receives the BESpec and the subscription message delivered through the subscription request unit, and is responsible for recognizing the information from the destination and delivering the current event to the final destination, and managing multiple applications at the same time. The application manager that manages the instance, A business event issuing unit which receives a subscription message and BEReport of the application manager and issues a business event; RFID business event framework for supporting various heterogeneous RFID applications, including BEReport notification unit which delivers BEReport from business event issuer to RFID applications operating on various platforms such as .NET and J2EE. . The method of claim 1 or 2, wherein the RFID business event framework, A business event core manager that manages the process of generating BESpecs from the application manager block and creating them as XML ECSpecs, and the process of generating business events conforming to business rules using ECReport and reference data. BESpec analysis unit for receiving and analyzing BESpec through the business event core manager and outputting trigger information and control messages; A trigger timer for outputting a trigger message by the trigger information and a control message; A trigger buffer for buffering and outputting the trigger message; A business event processing unit receiving the trigger message, trigger information, and control message and outputting each processing message for generating a business event; RFID business event framework for supporting various heterogeneous RFID applications, comprising a business event core block including an event processing unit for outputting a BEReport by performing processing for generating a business event by the processing message. The method of claim 5, wherein the business event core block, An EPCIS processing unit for performing EPCIS URL request (Query EPCIS URL) and reception for receiving reference data by a processing message of the business event processing unit, and an ONS processing unit for receiving and receiving EPC information request (Query EPC Info); Various heterogeneous RFIDs further comprising an ALE processing unit, a computing processing unit, and a list processing unit, each of which performs ALE processing, arithmetic processing, and list processing required for business event generation by processing messages of the business event processing unit. RFID business event framework for application support. The method of claim 1 or 2, wherein the RFID business event framework, An event queue manager that delivers events received from the event queue to an instance through an application manager block, A first connection unit which receives an ECSpec and a scribe message through an event queue manager, performs a connection with the ALE engine, and delivers an ECReport of the ALE engine to the event queue manager; A first transmitter for transmitting the ECSpec and the scribe message transmitted through the first connector to the ALE engine; A first receiver for receiving an ECReport from the ALE engine and delivering it to the first connector; A second connection unit which receives ECSpec and scribing messages through the event queue manager to connect with the ALE engine and delivers the ECReport of the ALE engine to the event queue manager; A second transmitter for transmitting the ECSpec and the scribe message transmitted through the second connector to the ALE engine; An RFID business event framework for supporting various heterogeneous RFID applications, comprising an event queue manager block comprising a first receiver configured to receive an ECReport from an ALE engine and deliver it to a second connector. The method of claim 1 or 2, wherein the RFID business event framework, The external access package includes an EPCIS URL request and an EPCIS access processing unit for receiving this information. An ONS access processor for performing an EPC information request and receiving these information, It further includes an external access block including an EPC information processing unit for transmitting the reference data (Info Message) received through the EPCIS access processing unit and the ONS access processing unit according to a query message of the business event core block to the business event core block. RFID business event framework for supporting various heterogeneous RFID applications, characterized in that the configuration. The method of claim 1 or 2, wherein the RFID business event framework, A business event framework server that outputs control messages for application management and queue monitoring by monitoring the internal event flow and load of the business event framework in real time; An application manager monitor that receives a status message from the application manager block and passes control messages from the business event framework server to the application manager block; A business event framework manager block comprising a queue monitor that receives a status message from the event queue manager block and passes control messages from the business event framework server to the event queue manager block. RFID business event framework for supporting heterogeneous RFID applications. The RFID business wear language (RFID BizAL) of claim 1, wherein: When the tag information is read, variables used as mediators to pass the necessary information between each processing performed independently according to the specification (BESpec) for defining the business event, and RFID business event framework for supporting various heterogeneous RFID applications, characterized in that it comprises a detailed activity portion for generating an RFID business event from the RFID event. The variable of claim 10 wherein the variable of the RFID business wear language is: Data type supported by general programming language. It is a basic type used for calculation process or data storage for conditional statement processing or final event generation. RFID specialized types uniquely used in RFID systems such as EPC, Tag, RawHex, RawDecimal, RFID business event framework for supporting various heterogeneous RFID applications, when the tag information is read using a reader, when the information of several tags in the range is read at once, it is configured as a list type to reduce the processing load on the list. . The method of claim 10, wherein the activities of the RFID business wear language: An ALE activity for obtaining information about a tag from an ALE (Application Level Event); EPCIS activities for obtaining detailed information about EPCs, An ONS activity to obtain the address of the EPCIS that stores detailed information about the EPC, List activity for iterating over list types, An Event activity for generating an event based on a condition, Compute activity for processing arithmetic operations, Terminate activity for stopping process processing, RFID business event framework for supporting a variety of heterogeneous RFID applications, including an EPCIS DS activity to obtain detailed information about the movement of the EPC. The method of claim 1 or 2, wherein the RFID business event framework, An RFID business event framework for supporting a variety of heterogeneous RFID applications, comprising an RFID business case tool having a visual environment and easily modeling RFID business events and RFID business tasks required by the RFID application. 14. The RFID business case tool of claim 13, wherein Navigator to show the information of the files in each folder on the user's computer, BESpec in the form of XML, or GUI in the form of a main view that supports editing in each form. Windows such as MainView, an ActivityView that shows a list of available activities and tasks, a PropertyView that displays detailed property values for each activity, and a MessageView that displays error and notification messages. RFID business event framework for supporting a variety of heterogeneous RFID applications characterized in that it comprises. 14. The RFID business case tool of claim 13, wherein A screen for registering, modifying, and deleting a reader, a screen for creating a new file, Screen for adding, modifying, and deleting variables, screen for creating activities, moving activities, deleting activities, screen for setting activity properties, screen for copying activities, and view / source conversion. RFID business event framework for supporting a variety of heterogeneous RFID applications characterized by providing a screen.

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