Service provider integration framework

A computer program product, tangibly embodied on a computer-readable medium, comprising instructions operable to:

• establish a class role, a class role being a computer programming construct that assigns to a class occupying the class role a functionality in terms of a set of interfaces, where the class role defines each interface in the set as being either mandatory or optional;
• determine dynamically a class for the class role at runtime;
• and
• instantiate a programming object from a class determined dynamically for the class role at runtime.

A data processing system, comprising:

• a service provider, the service provider comprising a service provider client, a service provider backend, and a service provider repository for storing service provider persistent objects, where the service provider provides to its objects the services of storage of persistent objects in the service provider repository;
• visualization of objects in the service provider client, and access to objects in the service provider backend;
• a framework comprising a client framework and a backend framework, where the client framework communicates directly with the backend framework, and the backend framework performs non-visual operations on the service provider backend;
• and
• a persistent object identifier (POID) object providing a general reference to a first persistent object of the service provider, the POID including information identifying the service provider and a primary key distinguishing the first persistent object from all other objects of the service provider;
• where the framework is operable to use information identifying the service provider to determine which among all the service providers known to the framework is the service provider identified by the POID, and the service provider is operable to use the primary key to obtain the first persistent object.

A computer program product, tangibly embodied on a computer-readable medium, comprising instructions operable to:

• implement a service provider, the service provider comprising a service provider client, a service provider backend, and a service provider repository for storing service provider persistent objects, where the service provider provides to its objects the services of storage of persistent objects in the service provider repository;
• visualization of objects in the service provider client, and access to objects in the service provider backend;
• implement a framework comprising a client framework and a backend framework, where the client framework communicates directly with the backend framework, and the backend framework performs non-visual operations on the service provider backend;
• and
• implement a persistent object identifier (POID) object providing a general reference to a first persistent object of the service provider, the POID including information identifying the service provider and a primary key distinguishing the first persistent object from all other objects of the service provider;
• where the framework is operable to use information identifying the service provider to determine which among all the service providers known to the framework is the service provider identified by the POID, and the service provider is operable to use the primary key to obtain the first persistent object.