System for integrating processing by application programs in homogeneous and heterogeneous network environments

A system for integrating user software application programs operating on respective nodes of a distributed processing network having at least two of said nodes, each node of said distributed processing network comprising:

• application adapting means for providing user software application programs operating on each of said nodes with communicative access to said distributed processing network;
• message management means for managing data transfer requests between each user software application program operating on each of said nodes and other user software application programs operating on other of said nodes connected to said distributed processing network;
• communications means responsive to a data transfer request from a source user software application program operating on any of said nodes for establishing node to node communications over said distributed processing network between a source node and a destination node, said destination node having a destination user software application program operating thereon to which data are to be transferred from said source user software application program operating on said node;
• data manipulation means for manipulating, prior to transmission by said communications means to said destination user software application program operating on said destination node, message data from said source user software application program into a common data representation, said common data representation being formed in accordance with a universal encoding scheme used by all nodes of said distributed processing network to account for hardware differences between each of said nodes, computer language semantic differences between said user software application programs operating on each of said nodes, and data type formats of said data transfer requests, whereby said message data from said source user software application program are manipulated by said data manipulation means only when at least one of data types, data formats, computer languages, and physical data representations of said source and destination user software application programs do not correspond to each other;
• means at each node for manipulating message data in said common data representation received from said distributed processing network into the data types, data formats, physical data representations, and computer language of each of said noes;
• and
• means for forming node-specific data manipulation means at each node of each hardware type in said distributed processing network, said node-specific data manipulation means at each node manipulating data from said source user software application program into said common data representation for transmission to said destination user software application program, and for manipulating data received from said source user software application program in said common data representation into data compatible with said destination user software application program when said destination user software application program operates on any of said nodes, said node-specific data manipulation forming means comprising:
• file means for storing a high level description of user software application programs and nodes operating on said distributed processing network, the physical characteristics of data at each source and destination user software application program, and the manipulations necessary to convert data from source to destination physical characteristics;
• validation module means for generating, as source code on a node designated as an adminstration node, configuration files, based on said high level description;
• configuration table compiling means and data manipulation compiling means for generating, as source code on said administration node, manipulation files, based on said high level description;
• data manipulation module builder means for copying said manipulation files and compiling, on each node designated as a compilation node, said manipulation files to form node-specific manipulation modules;
• and
• start up module means for copying said configuration files, for loading said configuration files in memory, and for starting up said manipulation files.