Method, system, and computer program product for interfacing with information sources

Abstract

A method, system and computer program product for interfacing between information requesters and information sources. In an embodiment, information is obtained from one or more information sources in response to client requests. In an embodiment, information received from information sources is cached for future use, such as for future client requests. In a caching embodiment, information can also be received by monitoring traffic between an information source and a third party, and/or by proactively querying the information sources. Proactive queries can be generated to populate a cache and/or to update presently cached information. In a caching embodiment, the invention includes methods for determining whether to respond to a request for information out-of-cache and/or with real-time information from an information source. In an embodiment, the invention interfaces with airline availability information sources. The invention also includes, without limitation, methods for interfacing with information sources through proxies, methods for ordering and prioritizing queries, methods for processing queries in a distributed architecture, and time-out features.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.