System and method for implementing a universal service broker interchange mechanism

DETAILED DESCRIPTION In an effort to overcome the above mentioned shortcomings, the present invention is based on the belief that multiple service discovery protocols will continue to exist in the foreseeable future.
The present invention offers solutions to allow interoperability of devices and services that implement different service discovery protocols.
The present invention utilizes an enhanced registry mechanism that can broker requests and responses among many different protocols.
The enhanced registry mechanism of the present invention, called the Universal Service Broker Interchange Mechanism (USBIM), provides several important enhancements to the standard registry service.
The USBIM is a coordinated set of components that collaborate to provide interoperability among service discovery protocols.
Initially, service provider protocol adapter servlets listen for service advertising requests.
Each protocol is associated with a different servlet that understands the details of the service advertising mechanism peculiar to that protocol.
The service provider protocol adapter servlets then convert the service provider's protocol into a canonical representation of service advertising.
The advertisement is stored in an internal registry.
Client protocol adapter servlets listen for client lookup requests and look up a matching service provider.
As with service provider protocol adapter servlets, a different client protocol adapter servlet handles the details of client lookup for each particular protocol.
The client protocol adapter servlets then convert the client request into a canonical representation of the request, which is used to look up the services required by the client and to match these requirements against the service provider advertisements stored in the same canonical form in the internal registry.
Once a match has been found, the client protocol adapter servlet brokers the mechanism of client-service provider interaction.