Abstract: In one aspect of the present invention a framework is presented for the generation and execution of code performing conversion to and from an arbitrary native or “wire” data format. The code facilitates a business application using a service provided by a service implementation in accordance with a native language of the implementation which may be different from the language of the business application. The main components of the framework include a model of the information necessary for the formatting of data which may be represented through the extensions to WSDL; a tool time support environment providing structured support for the generation of format handlers; and runtime support for the generated format handlers. In an alternative to this static invocation model, a dynamic usage scenario provides for invocation of format handlers dynamically obtained from a format handler factory. In both cases, the runtime uses a lazy approach to the conversion to and from the native format for improved performance.

Abstract: Controlling access to information in a distributed data processing system. The distributed data processing system has a server, which stores the information and also further comprises a logging tool for creating a log file. The distributed data processing system also has a client computer comprising an application program for controlling a software agent. When the software agent requests information from the server, a process to identify the software agent is invoked. In response to the identification, all the requests from the identified software agent are stored in the log file and this data in the log file is analyzed. The data is also utilized in the process of monitoring the behavior of the identified software agent. In response to the monitoring process, at least one of a plurality of pre-defined rules is invoked, in order to control the behavior of the identified software agent.