Abstract: Methods and systems for identifying and maintaining relationships in a network of peer-to-peer enterprise information systems that include a unified entity-relationship system that has a number of entities, each of which has a number of attributes. Subsumed entity-relationship systems are coupled to the unified entity-relationship system, and the entities of the unified entity-relationship system are mapped to one another and to entities and attributes of entities of the subsumed entity-relationship systems. A join engine is coupled to the unified entity-relationship system for performing joins and splits to form related entities and an object model that is coupled to the join engine is available globally throughout the network. The object model contains the mapped relationships and is deployed in conjunction with a join model, the join model specifying transformations and queries required for forming an entity from a set of related entities.

Abstract: Methods and systems for automatically updating data within a peer-to-peer enterprise information system. A change for a source data type is published over broadcast channel. The data change is received at a join engine peer and, in response to receiving the data change, the join engine peer consults a global attribute object model for identifying a dependent output entity (one that includes the same attribute as that of the data change) and for identifying additional attributes for forming a modified attribute set for the output entity. In response to discovering the output entity, a query is generated that is directed to a source system that includes the additional attributes for forming the modified attribute set. Upon receiving a response from the source system, the join engine peer automatically forms the modified attribute set and publishes it to an output source system associated with the output entity.

Abstract: A meta directory server which permits an administrator to specify extension points at potentially any point of a work flow, and associate a custom task with each extension point. The custom task is executed when the associated extension point is reached during execution. Due to such a feature, the administrator may customize a work to a desired extent. According to another aspect of the present invention, the custom tasks may be executed synchronously or asynchronously.