METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR RETRIEVING DATA FROM MULTIPLE DATA SOURCES USING A SEARCH ROUTING DATABASE

• US 20010049676A1
• Filed: 04/09/1999
• Published: 12/06/2001
• Est. Priority Date: 04/09/1999
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Grape Technology Group Incorporated (KGB)
• Original Assignee: Metro One Telecommunications, Inc.
• Inventors: QI, RUNPING, WAKE, CHRISTOPHER A., HUEY, CHRISTOPHER A., KEPLER, MICHAEL A.
• Granted Patent: US 6,745,177 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/3
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/2471 Distributed queries
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99933 Query processing, i.e. searching
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99936 Pattern matching access
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99937 Sorting
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99945 Object-oriented database structure processing

Abstract

A search-routing database is used to direct database search requests to only those databases that may contain results to the search request. The search-routing database contains a subset of the data fields from the other databases in the network, along with a field indicating the database to which the search request should be routed. When a database search request is received, a modified search request is generated based on the overlap between the type of information contained in the search request and the type of information contained in the data-fields of the search routing database. This modified search request is submitted to the search-routing database, which returns a list of database candidates which could produce results to the original search request. The original search request is then submitted to those database candidates, and the results are returned to the user.

Claims

1. A method of retrieving data from a plurality of databases, comprising:

maintaining a plurality of databases, said databases including a plurality of database records comprised of a plurality of database fields;

maintaining a search-routing database, said search-routing database including a plurality of search-routing database records comprised of search-routing database fields, said search-routing database fields including a database-identifier field and one or more database fields;

receiving a first query from a user, said first query comprised of fields of data;

extracting data from the fields of said first query to form a modified query;

searching said search-routing database for records responsive to the modified query, and returning one or more database identifiers;

routing the first query to the databases identified by said database identifiers;

searching the databases identified by said database identifiers for data responsive to said first query; and

returning data obtained from the identified databases that is responsive to said first query.

2. The method of

claim 1

, wherein the databases are physically separate databases.

3. The method of

claim 1

, wherein said search-routing database fields comprise a database-identifier field and a plurality of said database fields, said plurality of database fields comprising a subset of the database fields contained in said database records.

4. The method of

claim 1

, wherein said one or more database identifiers comprise identification data contained in the database-identifier field of search-routing database records responsive to said modified query.

5. The method of

claim 1

, wherein said one or more database identifiers comprise a predefined set of database identification data.

6. The method of

claim 1

, wherein the one or more database fields contained within the search-routing database contain data substantially similar to data contained in one or more corresponding database fields in the plurality of databases.

7. The method of

claim 1

, wherein the step of maintaining a search-routing database further comprises:

selecting one or more of said search-routing database fields to correspond to a data-segregation scheme used to segregate data between individual databases within the plurality of databases.

8. A data retrieval system, comprising:

a plurality of databases, said databases including database records comprised of database fields;

a search-routing database, said search-routing database including search-routing database records comprised of search-routing database fields, said search-routing database fields including a database-identifier field and one or more of said database fields;

an input device for obtaining a first query from a user, said first query comprised of fields of data;

a proxy server for receiving the first query and forming a modified query, said modified query comprising a subset of the fields of data contained in the first query;

a search engine for searching said search-routing database for records responsive to the modified query and returning one or more database identifiers, said database identifiers identifying one or more target databases;

a router for sending said first query to the target databases;

a second search engine for searching the target databases for data responsive to said first query;

an output device for returning data responsive to said first query.

9. The system of

claim 8

, wherein said first search engine and said second search engine are of the same type.

10. The system of

claim 8

, wherein said first and second search engines have spell correction capability.

11. The system of

claim 8

, wherein one or more of said plurality of databases further comprises a database server for operating said second search engine.

12. The method of

claim 8

, wherein said one or more database identifiers comprise identification data contained in the database-identifier field of search-routing database records responsive to the modified query.

13. The method of

claim 8

, wherein said one or more database identifiers comprise a predefined set of database identification data.

14. The system of

claim 8

, wherein the one or more database fields contained within the search-routing database contain data substantially similar to data contained in one or more corresponding database fields in the plurality of databases.

15. The system of

claim 8

, wherein the search-routing database fields include one or more fields corresponding to a data-segregation scheme used to segregate data between individual databases within the plurality of databases.

16. A method of retrieving data from a plurality of databases, comprising:

receiving a query having a plurality of fields;

creating a modified query by extracting data from certain fields of the query;

searching a first database for records responsive to the modified query;

returning one or more database identifiers from records responsive to the modified query;

routing the query to databases identified by the returned database identifiers; and

searching the identified databases for data responsive to the query.

17. The method

claim 16

, further comprising returning data that is responsive the query.

18. The method of

claim 16

, wherein the databases identified by the returned database identifiers comprise a subset of the plurality of databases.

19. The method of

claim 16

, wherein the amount of data stored in the first database is less than the amount of data stored in the plurality of databases.

20. A method of retrieving data from a plurality of data sources, comprising:

receiving a search request;

searching a first data source for first data responsive to the search request, said first data having an associated data source identifier that identifies a second data source;

if said first data is found in the first data source, routing the search request to the second data source;

searching the second data source for second data responsive to the search request.