Database system and methods

• US 20030217033A1
• Filed: 05/17/2002
• Published: 11/20/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 05/17/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Sybase Incorporated (SAP SE)
• Original Assignee: Aleri (SAP SE)
• Inventors: Kolodzieski, Scott J., Riecke, Jon G., Seroff, Vladimir, Sandler, Zigmund
• Granted Patent: US 7,249,118 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/2264 Multidimensional index structures
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/2272 Management thereof
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99931 Database or file accessing

Abstract

In general, in one aspect, the invention relates to a method for transaction processing. The method includes specifying metadata and storing the metadata. An index is created in response to the stored metadata. The method also includes receiving a transaction, generating an index log of changes to the index in response to the received transaction, and modifying the first index in response to the generated index log.

Claims

1. A method for transaction processing, comprising the steps of:

specifying metadata describing database elements and relationships between the database elements;

storing the metadata;

creating a first index in response to the stored metadata;

receiving a transaction;

generating an index log of changes to the first index in response to the received transaction; and

modifying the first index in response to the generated index log.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising specifying database elements required for a query.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the specifying step further comprises specifying data dependencies between database elements.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the specifying step is performed by a user interface subsystem.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the receiving step, the generating step, and the modifying step are performed by a transaction subsystem.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein the transaction is an insert.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein the transaction is an update.

8. The method of claim 1 wherein the transaction is a remove.

9. The method of claim 8, further comprising:

determining, based on the metadata and the log, additional database changes required by the transaction.

10. The method of claim 1 wherein the step of modifying the first index is performed when the transactions are complete.

11. A system for transaction processing, comprising:

a database for storing metadata;

a transaction processing subsystem for creating a first index in response to the stored metadata, receiving a transaction, generating an index log of changes to the first index required by the received transaction, and modifying the first index based on the generated index log.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the transaction processing subsystem comprises:

a transaction manager for managing the state of the transaction processing subsystem;

an adapter manager for receiving information on transaction sources from the transaction manager;

an adapter listener in communication with the adapter manager for receiving transaction data from a queued transaction data source;

a resource manager in communication with the adapter listener for receiving data from the adapter listener and for logging collected data;

a minimum recalculation engine for recalculating portions of database tables in response to the logged collected data and the metadata;

an internal check point manager for committing logged collected data to a database table; and

an external checkpoint manager for publishing changes to target databases.

13. The system of claim 12 further comprising a second resource manager in communication with a second adapter listener for receiving transaction data from a second queued transaction data source and for logging collected data.

14. The system of claim 12 further comprising a second minimum recalculation engine for recalculating portions of database tables in response to the logged collected data and the metadata.

15. The system of claim 14 wherein the minimum recalculation engine performs calculations only on data that has changed.

16. The system of claim 14 wherein the minimum recalculation engine performs table operations on indicies that represent results of operations.

17. A database system, comprising:

a database storing data and storing metadata describing database elements and relationships between the database elements;

a transaction processing subsystem for processing transactions and updating the database; and

a user interface for querying the database and continuously providing updated query results as transactions are processed by the transaction processing subsystem.

18. The system of claim 17 wherein the system further comprises a second database storing data, and the transaction processing system updates the first database and the second database.

19. The system of claim 17 wherein the user interface comprises a web browser in communication with a web server, wherein the web server provides the results to the web browser for display to a user.

20. A database system, comprising:

a vectorized database storing table data fields linearly as a block of contiguous data;

a database storing metadata describing database elements and relationships between database elements;

a user interface for querying the database and providing updated query results; and

a batch processing subsystem for processing batch queries.

21. The method of claim 20 wherein the batch processing subsystem uses a memory model selected from the set of vertical partitioning, horizontal partitioning, and a blend of vertical partitioning and horizontal partitioning.

22. The system of claim 20, further comprising a transaction processing subsystem.

23. The system of claim 20, wherein the user interface further comprises a web browser in communication with a web server.

24. The method of claim 20, wherein the vector database operates on data as vectors.

25. A method for external checkpointing, comprising the steps of:

initially communicating a data table and a log comprising entries of data table transactions to a subscriber; and

communicating additional log entries to the subscriber when they are received.

26. The method of claim 25, further comprising the steps of determining that the number of log entries is above a predetermined threshold, applying the log entries to the data table, and communicating the updated data table to the subscriber.

27. The method of claim 25 wherein the subscriber comprises an OLAP server.

28. An external checkpointing subsystem, comprising a transmitter for initially communicating a data table and a log comprising entries of data table transactions to a subscriber;

and for communicating additional log entries to the subscriber when they are received.

29. The method of claim 28 wherein the subscriber comprises an OLAP server.

30. A method for fault-recoverable, non-blocking checkpointing of table data, comprising the steps of:

storing a first copy of a data table and a second copy of the data table;

receiving a log comprising entries of data table transactions;

applying the log entries to the first copy of the table;

swapping the first copy of the table and the second copy of the table; and

applying the log entries to the second copy of the table.

31. The method of claim 30, wherein the first copy of the data table and the second copy of the data table are stored on disk.

32. The method of claim 31, wherein the swapping step comprises renaming the first copy of the table and renaming the second copy of the table.

33. The method of claim 30, wherein the logs comprise inserts, edits, and deletes to the data table.

34. The method of claim 30, wherein the step of applying the logs to the first copy of the table comprises modifying the copy of the table in response to the log entries.

35. The method of claim 30, further comprising archiving the logs once they are applied to the second copy of the table.

36. The method of claim 30, wherein

the step of receiving a log comprises receiving a log of data table transactions comprising entries already applied to the first copy of the table before an interruption and entries not applied to the first table before the interruption,

and wherein the step of applying the log to the to the first copy of the table comprises applying the unapplied log entries to the first copy of the table.

37. The method of claim 30, wherein

and wherein the step of applying the log entries to the second copy of the table comprises applying unapplied log entries to the second copy of the table.

38. A checkpointing system for fault-recoverable, non-blocking checkpointing of table data, comprising:

a data store for storing a first copy of a data table and a second copy of the data table;

a receiver for receiving logs of data table transactions;

an first updater for applying the logs to the first copy of the table;

a swapper for swapping the first copy of the table and the second copy of the table; and

a second updater for applying the logs to the second copy of the table.