Change-driven replication of data

• US 20040083244A1
• Filed: 10/23/2002
• Published: 04/29/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 10/23/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: SAP SE
• Original Assignee: SAP AG (SAP SE)
• Inventors: Kalthoff, Wolfgang, Fischer, Uwe, Muecklich, Andreas, Breiter, Markus
• Granted Patent: US 7,290,018 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/204
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/275 Synchronous replication
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99953 Recoverability
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99955 Archiving or backup

Abstract

Change-driven replication includes determining in a first replication data included in a collection of business master data by performing an explosion of the collection of business master data and transmitting the data to be replicated from a central data system to one or more target data systems, determining which data included in the collection of business master data has changed since the first replication by exploding only the changed data, replicating only the changed data in a second replication, and transmitting the changed data from the central data system to at least one of the target data systems.

Claims

1. A machine-implemented method comprising:

determining in a first replication data included in a collection of business master data by performing an explosion of the collection of business master data and transmitting the data to be replicated from a central data system to one or more target data systems;

determining which data included in the collection of business master data has changed since the first replication by exploding only the changed data;

replicating only the changed data in a second replication; and

transmitting the changed data from the central data system to at least one of the target data systems.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising determining which of the target data systems should receive the changed data and transmitting the changed data to the determined target data systems.

3. The method of claim 1 further comprising including as changed data the data included in the collection of business master data that has been added to the collection of business master data since a previous replication.

4. The method of claim 1 further comprising including as changed data the data included in the collection of business master data that has been deleted from the collection of business master data since a previous replication.

5. The method of claim 1 further comprising including as changed data the data included in the collection of business master data that has been edited in the collection of business master data since a previous replication.

6. The method of claim 1 further comprising indicating a change to data included in the collection of business master data after the first replication by associating a pointer with the changed data.

7. The method of claim 1 further comprising, subsequent to the second replication, performing at least one replication of data included in the collection of business master data that has changed since a previous replication.

8. A machine-implemented method comprising:

determining which data included in a collection of business master data has changed since a previous explosion of the collection of business master data; and

replicating the changed data.

9. The method of claim 8 further comprising performing a replication of the collection of business master data before determining which data has changed.

10. The method of claim 8 further comprising triggering the data replication with an occurrence of an event.

11. The method of claim 10 further comprising triggering the occurrence of an event by detecting a passage of a pre-determined amount of time.

12. The method of claim 8 further comprising noting a change made to data included in the business master data with a pointer, and

determining changes to data by examining pointers included in the business master data.

13. The method of claim 12 further comprising associating the pointer with the data when a change to the data is made.

14. The method of claim 12 further comprising including with the pointers information relating to a time when a change becomes valid.

15. The method of claim 8 further comprising determining changes to data based at least on a timestamp included with the data.

16. An article comprising a machine-readable medium which contains machine-executable instructions, the instructions causing a machine to:

determine which data included in a collection of business master data has changed since a previous explosion of the business master data; and

replicate the changed data.

17. The article of claim 16 further causing a machine to, in the replicating, ignore data that has not changed since a previous replication of the business master data.

18. The article of claim 16 further causing a machine to transmit data to be replicated to one or more target systems.

19. An apparatus comprising:

a first framework mechanism configured to perform an explosion of objects included in a collection of data and changed since a previous explosion of objects included in the collection of data.

20. The apparatus of claim 19 further comprising a second framework mechanism configured to transmit the changed objects to one or more target systems.

21. The apparatus of claim 20 in which the second framework is also configured to determine which one or ones of a plurality of target systems should receive an update of which changed objects and transmit the determined changed objects specific to the determined one or ones of the target systems.

22. The apparatus of claim 19 further comprising a third framework configured to record which of a plurality of target systems are concerned with which one or ones of the objects.

23. The apparatus of claim 19 in which the first framework is also configured to determine which one or ones of the objects included in the collection of data has changed by examining indicators included in the collection of data and associated with at least some of the objects, each of the indicators associated with an object and at least indicating a time when its associated object changed.

24. The apparatus of claim 19 in which the first framework is also configured to ignore in the explosion objects that have not changed since a previous explosion of objects included in the collection of data.

25. The apparatus of claim 19 in which the collection of data includes business master data.

26. The apparatus of claim 19 in which at least one of the target systems has a location of data storage different from a location storing the collection of data.

27. A machine-implemented method comprising:

triggering an explosion of a data structure including objects;

determining which of the objects have changed since a previous explosion; and

performing the explosion on the changed objects.

28. The method of claim 27 further comprising transferring objects as a result of the explosion to one or more target systems.

29. The method of claim 27 further comprising considering an explosion of the entire data structure as the previous explosion.

30. The method of claim 27 further comprising considering a change-driven explosion of the data structure as the previous explosion.

31. The method of claim 27 further comprising determining if the data structure includes a changed object, and if the data structure does not include the changed object, exclude the changed object from the explosion.

32. The method of claim 27 further comprising triggering the explosion with a manual trigger.

33. The method of claim 27 further comprising triggering the explosion with an occurrence of an event.

34. A machine-implemented method comprising:

recording a change to an object when the change occurs; and

using the recorded change in determining which objects included in a collection of data are to be replicated.

35. The method of claim 34 further comprising noting a change using a pointer, and

determining which objects to include in the replication by determining which objects have associated pointers indicating a change from a previous replication of objects.

36. The method of claim 35 further comprising performing an explosion using the determined one or ones of the objects.

37. The method of claim 34 further comprising including with the record of change information relating to a time the change becomes valid.

38. The method of claim 34 further comprising excluding from the replication objects that are not associated with a recorded change.

39. The method of claim 34 further comprising excluding from the replication objects that have been excluded from the collection of data.

40. The method of claim 39 further comprising excluding from the replication objects below, in a top-down design, the objects that have been excluded from the collection of data.

41. The method of claim 34 further comprising including in the replication objects below, in a top-down design, a changed object if the objects have been added to the collection of data since a last explosion but have not been changed since an explosion starting at the changed object.