METHOD AND SYSTEM TO GUARANTEE DATA AND METADATA REFERENTIAL INTEGRITY IN CONTENT MANAGEMENT ARCHIVAL SOLUTIONS

• US 20070088754A1
• Filed: 10/17/2005
• Published: 04/19/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 10/17/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: BRANNON, KAREN, CHEN, YING
• Granted Patent: US 9,047,344 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/2358 Change logging, detection, and notification replication G06F16/27
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/2365 Ensuring data consistency and integrity
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/24565 Triggers; Constraints

Abstract

Fast restoration of referential integrity between metadata and data after they were restored to some inconsistent backup copies in content management archival solutions. An inferred logging mechanism uses separate metadata and data logs to capture recent update activities during normal system conditions with additional object reference information using a method called reference tagging. This requires no system internal changes and introduces no performance overhead. The information in the logs facilitates quick identification of potential referential inconsistencies and allows referential integrity between metadata and data to be restored in a fraction of the time when compared to exhaustive data scans.

Claims

1. A method to restore referential integrity between data and associated metadata in content management archival in a case of failure of said metadata, comprising the steps of:

logging changes in said data in a data update log;

restoring said metadata from an archive;

checking for an inconsistency between said metadata and said changes in said data; and

restoring referential integrity between said data and said metadata.

2. The method according to claim 1, wherein:

said step of checking for said inconsistency between said metadata and said changes in said data comprises checking only changes in said data occurring after a time of generating said archive.

3. The method according to claim 1, further comprising the step of:

tagging said changes in said data with object names.

4. The method according to claim 3, further comprising the step of:

retrieving at least one of said object names corresponding to said inconsistency.

5. The method according to claim 4, wherein:

said at least one of said object names is retrieved from said data update log.

6. The method according to claim 1, further comprising the step of:

storing said data update log in a same storage device as said data.

7. The method according to claim 1, further comprising the step of:

notifying a user of said inconsistency between said metadata and said data.

8. The method according to claim 1, further comprising the step of:

clearing said inconsistency between said metadata and said data.

9. A method to restore referential integrity between data and associated metadata in content management archival in a case of failure of said data, comprising the steps of:

logging changes in said metadata in a metadata update log;

restoring said data from an archive;

checking for an inconsistency between said data and said changes in said metadata; and

restoring referential integrity between said data and said metadata.

10. The method according to claim 9, wherein:

said step of checking for said inconsistency between said data and said changes in said metadata comprises checking only changes in said metadata occurring after a time of generating said archive.

11. The method according to claim 9, wherein:

said step of logging changes in said metadata employs an existing transaction log provided as part of a relational database management system as said metadata update log.

12. The method according to claim 9, further comprising:

storing said metadata update log in a same storage device as said metadata.

13. The method according to claim 9, further comprising the step of:

notifying a user of said inconsistency between said metadata and said data.

14. The method according to claim 9, further comprising the step of:

clearing said inconsistency between said metadata and said data.

15. A system to guarantee referential integrity between data and metadata, comprising:

a data update log;

a metadata update log; and

an inference engine that infers corresponding updates between said data and said metadata to identify a subset of said data and said metadata to be checked for an inconsistency in a case of failure of said data or said metadata.

16. The system according to claim 15, wherein:

said data update log and said metadata update log are stored separately from each other.

17. The system according to claim 16, further comprising:

a storage manager; and

a data storage device connected to said storage manager and storing said data;

wherein;

said data update log is stored in said data storage device.

18. The system according to claim 17, further comprising:

a storage manager logger installed in said storage manager and configured to extract said object names from said data update log.

19. The system according to claim 16, further comprising:

a content manager; and

a metadata storage device connected to said content manager and storing said metadata in a content management database;

wherein;

said metadata update log is stored in said metadata storage device.

20. The system according to claim 19, further comprising:

an intercept module installed in said content manager and configured to tag records in said data update log with object names.

21. The system according to claim 20, wherein:

said content manager comprises a client and a server configured to be interconnected; and

said intercept module is installed in said client.

22. The system according to claim 15, further comprising:

reference tags noting metadata updates seen by a data storage and data updates seen by a metadata storage, wherein;

said inference engine infers said corresponding updates based on said reference tags.

23. A computer readable medium having computer executable instructions for performing steps to restore referential integrity between data and associated metadata in content management archival, comprising:

computer readable program code logging changes in said data in a data update log;

computer readable program code logging changes in said metadata in a metadata update log;

computer readable program code restoring information from an archive, said information selected from a group consisting of said data and said metadata;

computer readable program code checking for an inconsistency;

wherein;

if said information is said metadata said inconsistency is checked for between said metadata and said changes in said data; and

if said information is said data said inconsistency is checked for between said data and said changes in said metadata; and

computer readable program code restoring referential integrity between said data and said metadata.

24. The computer readable medium according to claim 23, wherein:

said computer readable program code for checking said inconsistency checks only changes occurring after a time of generating said archive.

25. The computer readable medium according to claim 23, further comprising:

computer readable program code tagging said changes in said data with object names.

26. The computer readable medium according to claim 25, further comprising:

computer readable program code retrieving at least one of said object names corresponding to said inconsistency.

27. The computer readable medium according to claim 26, wherein:

said at least one of said object names is retrieved from said data update log.

28. The computer readable medium according to claim 23, wherein:

said data update log is stored separately from said metadata update log;

said data update log is stored separately from said metadata; and

said metadata update log is stored separately from said data.

29. The computer readable medium according to claim 23, further comprising:

computer readable program code notifying a user of said inconsistency between said metadata and said data.

30. The computer readable medium according to claim 23, further comprising:

computer readable program code clearing said inconsistency between said metadata and said data.