System and method for immutably cataloging electronic assets in a large-scale computer system

• US 20070260476A1
• Filed: 04/26/2007
• Published: 11/08/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 05/05/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Business Performance Systems, Lockheed Martin Corporation (Martin Marietta Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Business Performance Systems, Lockheed Martin Corporation (Martin Marietta Corporation)
• Inventors: Ripley, Rodney, Isaac, David, Smolen, Richard, Earman, Daniel
• Granted Patent: US 7,711,702 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/1.100
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/2308 Concurrency control transaction processing G06F9/466
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/948 Product or catalog
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99953 Recoverability

Abstract

Systems and/or methods for storing and/or retrieving assets in connection with an extremely large scale computer storage system are provided. An asset catalog may comprise a plurality of asset catalog entries stored according to at least one schema and corresponding to a plurality of assets. A storage architecture may be capable of storing the plurality of assets, with the storage architecture comprising a storage locator and a federator. An item identification scheme may be capable of providing identifiers to reference, locate, and/or access said assets and/or said asset catalog entries stored in the asset catalog in the storage architecture. The computer storage system may be scalable essentially without limitation while maintaining asset storage and retrieval flexibility and substantially obsolescence-proof survivability of assets.

Claims

1. An asset catalog for use with an extremely large scale computer storage system, comprising:

a plurality of asset catalog entries stored according to at least one schema and corresponding to a plurality of assets stored in an external storage architecture wherein said assets and asset catalog entries are referenced, located, and/or accessed according to an identification scheme;

an asset catalog storage architecture capable of storing the plurality of asset catalog entries, the asset catalog storage architecture being federated and partitioned to support searching, indexing, and/or accessing of the plurality of asset catalog entries and/or the plurality of assets using the identification scheme; and

one or more relations among and/or between at least some of the asset catalog entries and/or assets, each said relation being representable by the at least one schema,

wherein the asset catalog is scalable essentially without limitation while maintaining asset storage and retrieval flexibility and substantially obsolescence-proof survivability of assets.

2. The asset catalog of claim 1, wherein the asset catalog storage architecture is arranged so as to permit a highly-scalable federated search of the plurality of asset catalog entries and/or the plurality of assets.

3. The asset catalog of claim 1, further comprising a plurality of instances across which the asset catalog exists.

4. The asset catalog of claim 3, wherein the storage architecture is arranged so as to provide autonomous management of each said catalog instance.

5. The asset catalog of claim 1, wherein the one or more relations are indicative of at least a parent-child relation and/or a child-parent relation.

6. The asset catalog of claim 1, wherein the one or more relations are arranged to at least organize at least some of the assets into at least one component asset and/or at least some of the asset catalog entries into at least one component asset catalog entry.

7. The asset catalog of claim 6, wherein the at least one component asset and/or the at least one asset component catalog entry are arranged to comply with the at least one schema to provide at least one view and/or taxonomy of the assets and/or asset catalog entries.

8. The asset catalog of claim 1, wherein the at least one relation is arranged to support browsing relations such that all assets are reachable even if only a portion of the assets have been indexed for searching.

9. The asset catalog of claim 1, wherein the at least one relation is arranged to support enabling each component comprising a particular asset to be represented in multiple formats to enable long-term preservation, redaction, and/or versioning.

10. The asset catalog of claim 1, wherein the at least one relation is arranged to support at least allowing for a representation of relationships among and/or between each component comprising one or more assets.

11. The asset catalog of claim 1, wherein the at least one relation is arranged to create at least aggregate-level assets catalog entries and item-level assets catalog entries.

12. The asset catalog of claim 1, wherein the at least one schema includes specific and general metadata tags.

13. The asset catalog of claim 12, wherein the specific and general metadata tags are arranged to support providing indexing services for search and/or access of the assets and/or the asset catalog entries, efficiency and/or flexibility in metadata capture, and/or interpretation of metadata.

14. The asset catalog of claim 1, wherein the at least one schema incorporates a tag for label security.

15. The asset catalog of claim 14, wherein the tag for label security identifies an access level required for access, the tag for label security being comparable to a user security label associated with a user accessing the asset catalog to indicate whether the user will be granted access.

16. The asset catalog of claim 1, wherein the at least one schema is provided in a tagged-text format.

17. The asset catalog of claim 16, wherein the tagged-text format allows the asset catalog entries to be stored in accordance with a plurality of technologies.

18. The asset catalog of claim 17, wherein the plurality of technologies includes file system, relational database, and/or object database storage structures.

19. The asset catalog of claim 16, wherein the tagged-text format enables recovery of content even when schema design information is lost and/or corrupted.

20. The asset catalog of claim 19, wherein the tagged-text is in a human-readable format.

21. The asset catalog of claim 16, wherein the tagged-text format is XML.

22. The asset catalog of claim 1, wherein said identification scheme provides a plurality of identifiers to reference, locate, and/or access said plurality of assets and/or said plurality of asset catalog entries

23. The asset catalog of claim 22, wherein the identifiers are structured to map identifiers to physical storage locations of the asset catalog and/or storage architecture.

24. The asset catalog of claim 22, wherein the identifiers'"'"' are universally unique such that relations among and/or between the asset catalog entries and/or relations to one or more components comprising a particular asset optionally can span multiple storage partitions and/or instances of a federation.

25. The asset catalog of claim 22, wherein the plurality of identifiers include two types of identifiers to reference, locate, and/or access said assets and/or said asset catalog entries, the first identifier type being an asset identifier (AID) type and the second identifier type being a Universal Resource Identifier (URI) type.

26. The asset catalog of claim 25, wherein each said AID is a multipart identifier.

27. The asset catalog of claim 26, wherein each said AID is indicative of a registry, package, part, and item associated with the corresponding asset.

28. The asset catalog of claim 27, wherein the item name is unrelated to an original filename of the item, and wherein the original filename and corresponding directory structure is stored as metadata within a corresponding asset catalog entry.

29. The asset catalog of claim 25, wherein each said AID is defined during asset ingest and before a final storage allocation of the storage architecture.

30. The asset catalog of claim 25, wherein each said URI is a standards-based identifier useful for referencing and/or accessing the asset and/or asset catalog entry.

31. The asset catalog of claim 25, wherein each said URI is changeable over time.

32. The asset catalog of claim 25, wherein each said URI is assigned independent of storage of the corresponding asset and/or asset catalog entry.

33. The asset catalog of claim 25, wherein each said URI is structured as:

<

scheme>

;

//<

authority>

/<

path>

?<

query>

#<

fragment>

and wherein each said URI includes standardized path elements.

34. The asset catalog of claim 33, wherein at least some of the standardized path elements are derived from the corresponding AID.

35. A computer-implemented method of managing an asset catalog for use with an extremely large scale computer storage system, the method comprising:

storing a plurality of asset catalog entries according to at least one schema and corresponding to a plurality of assets stored in an external storage architecture wherein said assets are referenced, located, and/or accessed according to an identification scheme;

providing an asset catalog storage architecture capable of storing the plurality of asset catalog entries, the asset catalog storage architecture being federated and partitioned to support searching, indexing, and/or accessing of the plurality of asset catalog entries and/or the plurality of assets using the identification scheme; and

establishing one or more relations among and/or between at least some of the asset catalog entries and/or assets, each said relation being representable by the at least one schema,

wherein the asset catalog is scalable essentially without limitation while maintaining asset storage and retrieval flexibility and substantially obsolescence-proof survivability of assets.

36. The method of claim 35, further comprising arranging the asset catalog storage architecture so as to permit a highly-scalable federated search of the plurality of asset catalog entries and/or the plurality of assets.

37. The method of claim 35, further comprising distributing the asset catalog across a plurality of instances.

38. The method of claim 37, further comprising arranging the storage architecture so as to provide autonomous management of each said catalog instance.

39. The method of claim 35, further comprising indicating at least a parent-child relation and/or a child-parent relation via the one or more relations.

40. The method of claim 35, further comprising organizing at least some of the assets into at least one component asset and/or organizing at least some of the asset catalog entries into at least one component asset catalog entry via the one or more relations.

41. The method of claim 40, wherein the at least one component assets and/or the at least one asset component catalog entry cooperate with the at least one schema to provide at least one view and/or taxonomy of the assets and/or asset catalog entries.

42. The method of claim 35, wherein the at least one relation supports browsing relations such that all assets are reachable even if only a portion of the assets have been indexed for searching.

43. The method of claim 35, wherein the at least one relation enables each component comprising a particular asset to be represented in multiple formats to enable long-term preservation, redaction, and/or versioning.

44. The method of claim 35, wherein the at least one relation at least allows for a representation of relationships among and/or between each component comprising one or more assets.

45. The method of claim 35, wherein the at least one schema includes specific and general metadata tags.

46. The method of claim 45, wherein the specific and general metadata tags provide indexing services for search and/or access of the assets and/or the asset catalog entries, efficiency and/or flexibility in metadata capture, and/or interpretation of metadata.

47. The method of claim 35, wherein the at least one schema incorporates a tag for label security.

48. The method of claim 47, wherein the tag for label security identifies an access level required for access, the tag for label security being comparable to a user security label associated with a user accessing the asset catalog to indicate whether the user will be granted access.

49. The method of claim 35, further comprising providing the at least one schema in a tagged-text format.

50. The method of claim 49, further comprising allowing, via the tagged-text format, the asset catalog entries to be stored in accordance with a plurality of technologies.

51. The method of claim 50, wherein the plurality of technologies includes file system, relational database, and/or object database storage structures.

52. The method of claim 49, further comprising enabling, via the tagged-text format, recovery of content even when schema design information is lost and/or corrupted.

53. The method of claim 52, wherein the tagged-text is in a human-readable format.

54. The method of claim 49, wherein the tagged-text format is XML.

55. The method of claim 35, further comprising arranging the one or more relations to create at least aggregate-level assets catalog entries and item-level assets catalog entries.

56. The method of claim 35, further comprising providing, via said identification scheme, a plurality of identifiers to reference, locate, and/or access said plurality of assets and/or said plurality of asset catalog entries.

57. The method of claim 56, further comprising structuring the identifiers to map identifiers to physical storage locations of the asset catalog and/or storage architecture.

58. The method of claim 56, wherein the identifiers are universally unique such that relations among and/or between the asset catalog entries and/or relations to one or more components comprising a particular asset optionally can span multiple storage partitions and/or instances of a federation.

59. The method of claim 56, further comprising including in each of the plurality of identifiers two types of identifiers to reference, locate, and/or access said assets and/or said asset catalog entries, the first identifier type being an asset identifier (AID) type and the second identifier type being a Universal Resource Identifier (URI) type.

60. The method of claim 59, wherein each said AID is a multipart identifier.

61. The method of claim 59, further comprising defining each said AID during asset ingest and before a final storage allocation of the storage architecture.

62. The method of claim 60, further comprising indicating in each said AID a registry, package, part, and item associated with the corresponding asset.

63. The method of claim 62, wherein the item name is unrelated to an original filename of the item, and further comprising storing the original filename and corresponding directory structure as metadata within a corresponding asset catalog entry.

64. The method of claim 59, wherein each said URI is a standards-based identifier useful for referencing and/or accessing the asset and/or asset catalog entry.

65. The method of claim 59, wherein each said URI is changeable over time.

66. The method of claim 59, further comprising assigning each said URI independent of the corresponding asset and/or asset catalog entry storage.

67. The method of claim 59, further comprising structuring each said URI as:

<

scheme>

;

//<

authority>

/<

path>

?<

query>

#<

fragment> and

wherein each URI includes standardized path elements.

68. The method of claim 67, further comprising deriving at least some of the standardized path elements from the corresponding AID.