SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR AUTOMATED ON DEMAND REPLICATION SETUP

• US 20080034015A1
• Filed: 07/10/2006
• Published: 02/07/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 07/10/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Behnen, Marion, Snodgrass, Gregg L., Titzler, Patrick
• Granted Patent: US 7,814,459 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/204
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/254 Extract, transform and load [ETL] procedures, e.g. ETL data flows in data warehouses
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/258 Data format conversion from or to a database
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management

Abstract

A method of automatic replication setup is disclosed. The method allows the business application user to focus on the requirements posed by the business application and to abstract from the low level infrastructure details. Information specific to the databases and infrastructure design decisions can be provided by a subject matter expert. By automating the requirements analysis and infrastructure setup process, the time to deliver can be decreased significantly and the potential for errors reduced.

Claims

1. A method of automated data movement/transformation setup for business data from a source data system to a target data system, the method comprising:

receiving a plurality of inputs, including a first business application model, the first business application model comprising business application objects, requirements for data movement and transformation, a deployed historical enriched business application model, system configuration description, user preferences, code template libraries and task to subtask mappings;

searching for the previously processed and deployed historical enriched business application model version that is based on the first business application model;

loading an instance of the previously processed and deployed historical enriched business application model or creating a first instance of the enriched business application model comprising the technical information in response to the absence of the previously processed and deployed historical enriched business application model;

identifying a set of data movement/transformation technologies to be used based on the set of data movement/transformation requirements as defined by the first business application model, the system configuration description, and the user preferences;

comparing the first business application model to the previously deployed historical enriched business application model;

determining if objects contained within the first business application model have been added, changed or removed relative to objects contained within the previously processed and deployed historical enriched business application model;

adding objects to the enriched business application model or modifying or removing existing objects to reflect changes between the first business application model and the previously processed and deployed historical enriched business application model;

generating a task model comprising a set of tasks for all significant model object changes;

each task identifying a potential change in the data movement/transformation technologies in response to new business application requirements;

assigning inputs to each task, the inputs are references to the first instance of the enriched business application model, and the previously deployed historical enriched business application model;

resolving a set of customizable task to sub-task mappings;

deriving a template key for each resolved sub-task based on the sub-task information;

identifying a code template for each derived template key from a set of hierarchical code libraries;

loading and processing the code templates with inputs associated with the task to generate change artifacts and deployment artifacts that will transform the existing data movement infrastructure to meet the first business application model requirements;

saving the enriched business application model as a historical enriched business application model; and

deploying the generated change artifacts to update the data movement/transformation technologies and marking the historical enriched business application model as deployed upon successful completion.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the loading and processing code templates comprises at least one of the following:

SQL scripts;

operating system scripts; and

scripts to run against proprietary data movement applications.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the receiving a plurality of inputs comprises receiving the system configuration description comprising at least one of:

database management system attributes;

available data movement technologies supporting source and target database combinations; and

source and target operating system attributes.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the deriving a template key comprises the template key comprising at least one of:

sub-task attributes;

source operating system attributes;

target operating system attributes;

database management system source type attributes; and

database management system target type attributes.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein:

the identifying the code template from the set of hierarchical code libraries comprises the set of hierarchical code libraries ordered from lowest to highest level.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein:

identifying the code template comprises locating the lowest level code template library containing the derived template key.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

consolidating the generated change and deployment artifacts for subsequent deployment to set up the data movement/transformation infrastructure between sources and targets.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the receiving a first business application model comprises:

receiving a specification that is business application neutral and expressed using XML.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein:

the receiving a plurality of inputs, including a first business application model comprises;

business application object definitions;

relationships between business application objects and storage structures; and

relationships between the database structures.

10. A program storage device readable by a machine, the device embodying a program or instructions executable by the machine to perform the method of claim 1.