Interactive Complex Event Pattern Builder and Visualizer

• US 20090106701A1
• Filed: 07/15/2008
• Published: 04/23/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 10/22/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Oracle International Corporation (Oracle Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Oracle International Corporation (Oracle Corporation)
• Inventors: YALAMANCHI, Aravind
• Granted Patent: US 9,171,282 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/841
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/26 Visual data mining; Browsing structured data
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management

Abstract

Systems, methods, and other embodiments associated with complex event pattern building are described. One example method includes receiving, on a server-side, requests associated with user interactions with interactive menus. The method includes responding to the requests with commands that build a set of event-condition-action, data that describes an action to take in response to an occurrence of a complex event pattern. The example method may also include automatically converting the event-condition-action data into a programmatic construct that configures a complex event pattern engine to initiate the specified action in response to detecting an occurrence of the complex event pattern.

Claims

1. A computer-readable medium storing computer-executable instructions that when executed by a computer cause the computer to perform a method, the method comprising:

presenting a set of interactive menus that include information associated with events, conditions, and actions, where the events, conditions, and actions relate to a function performed by a complex event pattern (CEP) engine;

receiving, in response to a selection being made on an interactive menu, a set of event-condition-action (ECA) data that includes data identifying one or more of, an event, a condition, and an action, where the action is to be performed in response to an occurrence of a CEP comprising a set of events and a set of conditions associated with the set of events;

configuring a CEP engine to initiate an action in response to detecting an occurrence of a CEP, where detecting the occurrence is based, at least in part, on the ECA data; and

storing the ECA data in a data store.

2. The computer-readable medium of claim 1, where the interactive menus are presented by one or more of, an HTML client, a thin client, and a Java®

client.

3. The computer-readable medium of claim 1, where an event is one of, an update to a database, a receipt of a purchase order, a change to a stored value, a receipt of a signal, and a user driven input.

4. The computer-readable medium of claim 1, where a condition is one of, a state of an attribute of an event, an occurrence of an event, a nonoccurrence of an event, an occurrence of a set of events, an occurrence of a set of events within a pre-defined time period, an occurrence of a sequence of a set of events, an occurrence of a subset of a set of events, and an occurrence of an aggregation a set of events.

5. The computer-readable medium of claim 1, where an action is one of, a change to a database, a provision of a signal, a change to a stored value, a notification to a user, and an initiation of a function.

6. The computer-readable medium of claim 1, where the ECA data identifies one or more actions to perform in response to detecting one or more events occurring under one or more conditions, and

7. The computer-readable medium of claim 1, where the ECA data is stored as one or more of, a hierarchy of event relationships, a hierarchy of events, and a hierarchy of conditions on event content, and where the hierarchy is stored as one of a tree, an array, a linked list, a database, and a table.

8. The computer-readable medium of claim 1, where the CEP includes one of, an occurrence of a single event, an occurrence of a single event under a single condition, an occurrence of multiple events under a single condition, and an occurrence of multiple events under multiple conditions.

9. The computer-readable medium of claim 1, where the CEP engine relates to an application associated with one or more of, radio frequency identification (RFID), fraud, risk, sales, customer relationship management, cross-selling, data filtering, data transformation, and semantic web domain node communications.

10. The computer-readable medium of claim 1, where configuring the CEP engine includes adding a listener object that initiates an action described by the ECA data to a set of listener objects, where the listener object is programmed to detect a CEP described by the ECA data.

11. The computer-readable medium of claim 1, where configuring the CEP engine includes programming the CEP engine to initiate an action described by the ECA data in response to detecting a CEP described by the ECA data.

12. The computer-readable medium of claim 11, where configuring the CEP engine includes storing executable instructions written in a combination of SQL and XML in the CEP engine.

13. The computer-readable medium of claim 1, where the method includes controlling the CEP engine to initiate the action.

14. A system, comprising:

a user interface logic to provide a set of interactive menus that display information associated with events, conditions, and actions, where the events, conditions, and actions relate to a function performed by a complex event processing (CEP) engine and to display an evolving event pattern as a hierarchical structure that includes events participating in the event pattern, conditions on the contents of the events participating in the event pattern, and a desired relationship between the events participating in the event pattern;

a CEP logic to receive requests arising from user interactions with the set of interactive menus and to respond with commands that manipulate the evolving event pattern to build a set of event-condition-action (ECA) data that includes data identifying a complex event pattern comprising a set of events and a set of conditions associated with the set of events, and a set of actions to be performed in response to the detection of the event pattern;

a preparation logic to prepare a CEP engine to initiate an action in response to the occurrence of an event pattern based, at least in part, on the ECA data; and

a data store to store the ECA data.

15. The system of claim 14, where the user interface logic provides the interactive menus using one or more of, an HTML client, a thin client, and a Java®

client.

16. The system of claim 14, where the CEP logic maintains an in-memory version of the evolving event pattern and where the CEP logic validates a user request based, at least in part, on the in-memory version of the evolving event pattern.

17. The system of claim 14, where the CEP logic provides a member of the set of interactive menus to the user interface logic.

18. The system of claim 17, where the member of the set of interactive menus includes one or more of, metadata, and a valid event pattern construct.

19. The system of claim 14, where the CEP logic provides to the user interface logic a set of operations associated with the evolving event pattern, where the set of operations depends, at least in part, on the relative position in the hierarchical structure of a node associate with the evolving event pattern.

20. The system of claim 14, where an event is one of, an update to a database, receipt of a purchase order, a change to a stored value, a receipt of a signal, and a user driven input;

where a condition is one of, a state of an attribute of an event, an occurrence of an event, a nonoccurrence of an event, an occurrence of a set of events, an occurrence of a set of events within a pre-defined time period, an occurrence of a sequence of a set of events, an occurrence of a subset of a set of events, and an occurrence of an aggregation a set of events; and

where an action is one of, a change to a database, a provision of a signal, a change to a stored value, a notification to a user, and an initiation of a function.

21. The system of claim 14, where the ECA data stored in the data store facilitates one or more of, backing up, restoring, preparing, and re-preparing the CEP engine by the preparation logic.

22. The system of claim 14, where the preparation logic prepares the CEP engine, at least in part, by adding a listener object that initiates an action described by the ECA data to a set of listener objects, where the listener object is programmed to detect an event pattern described by the ECA data.

23. The system of claim 14, where the preparation logic prepares the CEP engine by, at least in part, programming the CEP engine to initiate an action described by the ECA data in response to detecting an event pattern described by the ECA data.

24. The system of claim 23, where preparing the CEP engine includes storing executable instructions written in a combination of SQL and XML in the CEP engine.

25. In a computer system having a graphical user interface comprising a display and a selection device, a method of providing and selecting from a set of data entries on the display, the method comprising:

retrieving a set of data entries, where a data entry represents a complex event pattern construct or an action to perform in response to the occurrence of the CEP;

displaying the set of data entries on the display using a set of interactive menus;

receiving a data entry selection signal from the set of interactive menus indicative of the selection device selecting a selected data entry; and

in response to the data entry selection signal, manipulating the event pattern to build a complex event pattern for configuring a CEP engine to initiate an action in response to an occurrence of the specified event pattern.