METHODOLOGY AND COMPUTER PROGRAM PRODUCT FOR EFFECTING RULE EVALUATION IN POLICY BASED DATA MANAGEMENT

• US 20090210375A1
• Filed: 05/29/2008
• Published: 08/20/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 02/20/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Hsu, Windsor Wee Sun, Huang, Lan
• Granted Patent: US 7,895,147 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 706/47
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/2272 Management thereof
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/24564 Applying rules; Deductive queries
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management

Abstract

The invention relates to a system and method for providing efficient policy rule updates in policy-based data management. More particularly, the invention relates to a system and method for restraining the size of the set of data objects to be examined after a policy rule evaluation.

Claims

1. A computer program product that includes a computer readable medium useable by a processor, the medium having stored thereon a sequence of instructions which, when executed by the processor, causes the processor to evaluate a set of predetermined rules within a policy-based data management system, by:

analyzing common rule conditions and action patterns of a predetermined set of policy rules, wherein the analyzation of the common rule conditions and action patterns of a predetermined set of policy rules comprises determining a set of attributes that are to be indexed, the determining of the attributes comprising;

parsing component unit expressions for a rule condition, and for each unit expression;

classifying an operand as a constant or variable operand;

classifying an attribute as a dynamic or static attribute;

classifying an action pattern as a one-time or recurring action pattern;

classifying the unit expression as a static or dynamic unit expression;

indexing each attribute that is associated with a non-static unit expressions;

creating change logs for each attribute that is only associated with a static unit expression;

generating a collective change log for each static unit expression, wherein the collective change log is the union of the attribute change logs for all component attributes of the static unit expression;

identifying a cache result set for the static unit expression, wherein the cache result set is combined within a final result change log set;

scanning objects comprised within the change log set, wherein in the instance that an object is a match for the static unit expression then it is added to the change log set, and conversely, in the instance that an object is not a match for the static unit expression the object is removed from the change log set in the event that the object was comprised within the cache result set;

returning a final change log result set for the static unit expression; and

minimizing the number of objects that are to be checked for a condition evaluation.