SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR GENERATING A PUSH-UP ALERT OF FAULT CONDITIONS IN THE DISTRIBUTION OF DATA IN A HIERARCHICAL DATABASE

• US 20110158106A1
• Filed: 12/31/2009
• Published: 06/30/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 12/31/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Red Hat, Inc. (International Business Machines Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Red Hat, Inc. (International Business Machines Corporation)
• Inventors: Williamson, Eric
• Granted Patent: US 8,315,174 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/242
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/283 Multi-dimensional databases or data warehouses, e.g. MOLAP or ROLAP
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0681 Configuration of triggering conditions

Abstract

Embodiments relate to systems and methods for generating a push-up alert of fault conditions in the distribution of data in a hierarchical database. Higher-level data, such as yearly profit, may be desired to be spread from parent nodes to lower nodes, such as quarters, in a hierarchical data store. Parent nodes can be associated with a set of programmatic placeholder nodes. A spreading tool can insert child nodes representing quarters, months, or other insertion point(s) encoded by a set of placeholder nodes, dividing quantities appropriately. The spreading tool can access or host logic to ensure that data is spread in an order that takes dependencies, formatting, or other factors into account. The spreading tool can also be configured to detect numerical errors, logical errors, or other faults and attempt to identify conflicting rules or other sources of error. Those rules can be automatically removed and/or removed via user selection.

Claims

1. A method of processing data, comprising:

receiving a set of data to be inserted in a hierarchical database;

associating a set of child nodes with at least one parent node in the hierarchical database;

accessing a set of spreading rules to determine conditioning required to distribute data from the at least one parent node to the corresponding set of child nodes;

identifying a violation in the set of spreading rules when the conditioning required to distribute data causes a fault state; and

generating a notification to the user of the fault state.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the set of spreading rules comprises at least one of a set of rules related to data dependencies in the set of data, a set of rules related to the formatting of the set of data, and a set of rules related to routing of output of the set of child nodes to other nodes.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the set of spreading rules comprises a set of rules related to data dependencies in the set of data, and the set of rules related to data dependencies in the set of data comprises a set of sequence rules specifying an order of distribution of the set of data to the set of child nodes.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the distributing the set of data comprises distributing the set of data via a set of placeholder nodes associated with the at least one parent node.

5. The method of claim 3, wherein the set of placeholder nodes encode a set of inheritance classes defining the set of child nodes.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the set of data comprises at least one of medical, technical, scientific, or financial data.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the hierarchical database comprises at least one of an online analytical processing (OLAP) data source or an extensible markup language (XML)-based data source.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the at least one parent node comprises a plurality of parent nodes.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising selecting at least one rule in the set of spreading rules for adjustment, suspension, or removal from data spreading activity based on the violation.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the selecting is performed automatically via a database engine.

11. The method of claim 9, wherein the selecting is performed via user input a user interface configured to present the violation.

12. The method of claim 9, further comprising determining an altered conditioning required to distribute data from the at least one parent node to the corresponding set of child nodes after removal or suspension of the at least one spreading rule.

13. A system for database operations, comprising:

an interface to at least one hierarchical database; and

a database engine, communicating with the at least one hierarchical database via the interface, the database engine being configured to—

receive a set of data to be inserted in the hierarchical database,

associate a set of child nodes with at least one parent node in the hierarchical database,

access a set of spreading rules to determine conditioning required to distribute data from the at least one parent node to the corresponding set of child nodes,

identify a violation in the set of spreading rules when the conditioning required to distribute data causes a fault state, and

generate a notification to the user of the fault state.

14. The system of claim 13, wherein the set of spreading rules comprises at least one of a set of rules related to data dependencies in the set of data, a set of rules related to the formatting of the set of data, and a set of rules related to routing of output of the set of child nodes to other nodes.

15. The system of claim 13, wherein the distributing the set of data comprises distributing the set of data via a set of placeholder nodes associated with the at least one parent node.

17. The system of claim 13, wherein the database engine is further configured to process a selection at least one rule in the set of spreading rules for adjustment, suspension, or removal from data spreading activity based on the violation.

18. The system of claim 17, wherein the selection is performed automatically via a database engine.

19. The system of claim 17, wherein the selection is performed via user input a user interface configured to present the violation.

20. The system of claim 17, further comprising determining an altered conditioning required to distribute data from the at least one parent node to the corresponding set of child nodes after removal or suspension of the at least one spreading rule.

16. The system of claim 16, wherein the set of placeholder nodes encode a set of inheritance classes defining the set of child nodes.