SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR CONDITIONED DISTRIBUTION OF DATA IN A LATTICE-BASED DATABASE USING SPREADING RULES

• US 20110161374A1
• Filed: 12/31/2009
• Published: 06/30/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 09/30/2009
• 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 8,909,678 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/802
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/27 Replication, distribution or synchronisation of data between databases or within a distributed database system; Distributed database system architectures therefor
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/959 Network

Abstract

Embodiments relate to systems and methods for the conditioned distribution of data in a lattice-based database using spreading rules. A data store can store data in a lattice-based database or other three-dimensional hierarchical format. Higher-level data, such as yearly profit, may be desired to be spread from parent nodes at different levels or points in the lattice structure to lower nodes or locations, such as quarters. 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) represented or encoded by a set of placeholder nodes, dividing, combining, or otherwise distributing quantities appropriately. In aspects, data can be spread from multiple parents and/or multiple target child nodes, at once. In aspects, the spreading tool can access or host sequence logic to ensure data spreading in an order that takes dependencies, formatting, or other factors into account.

Claims

1. A method of processing data, comprising:

receiving a set of data to be inserted in a lattice-based database;

associating a set of child nodes with at least one parent node in the lattice-based 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;

generating a conditioned distribution of the data based on the set of spreading rules; and

distributing the set of data from the at least one parent node into the corresponding set of child nodes based on the conditioned distribution.

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 4, 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 lattice-based 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 8, wherein the set of data distributed from at least two of the plurality of parent nodes to the corresponding set of child nodes is the same.

10. The method of claim 8, wherein the at least two of the parent nodes are located at different three-dimensional positions of the lattice-based database.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein at least two child nodes in the set of child nodes are located at different three-dimensional positions of the lattice-based database.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein the distribution of the set of data from the at least one parent node into the corresponding set of child nodes comprises distributing the set of data in three dimensions of the lattice-based database.

13. A system for database operations, comprising:

an interface to at least one lattice-based database;

a database engine, communicating with the interface, the database engine being configured to—

receive a set of data to be inserted in a lattice-based 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 data conditioning required to distribute data from the at least one parent node to the corresponding set of child nodes,

generate a conditioned distribution of the data based on the set of spreading rules, and

distribute the set of data from the at least one parent node into the corresponding set of child nodes based on the conditioned distribution.

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 14, 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.

16. 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 lattice-based database comprises at least one of an online analytical processing (OLAP) data source or an extensible markup language (XML)-based data source.

18. The system of claim 13, wherein the at least one parent node comprises a plurality of parent nodes, and at least two of the plurality of parent nodes are located at different three-dimensional positions of the lattice-based database.

19. The system of claim 13, wherein at least two child nodes in the set of child nodes are located at different three-dimensional positions of the lattice-based database.

20. A hierarchical data store stored in a computer readable storage medium, the hierarchical data store being generated by a method of:

receiving a set of data to be inserted in the lattice-based database;

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

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

generating a conditioned distribution of the set of data based on the set of spreading rules; and

distributing the set of data from the at least one parent node into the corresponding set of child nodes based on the conditioned distribution.