EDITABLE AND SEARCHABLE MARKUP PAGES AUTOMATICALLY POPULATED THROUGH USER QUERY MONITORING

• US 20140279845A1
• Filed: 10/18/2013
• Published: 09/18/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 03/17/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Alation, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Alation, Inc.
• Inventors: Ganti, Venkatesh, Kalb, Aaron, Niu, Feng, Sangani, Satyen
• Granted Patent: US 9,244,952 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/608
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/211 Schema design and management
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/219 Managing data history or versioning querying versioned data G06F16/2474; querying temporal data G06F16/2477
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/248 Presentation of query results
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/3325 Reformulation based on results of preceding query

Abstract

Disclosed are a method, a device and/or a system of editable and searchable markup pages automatically populated through query monitoring of users of a database. In one aspect, a method includes automatically generating an editable markup page and/or a page name based on an initial query of a database using a processor and a memory, associating the generated markup page with a user of the database, and appending information to the editable markup page based on a similar query of the database by another user. The method may include permitting other users of the database to access, modify, append, and/or delete entries from the editable mark-up page.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

automatically generating an editable markup page and a page name based on an initial query of a database using a processor and a memory;

associating the generated markup page with a user of the database; and

appending information to the editable markup page based on a similar query of the database by another user.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

permitting other users of the database to access the editable mark-up page;

permitting other users of the database to modify the editable mark-up page;

permitting other users of the database to append information in the editable mark-up page; and

permitting other users of the database to delete information in the editable mark-up page.

3. The method of claim 2 further comprising:

tracking each edit made by the other users in a log file; and

presenting the log file on the markup page such that visitors to the editable markup page have visible to them a change history of the editable markup page by various users of the database.

4. The method of claim 3 further comprising:

creating a set of rules in which any user can flag an edit made by any user of the database as being marked for deletion;

enabling other users to vote on whether the edit made should be deleted; and

restoring the editable markup page to a state prior to the edit being made based on a successful vote of the other users of the database.

5. The method of claim 4 further comprising:

automatically populating a profile markup page of the user with information describing the initial query of a database that the user has generated;

determining that another user of the database has submitted a similar query that is semantically proximate to the initial query of the database that the user has generated;

presenting the profile markup page of the user to the another user; and

automatically appending information about the similar query that is semantically proximate to the initial query of the database on the editable markup page.

6. The method of claim 4, further comprising:

enabling the another user to communicate with the user through a communication channel on the profile markup page;

publishing a question of the another user to the user on the profile markup page of the user, and another profile markup page of the another user;

associating the question as being posted by the another user;

processing a response of the user to the question;

publishing the response of the user to the question on the profile markup page of the user, the another profile markup page of the another user, and on the editable markup page; and

associating the response as being posted by the user.

7. The method of claim 5, further comprising permitting users of the database to associate at least one of an electronic mailing address, a phone number, a biography, a personal photograph, a social media handle, and an educational background with their profile associated the editable markup page.

8. The method of claim 6, further comprising:

automatically populating the another profile markup page of the another user with information describing the similar query of the database that the another user has generated,

wherein

the automatically populating the profile markup page of the user with information describing the initial query of the database that the user has generated and

the automatically populating the another profile markup page of the another user with information describing the similar query of the database,

are both performed through automatic observation and monitoring of activity of the user and the another user in interacting with the database.

9. The method of claim 7, further comprising:

generating a social data catalog table that populates the editable markup page;

associating relationships between different data objects comprising at least one of popular tables, popular attributes, co-queried attributes in a table, related tables, joinable columns, joinable predicates, and relevant filter for each table using the social data catalog table; and

associating relationships between data objects and users comprising a list of knowledgeable people who may be contacted about particular objects using the social data catalog table;

parsing queries into constituent fragments; and

aggregating, normalizing, and storing results of parsed queries.

10. The method of claim 8, further comprising:

mining information using the results of the parsed queries to populate the social data catalog; and

populating the social data catalog associated with the editable markup page with information from at least one of crawled query logs, analyzed application logs, and a query editing tool,

wherein crawling query logs ingest queries from files where users store queries,

wherein application logs are analyzed for queries, and

wherein query editing tools are added to the social data catalog to develop and append developed queries to the editable markup page.

11. The method of claim 9:

wherein a social data catalog module implements at least one of a materialized computation and an on-demand computation as an alternative to an Application Programming Interface (API) function,

wherein the materialized computation involves periodically mining query logs to update a query reference table with new queries that have not been previously processed as well as materializing and indexing derived information of different data objects, and

wherein on-demand computation involves indexing the query reference table using various objects that each row references.

12. The method of claim 10:

populating the social data catalog table with a meta data, a logical definition and description of attributes, information about usage, page views between users, a social data network, and a statistical data profile;

extracting information from external data sources and social media profiles to generate the social data catalog table of information; and

crowdsourcing information from a ranked list of knowledgeable users to generate a ranked order of priority of information presented in profile pages of the curated answers system,

wherein the information about usage includes related tables and join predicates as well as relevant filters associated with each table of at least one of the database and the sample database, and

wherein the social data network includes a list of users who are knowledgeable about a particular object related to the another query,

wherein the information is a metadata is at least one of a schema name, a table in a schema, a name of an attribute, a data type of an attribute, a primary key associated with an attribute, a constraint of an attribute, a functional dependency between attributes, an index, a foreign key, a field name, a column name, a table name, and a query description.

13. The method of claim 11, further comprising:

associating a data catalog studio with the editable markup page;

generating in the data catalog studio a data catalog repository, a data source registrar, a background extraction component, a frontend component, and a user interaction logger;

wherein the data catalog repository

to store the social data catalog,

to store a data object and information about the data object, and to return information about the data object,

to update stored information, and to return a ranked list of relevant data object, and

to search and to return a list of data object of a given type.

14. The method of claim 12, further comprising:

registering a data source and extracting declared metadata from a schema using the data source registrar;

enabling at least one of the user and the another user to register a data source, upload documentation on the data source, upload the query log, search relevant objects, and browse the schema in the data source using the front end component;

automatically profiling, locating, extracting, and associating a documentation of at least one of the user and the another user in the data source using the background extraction component;

automatically profiling, locating, extracting, and associating a query log of at least one of the user and the another user in the data source using the background extraction component; and

monitoring and logging interactions between the front end component and various users accessing the front end component to add, delete, reorder, modify, and sort information presented in profile pages of users of a curated answers system.

16. The method of claim 14 further comprising:

tracking each edit made by the other users in a log file; and

presenting the log file on the markup page such that visitors to the editable markup page have visible to them a change history of the editable markup page by various users of the database.

18. The method of claim 16:

wherein a social data catalog module implements at least one of a materialized computation and an on-demand computation as an alternative to an Application Programming Interface (API) function,

wherein the materialized computation involves periodically mining query logs to update a query reference table with new queries that have not been previously processed as well as materializing and indexing derived information of different data objects, and

wherein on-demand computation involves indexing the query reference table using various objects that each row references.

20. The collaborative database knowledge system of claim 18 wherein the social database catalog module:

to associate relationships between data objects and users comprising a list of knowledgeable people who may be contacted about particular objects using the social data catalog table,

to parse queries into constituent fragments, and

to aggregate, to normalize, and to store results of parsed queries.

15. A method comprising:

automatically generating an editable markup page and a page name based on an initial query of a database using a processor and a memory;

associating the generated markup page with a user of the database;

appending information to the editable markup page based on a similar query of the database by another user;

permitting other users of the database to access the editable mark-up page;

permitting other users of the database to modify the editable mark-up page;

permitting other users of the database to append information in the editable mark-up page; and

permitting other users of the database to delete information in the editable mark-up page.

17. The method of claim 15 further comprising:

creating a set of rules in which any user can flag an edit made by any user of the database as being marked for deletion;

enabling other users to vote on whether the edit made should be deleted; and

restoring the editable markup page to a state prior to the edit being made based on a successful vote of the other users of the database.

19. A collaborative database knowledge repository, comprising:

a social database catalog module having a social data catalog table to populate an editable markup page of the collaborative database knowledge repository, and to associate relationships between different data objects comprising at least one of popular tables, popular attributes, co-queried attributes in a table, related tables, joinable columns, joinable predicates, and relevant filter for each table using the social data catalog table; and

a data catalog studio to associate with the editable markup page and to generate in the data catalog studio a data catalog repository, a data source registrar, a background extraction component, a frontend component, and a user interaction logger.

21. The method of claim 19, wherein the data catalog studio:

to register a data source and extracting declared metadata from a schema using the data source registrar,

to enable at least one of the user and the another user to register a data source, upload documentation on the data source, upload the query log, search relevant objects, and browse the schema in the data source using the front end component,

to automatically profile, locate, extract, and associate a documentation of at least one of the user and the another user in the data source using the background extraction component,

to automatically profile, locate, extract, and associate a query log of at least one of the user and the another user in the data source using the background extraction component, and

to monitor and log interactions between the front end component and various users accessing the front end component to add, delete, reorder, modify, and sort information presented in profile pages of users of a curated answers system.