Method and Apparatus for Storage of Data Records

• US 20150019514A1
• Filed: 12/21/2012
• Published: 01/15/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 02/29/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson
• Original Assignee: Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson
• Inventors: Forster, Manfred, Mueller, Elisabeth, Sorg, Peter
• Granted Patent: US 9,514,152 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/693
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/13 File access structures, e.g. distributed indices arrangements of input from, or output to, record carriers G06F3/06
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/1744 using compression, e.g. sparse files
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/185 Hierarchical storage management [HSM] systems, e.g. file migration or policies thereof details of archiving G06F16/11
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9027 Trees
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/12 Accounting
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 15/41 Billing record details, i.e. parameters, identifiers, structure of call data record [CDR]
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 15/43 Billing software details
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 15/74 Backing up

Abstract

Method and data access unit for storage of data records for creating a serialized charging record formatted for insertion into a charging database. The method includes traversing the hierarchical charging record and for each part node of said hierarchical charging record identifying an attribute of the part node and determining if said attribute is a key attribute or a search attribute and if affirmative storing an attribute value of said attribute in a field of the serialized charging record based on a charging database configuration definition. A part segment comprising the attribute value and a data value token is stored in a payload body field of the serialized charging record with a part node indicator representing the location of the part node in the hierarchical charging record based on a hierarchical charging record configuration definition. A method and data access unit for creating a hierarchical charging record is also disclosed. An advantage is that a serialized charging record may be stored in one storage entity such as a table row.

Claims

1-22. -22. (canceled)

23. A method for creating a serialized charging record formatted for insertion into a charging database, the method comprising:

receiving a hierarchical charging record comprising part nodes with charging related data;

retrieving a hierarchical charging record configuration definition specifying the data structure of the hierarchical charging record;

retrieving a charging database configuration definition;

traversing the hierarchical charging record and, for each part node of said hierarchical charging record, identifying an attribute of the part node;

determining whether said attribute is a key attribute or a search attribute and, if said attribute is a key attribute or a search attribute, storing an attribute value of said attribute in a field of the serialized charging record based on the charging database configuration definition; and

,

at least in the event that said attribute is neither a key attribute or a search attribute, storing a part segment comprising the attribute value and a data value token in a payload body field of the serialized charging record with a part node indicator representing the location of the part node in the hierarchical charging record, based on the hierarchical charging record configuration definition.

24. The method of claim 23, wherein the step of storing the attribute value and the data value token in the payload body field of the serialized charging record is performed only in the event that the attribute is neither a key attribute nor a search attribute.

25. The method of claim 23, wherein storing an attribute value includes applying a type-specific algorithm to condense an attribute value of a specific type.

26. The method of claim 25, wherein:

an integer (INTEGER) attribute value is condensed by representing the attribute value with an n-byte integer type where n is smallest number of bytes sufficient to represent the attribute value; and

/or

a double precision float (DOUBL) attribute value is condensed by omitting trailing zero bytes and setting the size of the attribute value in the first used byte; and

/or

a date (DATE) attribute value is condensed by masking each byte of the date attribute value to obtain a half byte constituting a date character and pair wise concatenating the obtained half bytes.

27. The method of claim 23, wherein the payload body field is compressed by using a compression algorithm.

28. The method of claim 27, wherein a compression token indicating the compression is affixed to the payload body field.

29. The method of claim 27, where a compression token indicating the use of compression is stored in a byte array control header of the serialized charging record.

30. The method of claim 23, wherein the payload body field is a Binary Large Object (BLOB) or a Character Large Object (CLOB).

31. A method for creating a hierarchical charging record, the method comprising:

receiving a serialized charging record comprising part segments with charging related data;

retrieving a hierarchical charging record configuration definition specifying the data structure of the hierarchical charging record;

extracting a payload body field from the serialized charging record;

traversing the payload body field and;

(i) detecting a part node indicator identifying a part node;

(ii) allocating memory for the part node determined by the hierarchical charging record configuration definition based on the part node indicator;

(iii) detecting a data value token indicating a part segment;

(iv) extracting properties from the data value token;

(v) allocating memory for an attribute of the part node, based on the properties;

(vi) reading a data value from the part segment; and

(vii) storing the data value to the memory allocated for the attribute of the part node.

32. The method of claim 31, wherein after the step of traversing the payload body field performing the further step of processing a key and/or search column of the serialized charging record for injecting values of said key and/or search column into the hierarchical charging record, based on the hierarchical charging record configuration definition.

33. The method of claim 31, further comprising detecting a compression token affixed to the payload body field indicating a compression of the payload body field and subsequently uncompressing the payload body field based on the compression token, wherein said detecting and subsequently uncompressing are performed after the step of extracting a payload body field

34. The method of claim 31, wherein the payload body field is a Binary Large Object (BLOB) or a Character Large Object (CLOB).

35. A data access unit for creating a serialized charging record formatted for insertion into a charging database, the data access unit comprising:

an interface unit adapted to receive a hierarchical charging record comprising part nodes with charging related data, retrieve a hierarchical charging record configuration definition specifying the data structure of the hierarchical charging record and retrieve a charging database configuration definition;

a formatting unit adapted to traverse the hierarchical charging record and, for each part node of said hierarchical charging record, identify an attribute of the part node determine whether said attribute is a key attribute or a search attribute and, if said attribute is a key attribute or search attribute, store an attribute value of said attribute in a field of the serialized charging record based on the charging database configuration definition;

wherein the interface unit is further adapted to, at least in the event that said attribute is neither a key attribute or a search attribute, store a part segment comprising the attribute value and a data value token in a payload body field of the serialized charging record with a part node indicator representing the location of the part node in the hierarchical charging record based on the hierarchical charging record configuration definition.

36. The data access unit of claim 35, wherein the interface unit is adapted to store the attribute value and the data value token in the payload body field of the serialized charging record only in the event that the attribute is not a key attribute or a search attribute.

37. The data access unit of claim 35, wherein the formatting unit is further adapted to store the attribute value by applying a type specific algorithm to condense an attribute value of a specific type.

38. The data access unit of claim 37, wherein the formatting unit is further adapted to:

condense an integer (INTEGER) attribute value by representing the attribute value with an n-byte integer type where n is smallest number of bytes sufficient to represent the attribute value; and

/or

condense a double precision float (DOUBL) attribute value by omitting trailing zero bytes and setting the size of the attribute value in the first used byte; and

or

condense a date (DATE) attribute value by masking each byte of the date attribute value to obtain a half byte constituting a date character and pair wise concatenating the obtained half bytes.

39. The data access unit of claim 35, wherein the formatting unit is adapted to compress the payload body field by using a compression algorithm.

40. The data access unit of claim 39, wherein the formatting unit is adapted to affix a compression token indicating the compression to the payload body field.

41. The data access unit of claim 39, wherein the formatting unit is adapted to store a compression token indicating the use of compression in a byte array control header of the serialized charging record.

42. The data access unit of claim 35, wherein the payload body field is a Binary Large Object (BLOB) or a Character Large Object (CLOB).

43. A data access unit for creating a hierarchical charging record formatted for insertion into a charging database, the data access unit comprising:

an interface unit adapted to receive a serialized charging record comprising part segments with charging related data and retrieve a hierarchical charging record configuration definition specifying the data structure of the hierarchical charging record;

a formatting unit adapted to extract a payload body field from the serialized charging record and to traverse the payload body field by;

(i) detecting a part node indicator identifying a part node;

(ii) allocating memory for the part node determined by the hierarchical charging record configuration definition based on the part node indicator;

(iii) detecting a data value token indicating a part segment;

(iv) extracting properties from the data value token;

(v) allocating memory for an attribute of the part node, based on the properties;

(vi) reading a data value from the part segment; and

(vii) storing the data value to the memory allocated for the attribute of the part node.

44. The data access unit of claim 43, wherein the formatting unit is further adapted to process a key and/or search column of the serialized charging record and to inject values of said key and/or search column into the hierarchical charging record based on the hierarchical charging record configuration definition.

45. The data access unit of claim 43, wherein the formatting unit is further adapted to detect a compression token affixed to the payload body field indicating a compression of the payload body field and to subsequently uncompress the payload body field based on the compression token.

46. The data access unit of claim 43, wherein the payload body field is a Binary Large Object (BLOB) or a Character Large Object (CLOB).