EFFICIENT STORAGE USING AUTOMATIC DATA TRANSLATION

• US 20160342645A1
• Filed: 05/18/2015
• Published: 11/24/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 05/18/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Oracle International Corporation (Oracle Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Oracle International Corporation (Oracle Corporation)
• Inventors: TEMPERO, RUSSELL, PINCZES, JENNIFER, WALL, ROBERT LYLE
• Granted Patent: US 10,073,899 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/258 Data format conversion from or to a database

Abstract

Techniques are disclosed for automatic data translation in computing systems. Certain techniques are disclosed herein that enable applications to utilize data in optimal formats specific to each application in an effectively transparent manner, removing the burden to perform data format or type checking, conversions, etc. An automatic data translation module (ADTM) is implemented that automatically translates data as it passes between certain applications. In some embodiments, the ADTM receives a first particular format of data from a first application and automatically/transparently converts the first particular format of data into another representation of the same data, but in a second format utilized by a recipient application. The ADTM may be configured as part of a database application programming interface (API), and can translate textual versions of IP addresses into binary representations for efficient database storage, and translate returned binary representations back into textual representations for convenience and enhanced trace functionalities.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

receiving, at a translation module executing at a server computer, a request from an application to execute a query against a database, wherein the request identifies a first data element of a first data format;

automatically translating, by the translation module, the first data element from the first data format into a second data element of a second data format, wherein the first data element and the second data element comprise different representations of a same value;

generating, by the translation module, the query using the second data element; and

sending, by the translation module, the query to a database server to be executed.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the request to execute the query comprises a request to update or insert one or more database records to store the first data element.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the request to execute the query comprises a request to search for database records including first data element.

4. The method of claim 3, further comprising:

receiving, by the translation module, a query response including portions of one or more database records stored by the database server that satisfy the query;

automatically modifying, by the translation module, the portions of the one or more database records to replace one or more elements of the second data format with a corresponding one or more elements of the first data format; and

sending, by the translation module, the modified query response to the application.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein:

each of the received one or more elements of the second data format comprises a string representation of a binary value that includes one or more non-alphanumeric characters; and

the modifying the portions of the one or more database records comprises;

translating, by the translation module, each of the received one or more elements of the second data format from the string representation of the binary value to a pure binary value comprising one or more zero (1) values and one or more one (1) values; and

translating, by the translation module, each of the pure binary values into a second string representation that includes a plurality of hexadecimal characters and a plurality of colon or period characters.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein:

the first data element comprises a string representation of an Internet Protocol (IP) address including a plurality of hexadecimal characters and a plurality of colon or period characters; and

the second data element comprises a string representation of a binary value of the IP address, wherein the second data element includes one or more non-alphanumeric characters.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein:

the first data format is a string data type; and

the second data format is also the string data type.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the request to execute the query includes a pointer value that identifies the first data element.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the size of the second data element is smaller than the size of the first data element.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein said translating the first data element from the first data format into the second data element of the second data format comprises:

executing a lossless data compression algorithm using the first data element to yield the second data element.

11. A non-transitory computer readable storage medium having instructions which, when executed by one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform operations comprising:

receiving a request from an application to execute a query against a database, wherein the request identifies a first data element of a first data format;

automatically translating the first data element from the first data format into a second data element of a second data format, wherein the first data element and the second data element are different representations of a same value;

generating the query using the second data element; and

sending the query to a database server to be executed.

12. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 11, wherein the operations further comprise:

receiving a query response including portions of one or more database records stored by the database server that satisfy the query;

automatically modifying the portions of the one or more database records to replace one or more elements of the second data format with a corresponding one or more elements of the first data format; and

sending the modified query response to the application.

13. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 12, wherein:

each of the received one or more elements of the second data format comprises a string representation of a binary value that includes one or more non-alphanumeric characters; and

the modifying the portions of the one or more database records comprises;

translating each of the received one or more elements of the second data format from the string representation of the binary value to a pure binary value comprising one or more zero (1) values and one or more one (1) values; and

translating each of the pure binary values into a second string representation that includes a plurality of hexadecimal characters and a plurality of colon or period characters.

14. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 11, wherein:

the first data element comprises a string representation of an Internet Protocol (IP) address including a plurality of hexadecimal characters and a plurality of colon or period characters; and

the second data element comprises a string representation of a binary value of the IP address, wherein the second data element includes one or more non-alphanumeric characters.

15. A system, comprising:

an application executing at a server computing device;

one or more database servers; and

a translation module communicatively coupled with the application and the one or more database servers, wherein the translation module;

receives, from the application, requests to execute queries using the one or more database servers, wherein each of the requests identify a data element of a first data format; and

for each of the received requests;

automatically translates the identified data element from the first data format into a second data element of a second data format wherein the first data element and the second data element are different representations of a same value;

generates a query using the second data element; and

sends the query to at least one of the one or more database servers to be executed.

16. The system of claim 15, wherein the translation module further:

receives query responses including portions of one or more database records stored by the database server that satisfy the queries;

modifies the portions of the one or more database records to replace one or more elements of the second data format with a corresponding one or more elements of the first data format; and

sends the modified query responses to the application.

17. The system of claim 16, wherein:

each of the received one or more elements of the second data format comprises a string representation of a binary value that includes one or more non-alphanumeric characters; and

the translation module modifies the portions of the one or more database records by;

translating each of the received one or more elements of the second data format from the string representation of the binary value to a pure binary value comprising one or more zero (1) values and one or more one (1) values; and

translating each of the pure binary values into a second string representation that includes a plurality of hexadecimal characters and a plurality of colon or period characters.

18. The system of claim 16, wherein the translation module:

for each of the received requests, translates the identified data element from the first data format into a second data element of a second data format by at least executing a lossless data compression algorithm using the first data element to yield the second data element; and

modifies the portions of the one or more database records to replace one or more elements of the second data format with a corresponding one or more elements of the first data format by at least decompressing the one or more elements of the second data format based upon the lossless data compression algorithm to yield the corresponding one or more elements of the first data format.

19. The system of claim 15, wherein:

the first data element comprises a string representation of an Internet Protocol (IP) address including a plurality of hexadecimal characters and a plurality of colon or period characters; and

the second data element comprises a string representation of a binary value of the IP address, wherein the second data element includes one or more non-alphanumeric characters.

20. A method, comprising:

receiving, at a translation module executing at a server computer, a request from an application to execute a query against a database, wherein the request identifies a first data element of a string data type storing a textual representation of an Internet Protocol (IP) address, wherein the textual representation comprises one or more alphanumeric characters and one or more colon or period characters;

translating, by the translation module, the first data element from the string data type into a second data element of a binary data type storing a binary value of the IP address, wherein the binary value comprises one or more zero (0) values and one or more one (1) values;

translating, by the translation module, the second data element of the binary data type into a third data element of the string data type storing a string representation of the binary value of the IP address, wherein the string representation includes one or more non-alphanumeric characters;

generating, by the translation module, the query using the third data element; and

sending, by the translation module, the query to a database server to be executed.