Methods for shared data management in a pervasive computing environment

• US 6,327,594 B1
• Filed: 01/29/1999
• Issued: 12/04/2001
• Est. Priority Date: 01/29/1999
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Van Huben, Gary A., Mueller, Joseph L.
• Primary Examiner(s): Shah, Sanjiv
• Application Number:
  US09/240,732
• Time in Patent Office: 1,040 Days
• Field of Search: 707/200, 707/10, 707/8, 707/102, 707/1, 707/101, 707/100, 707/103, 707/4, 707/205, 707/202, 345/339, 705/8
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/2308 Concurrency control transaction processing G06F9/466
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/252 between a Database Management System and a front-end application
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/256 in federated or virtual databases
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99938 Concurrency, e.g. lock management in shared database

Abstract

A common access method is disclosed to enable disparate pervasive computing devices to interact with centralized data management systems. A modular, scalable data management system is envisioned to further expand the role of the pervasive devices as direct participants in the data management system. This data management system has a plurality of data managers and is provided with a plurality of data managers in one or more layers of a layered architecture. The system performs with a data manager and with a input from a user or pervasive computing device via an API a plurality of process on data residing in heterogeneous data repositories of computer system including promotion, check-in, check-out, locking, library searching, setting and viewing process results, tracking aggregations, and managing parts, releases and problem fix data under management control of a virtual control repository having one or more physical heterogeneous repositories. The system provides for storing, accessing, tracking data residing in said one or more data repositories managed by the virtual control repository. DMS applications executing directly within, on or behalf of, the pervasive computing device organize data using the PFVL paradigm. Configurable managers include a query control repository for existence of peer managers and provide logic switches to dynamically interact with peers. A control repository layer provides a common process interface across all managers. A command translator performs the appropriate mapping of generic control repository layer calls to the required function for the underlying storage engine.

Claims

1. A method for enabling a central data management system to interact with a pervasive computing device, comprising the steps of providing a common access protocol for enabling any pervasive computing device capable of executing a control program tangibly embodying a program of instructions to interact with a centralized data management system, and providing a commonly accessible data management system which possesses a plurality of data managers for data residing in a data repository managed by a virtual control repository, wherein said data management system possesses a plurality of data managers, and the method further comprises the steps of

providing said plurality of data managers in one or more layers of a layered architecture, and performing with a data manager and with a user input via an API a plurality of processes on data residing in heterogeneous data repositories of computer system including promotion, check-in, check-out, locking, library searching, setting and viewing process results, tracking aggregations, and managing parts, releases and problem fix data under management control of a virtual control repository having one or more physical heterogeneous repositories, and storing, accessing, tracking data residing in one or more said data repositories managed by said virtual control repository.

2. The method according to claim 1 wherein any type of data generated, captured, manipulated or otherwise transmitted by said pervasive computer devices can be mapped into a package, Filetype, variance and a PFVL Level whereby within a variance there exists one or more data objects of a given type residing at one or more levels with one or more versions.

3. The method according to claim 2 wherein packages are hierarchical and contain other Packages, and wherein a given package can contain any combination of data objects and/or packages.

4. The method according to claim 1 wherein said data management system comprises a plurality of data managers are configurable and can be dynamically or statically combined as modules of a scalable system ranging up to a high-end enterprise wide DMS.

5. The method according to claim 1 wherein is provided a User Interface Layer for interaction with said pervasive computing devices via said API which enables mapping of a methodology, process, use-model or environment into a generic PFVL paradigm using tools which can be manipulated by said user, including industrial robots, palmtop computers, bar code scanners, medical diagnostic equipment, cellular telephones, pagers, digital cameras, electronic organizers, laptop computers, audio/video dictation and recording devices, menus, GUIs, and Web Browsers.

6. The method according to claim 1 wherein is provided with one or more DMS application layers which contains utilities that a pervasive computing device requires to interact with the DMS processes of promotion, check-in, check-out, locking, library searching, setting and viewing process results, tracking aggregations, and managing parts, releases and problem fix data.

7. The method according to claim 6 wherein said DMS application layers contain applications, each of which is composed of one or more application modules which interact with the data managers in one or more ways of interaction including:

non-manager interaction;

single manager interaction;

multiple manager interaction; and

control repository access coupled with manager interaction.

8. The method according to claim 7 wherein said DMS applications and data manager functions can be accessed by pervasive computing devices using a common API based on the PFVL paradigm whereby all functions require a minimum of Package, Filetype, Variance, and Level but may permit additional optional parameters, and any combination of wild cards or placeholder characters may be used on any of the parameters.

9. The method according to claim 1 wherein data is stored in one or more data repositories constructed with one or more tools including simple directory trees, commercially available PDMs (storage engines), and the WWW and each repository may employ a common or unique storage and data access method.

10. The method according to claim 9 wherein each data object is classified by PFVL and unique File Reference regardless of the physical data repository in which the data object resides.

11. The method according to claim 9 wherein one or more of said data repositories resides completely or partially within the pervasive computing device.

12. The method according to claim 1 wherein said virtual control repository'"'"'s physical repositories consist of repositories selected from the group of:

relational databases, object oriented databases, flat files, table formatted files, Lotus Notes databases, any application capable of handling data in tabular format such as spreadsheets, meta data files and proprietarily formatted files and said Control Repository classifies all data according to the PFVL paradigm.

13. The method according to claim 1 further comprising a scalable client/server interface permitting the DMS to use local services to run in a client-only mode on the pervasive computing device and permitting a combination of local &

remote services to run in a fully secure distributed client/server mode.

14. The method according to claim 1 wherein command translators are employed to map generic SQL-based virtual control repository transactions into any required command interface needed to interact with the corresponding physical implementation of said virtual control repository.

15. The method according to claim 1 wherein said pervasive computing devices communicate with said data management system using a variety of protocols such as TCP/IP, token ring, ethernet, Bisync, RS-232, HTTP, DCE, wireless, infrared, optical or any protocol capable of establishing a connection between a multitude of computing machines and transferring digital data streams.

16. The method according to claim 1 wherein disparate pervasive devices interact with a plurality of data management systems to exchange data in an e-business environment.

17. The method according to claim 1 wherein remote computing devices employ the PFVL paradigm to perform synchronization of data between a centralized data management system residing on a host system and localized replicas residing on one or more remote computing devices.

18. The method according to claim 17 wherein pervasive computing devices with limited data entry, storage, I/O, or memory capabilities can participate along with traditional remote computing devices such as laptop or notebook computers in a synchronization or replication environment.