Efficient and effective distributed information management

• US 6,567,810 B1
• Filed: 12/21/2001
• Issued: 05/20/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 11/19/1997
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: AT&T Corporation (AT&T, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: AT&T Corporation (AT&T, Inc.)
• Inventors: Singhal, Amitabh Kumar
• Primary Examiner(s): CHOULES, JACK M
• Application Number:
  US10/023,833
• Time in Patent Office: 515 Days
• Field of Search: 707/10, 707/3, 707/104.1, 709/200-214
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/30 of unstructured textual data document management systems G06F16/93
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/319 Inverted lists
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99933 Query processing, i.e. searching
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99945 Object-oriented database structure processing
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99948 Application of database or data structure, e.g. distributed, multimedia, or image

Abstract

A method stores, indexes, searches and retrieves data information in a large data storage and retrieval system. Large amounts of data information, subject to searching and retrieval, are broken down and stored in sub-collections. Each sub-collection separately performs indexing of only the data information contained within that sub-collection and forms an inverted index. Statistical information derived from the inverted index of each sub-collection is collected by a global collection custodian and compiled into a global index. The global index is then passed to each sub-collection and is used by each during searching and retrieving of data information. Search results from each sub-collection are passed to the global collection custodian and organized there before being passed to a system user.

Claims

1. A method of searching data on a network, the method comprising:

indexing a subset of the data stored on a local computer;

receiving at the local computer a search query from a user of the local computer;

searching the indexed data based on the search query;

sending the search query to other local computers on the network;

receiving at the central computer results of the search query from the local computer;

receiving at the central computer results of the search query from other local computers; and

merging the search results received from the local computer and other local computers.

2. The method according to claim 1, wherein the subset of data stored on the local computer is less than four gigabytes in size.

3. The method according to claim 1, further comprising the step of:

inverting the indexed data.

4. The method according to claim 3, wherein the inversion of the indexed entered data assigns a weight to a document based on a frequency of a word found in the document.

5. The method according to claim 1, further comprising the step of:

indexing the search query.

6. The method according to claim 5, wherein the step of indexing the search query yields a weighted vector.

7. The method according to claim 6, further comprising the step of:

utilizing the weighted vector to derive a document score.