Unified reporting

• US 7,383,279 B2
• Filed: 03/07/2005
• Issued: 06/03/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 03/07/2005
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Tare, Kailas Gangadhar, Munshi, Rajesh M, Padisetty, Sivaprasad V
• Primary Examiner(s): Rimell; Sam
• Assistant Examiner(s): Kabir; Sheikh M
• Application Number:
  US11/074,463
• Publication Number:
  US 20060200484A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,184 Days
• Field of Search: 707/1, 707/100, 707/101, 707/102
• US Class Current: 707/603
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/283 Multi-dimensional databases or data warehouses, e.g. MOLAP or ROLAP
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/345 Summarisation for human users
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/958 Data cubes
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99943 Generating database or data structure, e.g. via user interface

Abstract

A framework is provided that uniformly stores in a central repository data collected from various locations in an enterprise computing network. One or more measurements for data of interest in the central repository are pre-calculated. The pre-calculated measurement(s) are normalized to reflect the relative importance of the data of interest in comparison to other data in the central repository. Reports may be generated based on the pre-calculated measurements for the data of interest.

Claims

1. A system for generating reports based on data existing in an enterprise computing network, comprising:

a plurality of data stores, each of data stores supplying a data for a central repository;

a central repository for storing the data collected from the plurality of data stores;

a crawler service for continuously and repeatedly collecting data from the plurality of data stores and storing the data in the central repository, the crawler service only querying the data in the data stores that has been changed since a previous crawl;

a unified reporting cube for pre-calculating measurements for data of interest in the central repository;

a unified reporting cube administration user interface for defining said unified reporting cube, the unified reporting cube administration user interface enabling a user to;

(i) create the unified reporting cube for the central repository;

(ii) add one or more data stores that provide data for the central respository;

(iii) remove one or more data stores that provide data for the central repository;

(iv) select data dimensions for the unified reporting cube; and

(v) deselect data dimensions for the unified reporting cube; and

a unified reporting user interface for generating a report based on measurements pre-calculated by the unified reporting cube, the unified reporting user interface comprising a Web site accessible by the user, the unified reporting user interface providing access to the unified reporting cube, the unified reporting user interface including a selection of default reports customizable by the user.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the central repository specifies one or more data stores that supply data to the central repository.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein a unified reporting cube normalizes a pre-calculated measurement for the data of interest to reflect the importance of the data of interest relative to other data in the central repository.

4. A computer-implemented method for generating reports based on data existing in an enterprise computing network, comprising:

gathering data existing in the enterprise computing network to a central repository with a single database schema, wherein gathering data existing in the enterprise computing network to a central repository with a single database schema includes;

(i) identifying a plurality of data stores in the enterprise computing network that supply data to the central repository;

(ii) collecting data from the plurality of data stores and storing them in the central repository according to the single database schema by using a crawler service for continuously and repeatedly collecting data from the plurality of data stores and storing the data in the central repository, the crawler service only querying the data in the data store that has been changed since a previous crawl; and

(iii) updating the central repository according to data changes in the plurality of data stores;

creating a unified reporting cube for pre-calculating measurements for data of interest in the central repository by using a unified reporting cube administration user interface, the unified reporting cube administration user interface enabling a user to;

(i) create the unified reporting cube for the central repository;

(ii) add one or more data stores that provide data for the central repository;

(iii) remove one or more data stores that provide data for the central repository;

(iv) select data dimensions for the unified reporting cube; and

(v) deselect data dimensions for the unified reporting cube; and

using a unified reporting user interface to generate a report based on measurements pre-calculated by the unified reporting cube, the unified reporting user interface comprising a Web site accessible by the user, the unified reporting user interface providing access to the unified reporting cube, the unified reporting user interface including a selection of default reports customizable by the user.

5. The computer-implemented method of claim 4, wherein a pre-calculated measurement for the data of interest is normalized to reflect the importance of the data of interest relative to other data in the central repository.

6. The computer-implemented method of claim 4, wherein creating one or more unified reporting cubes includes:

identifying data of interest in the central repository;

calculating one or more measurements for the data of interest; and

storing the calculated measurements.

7. A computer-readable medium containing computer-executable instructions for generating reports based on data existing in an enterprise computing network, comprising:

gathering data existing in the enterprise computing network to a central repository with a single database schema, wherein gathering data existing in the enterprise computing network to a central repository with a single database schema includes;

(i) identifying a plurality of data stores in the enterprise computing network that supply data to the central repository;

(ii) collecting data from the plurality of data stores and storing them in the central repository according to the single database schema by using a crawler service for continuously and repeatedly collecting data from the plurality of data stores and storing the data in the central repository, the crawler service only querying the data in the data store that has been changed since a previous crawl; and

(iii) updating the central repository according to data changes in the plurality of data stores;

creating a unified reporting cube for pre-calculating measurements for data of interest in the central repository by using a unified reporting cube administration user interface, the unified reporting cube administration user interface enabling a user to;

(i) create the unified reporting cube for the central repository;

(ii) add one or more data stores that provide data for the central repository;

(iii) remove one or more data stores that provide data for the central repository;

(iv) select data dimensions for the unified reporting cube, and (v) deselect data dimensions for the unified reporting cube; and

using a unified reporting user interface to generate a report based on measurements pre-calculated by the unified reporting cube, the unified reporting user interface comprising a Web site accessible by the user, the unified reporting user interface providing access to the unified reporting cube, the unified reporting user interface including a selection of default reports customizable by the user.

8. The computer-readable medium of claim 7, wherein a pre-calculated measurement for the data of interest is normalized to reflect the importance of the data of interest relative to other data in the central repository.

9. The computer-readable medium of claim 7, wherein creating one or more unified reporting cubes includes:

identifying data of interest in the central repository;

calculating one or more measurements for the data of interest; and

storing the calculated measurements.

10. The computer-readable medium of claim 7, wherein the data gathered to the central repository include one or more computing jobs (“

job”

) and one or more results of executing a job.

11. The computer-readable medium of claim 10, wherein the pre-calculated measurements include:

normalized number of attempted executions of a job (“

Weight”

);

normalized number of successful executions of the job (“

Passed”

); and

normalized number of failed executions of the job (“

Failed”

).

12. The computer-readable medium of claim 11, wherein the pre-calculated measurements further include any item selected from a group consisting of:

an attempt rate that is the result of ((Passed+Failed)/Weight);

a pass rate that is result of (Passed/(Passed+Failed)); and

a status code that indicates the overall performance of a job.