Method for performing real-time analytics using a business rules engine on real-time heterogeneous materialized data views

• US 7,448,048 B1
• Filed: 05/27/2003
• Issued: 11/04/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 05/27/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Jazayeri, Nasrollah, Nesamoney, Diaz H., Krishnan, Vaikom B., Handwerker, Martin Lewis
• Primary Examiner(s): Zhen; Li B
• Application Number:
  US10/446,338
• Time in Patent Office: 1,988 Days
• Field of Search: 719/318, 707/8
• US Class Current: 719/318
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99938 Concurrency, e.g. lock management in shared database

Abstract

A method for performing real-time analytics using a business rules engine on real time heterogeneous materialized data views is disclosed. The method comprises processing of rows produced by views corresponding to events. The rows are processed according to business rules by a view engine. Views with conditions equivalent to rule conditions are subscribed to by a rule engine, which outputs action messages corresponding to the rule condition. Where the rule condition is satisfied, a statement to that effect is sent, with any available reportlets, to an alert engine. The alert engine handles alert states corresponding to the action statement, saves any corresponding reportlets, and generates a message to fire an alert to a notification engine. The notification engine formats the alert and sends the alert by a selected medium, such as email, a webservice call, or another network protocol.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

detecting an event within a real-time stream of data while said real-time stream is received from an external system prior to storing said event in a database;

after detecting said event, materializing a real-time view of said event as one or more rows within a stream of rows;

probing into said stream of rows, wherein said probing comprises subscribing to a plurality of hidden views automatically generated in response to said stream of rows, wherein a condition of one of said plurality of hidden views is equivalent to a condition of one of a plurality of business rules;

generating an action statement, wherein said generating of said action statement comprises;

determining that said action statement comprises a ‘

holds for’

clause; and

upon said determining that said action statement comprises a ‘

holds for’

clause, handling said action statement according to said ‘

holds for’

clause, wherein said ‘

holds for’

clause selectively forestalls said generating until a particular event occurs, and cancels said generating when said particular event does not occur during a specified time duration;

using a plurality of user-defined dynamic specifications, wherein each individual specification sets forth a change to be detected in said real time materialized view of said event and also a corresponding action to be taken in response to said change; and

upon detecting said change set forth by at least one user-defined dynamic specification, triggering said corresponding action of said at least one specification.

2. The method as recited in claim 1 wherein said corresponding action comprises generating an alert.

3. The method as recited in claim 2 wherein said alert is generated in an end user interaction system wherein said end user interaction system comprises a medium selected from a group consisting of e-mail, a web browser, a portal, a query and reporting toot, a spreadsheet program, voice, facsimile, wireless, an annunciator, and a personal digital assistant.

4. The method as recited in claim 1 wherein said plurality of user-defined dynamic specifications comprises a plurality of business views, wherein said plurality of business views are used to define business rules, and wherein said plurality of business views selectively comprises a business view to which context has been added wherein said context comprises historical data.

5. The method as recited in claim 1, further comprising processing one of said plurality of business views and said plurality of hidden views wherein said rule condition of said one of said plurality of business views is ascertained, wherein said action statement describes the truthfulness of said rule condition, and wherein said action statement is selected from a group consisting of fire, raise, lower, and no action.

6. The method as recited in claim 5 wherein said generating comprises:

determining that said stream of rows is ordered; and

serializing said statement accordingly.

7. The method as recited in claim 5 wherein said processing further comprises:

subscribing to said plurality of business views;

determining that said plurality of business views comprises a reportlet view; and

upon determining that said plurality of business views comprises a reportlet view, outputting a reportlet corresponding to said reportlet view wherein said statement includes said reportlet.

8. The method as recited in claim 5 wherein said generating comprises:

publishing a message wherein said message states that a rule on said view took an action selected from the group consisting of fired, raised, lowered, did nothing, for said event and said row and for a specified plurality of columns, wherein said group corresponds to an alert state for said business view; and

handling said alert state, wherein said handling comprises sending a request to trigger said corresponding action and selectively sending a corresponding reportlet.

9. A method comprising:

detecting an event within a real-time stream of data while said real-time stream is received from an external system prior to storing said event in a database;

after detecting said event, materializing a real-time view of said event as one or more rows within a stream of rows;

probing into said stream of rows, wherein said probing comprises subscribing to a plurality of hidden views automatically generated in response to said stream of rows, wherein a condition of one of said plurality of hidden views is equivalent to a condition of one of a plurality of business rules;

generating an action statement, wherein said generating of said action statement comprises;

determining that said action statement comprises a ‘

for a specific’

clause; and

upon said determining that said actions statement comprises a ‘

for a specific’

clause, handling said action statement according to said ‘

for a specific’

clause, wherein said ‘

for a specific’

clause tracks a Raise/Lower state for each unique tuple of a plurality of tuples comprising a specific set of columns;

using a plurality of user-defined dynamic specifications, wherein each individual specification sets forth a change to be detected in said real time materialized view of said event and also a corresponding action to be taken in response to said change; and

upon detecting said change set forth by at least one user-defined dynamic specification, triggering said corresponding action of said at least one specification.

10. A computer-implemented system for performing real-time analytics on heterogeneous data views materialized as a stream of rows, comprising:

a processor;

an agent recorded on a medium readable by the processor, the agent executed by the processor for detecting an event within a real-time stream of data that is received from an external system;

a view engine recorded on a medium readable by the processor, the view engine executed by the processor for receiving said event from said agent, for materializing one or more real-time views of said event as one or more rows within said stream of rows, wherein said views comprise one or more business views and one or more hidden views, and wherein said business views are used to define one or more business rules;

a rule engine recorded on a medium readable by the processor, the rule engine executed by the processor for receiving said stream of rows of said real-time materialized views from said view engine, for subscribing to said hidden views, wherein each of said hidden views has a condition equivalent to that of one of said business rules, and for generating a message to take an action corresponding to said condition specified by at least one of said business rules based upon said received stream of rows, wherein said rule engine is further configured for determining that said message comprises a ‘

holds for’

clause and, upon said determining that said message comprises said ‘

holds for’

clause, handling said message according to said ‘

holds for’

clause, wherein said ‘

holds for’

clause selectively forestalls said generating of said message until a particular event occurs and cancels said generating of said message when said particular event does not occur during a specified time duration;

an alert engine recorded on a medium readable by the processor, the alert engine executed by the processor for receiving said message to take an action from said view engine, for handling an alert state corresponding to said message, and for generating a request to fire an alert; and

a notification engine recorded on a medium readable by the processor, the notification engine executed by the processor for receiving said request from said alert engine, for formatting said alert as a notice and for sending said notice to a user.

11. The system as recited in claim 10 further comprising a reportlet engine receiving said stream of rows from said view engine, for subscribing to said views and, where said views include a reportlet view, generating a reportlet corresponding to said reportlet view, wherein said alert engine is also for saving said reportlet.

12. The system as recited in claim 10 further comprising a context engine providing context to said view engine, wherein said context comprises historical data relevant to said views and wherein said context is added to said views, for retrieving said context from a context connection.

13. The system as recited in claim 10 wherein said rule engine is further for determining that said event stream is ordered and, upon said determining, serializing said event stream.

14. The system as recited in claim 13 wherein said rule engine comprises a rule serializer for performing and serializing.

15. The system as recited in claim 14 wherein said rule serializer comprises a functionality selected from a group consisting of a hash table from an identifier corresponding to said event to said action, and a circular, doubly-expanding array of said action corresponding to said event.

16. The system as recited in claim 10 wherein said alert engine performs said handling by a functionality comprising a handler selected from a group consisting of:

a red-black balanced binary tree of raised rows corresponding to a set of ‘

for a specific’

raise columns and a lower index corresponding to a set of ‘

for a specific’

lower columns, wherein said lower index comprises a pointer to one of said raised rows that must be removed to perform a lower action;

a red-black balanced binary tree of raised rows;

a red-black balanced binary tree of raised values wherein a ‘

for a specific’

clause corresponds to a single column; and

a hash table of raised values.

17. The system as recited in claim 10 wherein said notification engine comprises:

a notice factory receiving said request from said alert engine, for performing said sending; and

a format factory receiving a formatting request from said notice factory, for performing said formatting according to said formatting request.

18. The system as recited in claim 17 wherein said notice factory comprises:

an email notifier for sending said notice wherein said notice comprises an email;

a web services notifier for dynamically sending said notice to a web-based application; and

a notification persistence engine for persisting said notice for later querying through an interface by a portal.

19. The system as recited in claim 17 wherein said format factory comprises:

a HTML reportlet formatter;

a text reportlet formatter;

a PDF reportlet formatter; and

a spreadsheet reportlet formatter.

20. A system for performing real-time analytics on heterogeneous data views materialized as a stream of rows, comprising:

a processor;

an agent recorded on a medium readable by the processor, the agent executed by the processor for detecting an event within a real-time stream of data that is received from an external system;

a view engine recorded on a medium readable by the processor, the view engine executed by the processor for receiving said event from said agent, for materializing one or more real-time views of said event as one or more rows within said stream of rows, wherein said views comprise one or more business views and one or more hidden views, and wherein said business views are used to define one or more business rules;

a rule engine recorded on a medium readable by the processor, the rule engine executed by the processor for receiving said stream of rows of said real-time materialized views from said view engine, for subscribing to said hidden views, wherein each of said hidden views has a condition equivalent to that of one of said business rules, and for generating a message to take an action corresponding to said condition specified by at least one of said business rules based upon said received stream of rows, wherein said rule engine is further configured for determining that said message comprises a ‘

for a specific’

clause and, upon said determining that said message comprises said ‘

for a specific’

clause, handling said message according to said ‘

for a specific’

clause, wherein said ‘

for a specific’

clause tracks a Raise/Lower state for each unique tuple of a plurality of tuples comprising a specific set of columns;

an alert engine recorded on a medium readable by the processor, the alert engine executed by the processor for receiving said message to take an action from said view engine, for handling an alert state corresponding to said message, and for generating a request to fire an alert; and

a notification engine recorded on a medium readable by the processor, the notification engine executed by the processor for receiving said request from said alert engine, for formatting said alert as a notice and for sending said notice to a user.

21. In a computer system for monitoring business activity, a computer readable medium having a computer readable program code embodied therein for causing said computer system to perform a method for performing real-time analytics on heterogeneous data views materialized as a stream of rows, said method comprising:

detecting an event within a real-time stream of data that is received from an external system, wherein said detecting occurs while the real-time stream is received and prior to storing said event in a database;

upon detecting said event, materializing one or more real-rime views of said event as one or more rows within said stream of rows, wherein said views comprise one or more business views and one or more hidden views, and wherein said business views are used to define one or more business rules;

receiving said stream of rows of said real-time materialized views;

subscribing to said hidden views, wherein each of said hidden views has a condition equivalent to that of one of said business rules;

generating a message to take an action corresponding to said condition specified by at least one of said business rules based upon said received stream of rows;

determining that said message comprises a ‘

holds for’

clause;

upon said determining that said message comprises said ‘

holds for’

clause, handling said message according to said ‘

holds for’

clause, wherein said ‘

holds for’

clause selectively forestalls said generating of said message until a particular event occurs, and cancels said generating of said message when said particular event does not occur during a specified time duration;

handling an alert state corresponding to said message;

requesting that an alert be fired;

formatting said alert as a notice; and

sending said notice to a user.

22. The computer readable medium as recited in claim 21 wherein said method further comprises:

where said views include a reportlet view, generating a reportlet corresponding to said reportlet view; and

saving said reportlet;

wherein said notice includes said reportlet.

23. The computer readable medium as recited in claim 21 wherein said method further comprises adding context to said views, wherein said context comprises historical data relevant to said views.

24. The computer readable medium as recited in claim 21 wherein said generating comprises:

determining that said event stream is ordered; and

upon said determining, serializing said event stream.

25. In a computer system for monitoring business activity, a computer readable medium having a computer readable program code embodied therein for causing said computer system to perform a method for performing real-time analytics on heterogeneous data views materialized as a stream of rows, said method comprising:

detecting an event within a real-time stream of data that is received from an external system, wherein said detecting occurs while the real-time stream is received and prior to storing said event in a database;

upon detecting said event, materializing one or more real-rime views of said event as one or more rows within said stream of rows, wherein said views comprise one or more business views and one or more hidden views, and wherein said business views are used to define one or more business rules;

receiving said stream of rows of said real-time materialized views;

subscribing to said hidden views, wherein each of said hidden views has a condition equivalent to that of one of said business rules;

generating a message to take an action corresponding to said condition specified by at least one of said business rules based upon said received stream of rows;

determining that said message comprises a ‘

for a specific’

clause;

upon said determining that said message comprises said ‘

for a specific’

clause, handling said message according to said ‘

for a specific’

clause, wherein said ‘

for a specific’

clause tracks a Raise/Lower state for each unique tuple of a plurality of tuples comprising a specific set of columns;

handling an alert state corresponding to said message;

requesting that an alert be fired;

formatting said alert as a notice; and

sending said notice to a user.