Self-generation of a data warehouse from an enterprise data model of an EAI/BPI infrastructure

• US 7,487,173 B2
• Filed: 05/22/2003
• Issued: 02/03/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 05/22/2003
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Russell, Feng-Wei Chen, Medicke, John A.
• Primary Examiner(s): Pham; Hung Q
• Application Number:
  US10/443,703
• Publication Number:
  US 20040236786A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,084 Days
• Field of Search: 707/100, 707/101, 707/102, 707/103.R, 707/103.Y
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/00 Administration; Management

Abstract

A data warehouse is generated by incorporating data warehouse information in business objects to provide subscribed business objects and generating star-schema tables of the data warehouse from the subscribed business objects. Data from subscribed business objects may be logged when an event of the subscribed business objects is processed, for example, by an integration node, and the logged data incorporated into the star-schema tables of the data warehouse.

Claims

1. A method of providing a self-generating data warehouse, comprising:

generating extended business objects that are utilized in a data warehouse wherein;

each extended business object stores corresponding business data and also stores data warehouse information; and

the data warehouse information of each extended business object includes information that specifies the attributes thereof that contain business data to be logged into data warehouse tables and information from which data warehouse tables are generated;

automatically generating descriptions of star-schema tables of the data warehouse based at least in part upon the data warehouse information incorporated into the extended business objects;

generating star-schema tables of the data warehouse based at least in part upon the automatically generated descriptions of star-schema tables, wherein the generated star-schema tables of the data warehouse are stored separately from the extended business objects;

generating mapping rules for mapping business data contained in the specified attributes of associated extended business objects to corresponding star-schema tables of the data warehouse;

extracting business data from the extended business objects and storing the extracted business data to an audit log when an event of the extended business objects is processed based upon the generated mapping rules; and

incorporating the extracted business data from the audit log into the corresponding star-schema tables of the data warehouse according the generated mapping rules.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein generating extended business objects that are utilized in a data processing system wherein each extended business object stores data warehouse information and the data warehouse information of each extended business object includes information from which data warehouse tables are generated, comprises.

incorporating as part of said data warehouse information, at least one of:

primary key information that indicates whether an attribute of a corresponding extended business object will work as a primary key in a dimension table;

foreign key information that indicates the relationship between a corresponding extended business object and other extended business objects;

fact table foreign key information that indicates how to generate the definition of a fact table; and

/or

fact table measure information that indicates whether an attribute of a corresponding extended business object should be a measure of a fact table.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein generating star-schema tables comprises:

generating a dimension table from data warehouse information of at least one extended business object; and

generating a fact table from data warehouse information of at least one extended business object.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein generating a dimension table and generating a fact table comprise:

generating a data definition language (DDL) description of the dimension table from the data warehouse information of at least one extended business object;

then

generating a DDL description of the fact table from the data warehouse information of at least one extended business object; and

then

executing the DDL descriptions of the dimension table and the fact table to generate the dimension table and the fact table.

5. The method of claim 3, wherein generating star-schema tables further comprises generating a predefined dimension table in addition to the dimension table generated from the data warehouse information contained in at least one extended business object.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein generating star-schema tables further comprises populating a dimension branch table associated with the predefined dimension table.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein generating star-schema tables comprises:

categorizing extended business objects as one of either transactional business objects or informational business objects;

generating a dimension table from data warehouse information of an extended business object categorized as an informational business object; and

generating a fact table from data warehouse information of an extended business object categorized as a transaction business object.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein extracting data from extended business objects comprises:

determining if an integration node event associated with a selected extended business object has occurred; and

extracting business data from the selected extended business object if the integration node event associated with the selected extended business object has occurred.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein extracting business data from extended business objects and storing the extracted business data to an audit log further comprises implementing the audit log as a staging database and/or a flat file.

10. The method of claim 9, further comprising:

transforming the data in the staging database and/or flat file based on the mapping rules; and

loading the transformed data into the star-schema tables of the data warehouse.

11. A computer program product for providing a system for self-generating a data warehouse, comprising:

a computer readable medium having computer readable program code embodied therein, the computer readable program code comprising;

computer readable program code configured to implement a business object designer that generates extended business objects that are utilized in a data warehouse wherein;

the business object designer configures each extended business object to store corresponding business data and also store data warehouse information; and

the data warehouse information of each extended business object includes information that specifies the attributes thereof that contain business data to be logged into data warehouse tables and information from which data warehouse tables are generated;

automatically generate descriptions of star-schema tables of the data warehouse based at least in part upon the in the data warehouse information incorporated into the extended business objects;

computer readable program code configured to implement a star-schema manager that automatically generates descriptions of star-schema tables of the data warehouse based at least in part upon the data warehouse information incorporated into the extended business objects and generates star-schema tables of the data warehouse from automatically generated descriptions of star-schema tables of the data warehouse, wherein the generated star-schema tables of the data warehouse are stored separately from the extended business objects;

computer readable program code configured to generate mapping rules for mapping business data contained in the specified attributes of associated extended business objects to corresponding star-schema tables of the data warehouse;

computer readable program code configured to implement an audit log engine that extracts business data from the extended business objects and stores the extracted business data to in an audit log when an event of the extended business objects is processed based upon the generated mapping rules; and

computer readable program code configured to implement a transformer/loader that loads the extracted business data stored in the audit log into the data warehouse by populating the star-schema tables of the data warehouse with the extracted business data stored in the audit log according to the generated mapping rules.

12. The computer program product of claim 11, wherein the information from which data warehouse tables are generated, which is included in the data warehouse information of each extended business further comprises at least one of:

primary key information that indicates whether an attribute of a corresponding extended business object will work as a primary key in a dimension table;

foreign key information that indicates the relationship between a corresponding extended business object and other extended business objects;

fact table foreign key information that indicates how to generate the definition of a fact table; and

/or

fact table measure information that indicates whether an attribute of a corresponding extended business object should be a measure of a fact table.

13. The computer program product of claim 11, wherein the computer readable program code configured to implement the star-schema manager is further configured to generate a dimension table from data warehouse information of at least one extended business object and to generate a fact table from data warehouse information of at least one extended business object.

14. The computer program product of claim 13, wherein the computer readable program code configured to implement the star-schema manager is further configured to generate a data definition language (DDL) description of the dimension table from the data warehouse information of at least one extended business object, then generate a DDL description of the fact table from the data warehouse information of at least one subscribed extended business object and then execute the DDL descriptions to generate the dimension table and the fact table.

15. The computer program product of claim 13, wherein the computer readable program code configured to implement the star-schema manager is further configured to generate a predefined dimension table in addition to the dimension table generated from the data warehouse information contained in at least one extended business object.

16. The computer program product of claim 15, wherein the computer readable program code configured to implement the star-schema manager is further configured to populate a dimension branch table associated with the predefined dimension table.

17. The computer program product of claim 11, further comprising computer readable program code configured to categorize extended business objects as one of either transactional business objects or informational business objects;

and

wherein the computer readable program code configured to implement the star-schema manager is further configured generate a dimension table from data warehouse information of at least one extended business object categorized as an informational business object and to generate a fact table from data warehouse information of at least one extended business object categorized as a transactional business object.

18. The computer program product of claim 11, wherein the computer readable program code configured to implement the audit log engine is further configured to determine if an integration node event associated with a selected extended business object has occurred and to extract business data from the selected extended business object if the integration node event associated with the selected extended business object has occurred.

19. The computer program product of claim 18, wherein the computer readable program code configured to implement the audit log engine is further configured to implement the audit log as store the extracted data in a staging database and/or a flat file.

20. The computer program product of claim 19, further comprising computer readable program code configured to implement a transformer/loader is configured to transform the data in the staging database and/or the flat file based on the mapping rules and to load the transformed data into the star-schema tables of the data warehouse.