Meta-data tags used to describe data behaviors

• US 7,668,857 B2
• Filed: 11/07/2005
• Issued: 02/23/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 11/07/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: X Corp. (f/k/a Twitter, Inc.) (X Holdings Corp.)
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Vassberg, Lorraine Phyllis, Shi, Shaw-Ben, Robinson, David G., Cook, Jonathan Michael, Rendahl, Randy Allan
• Primary Examiner(s): Mahmoudi; Tony
• Assistant Examiner(s): Uddin; MD. I
• Application Number:
  US11/268,989
• Publication Number:
  US 20070112825A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,569 Days
• Field of Search: 707/102, 707/104.1, 707/101, 707/200, 709/201, 709/207, 709/242, 709/223, 719/313
• US Class Current: 707/807
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/24556 Aggregation; Duplicate elimination
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/24564 Applying rules; Deductive queries
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/24573 using data annotations, e.g. user-defined metadata

Abstract

A computer implemented method, apparatus, and computer usable program code to aggregate data. Data is parsed for a behavior tag assigned to a portion of the data. In response to detecting a behavior tag, a determination is made as to whether a policy is associated with the behavior tag. The policy associated with a behavior tag defines how the portion of the data assigned to the behavior tag is to be aggregated. The portion of the data is aggregated using the policy associated with the behavior tag.

Claims

1. A computer implemented method for mathematically aggregating data, the computer implemented method comprising:

generating the data by collecting numeric data by a data provider of the data;

as signing a behavior tag to a portion of the data by the data provider of the data;

sending, by the data provider, the data and the behavior tag to a receiving application for mathematically aggregating the data;

receiving the data and the behavior tag by the receiving application and storing the data and the behavior tag in a database by the receiving application to form modified data;

responsive to the modified data being stored in the database, parsing the modified data for the behavior tag assigned to the portion of the data, wherein the behavior tag includes a plurality of sub-tags each having a respective portion of data assigned thereto;

responsive to detecting the behavior tag, determining if a policy is associated with respective ones of the plurality of sub-tags of the behavior tag, wherein each policy defines how the respective portion of data assigned to a respective one of the plurality of sub-tags is to be mathematically aggregated;

mathematically aggregating the portion of data using at least one associated policy that defines mathematical operations to be performed on the portion of the data;

determining if a new behavior definition for a given one of the plurality of sub-tags has been received; and

responsive to the new behavior definition being received, mathematically aggregating the portion of data using another policy associated with the new behavior definition, wherein the another policy defines different mathematical operations to be performed on the portion of data.

2. The computer implemented method of claim 1 wherein the policy is user configurable such that a user augments an existing behavior tag definition to include an additional operational tag for the existing behavior tag definition such that an additional mathematical operation is subsequently performed by a data aggregator when encountering an associated behavior tag that the existing behavior tag definition is associated with.

3. The computer implemented method of claim 1 further comprising:

associating a new policy to the behavior tag, wherein the new policy specifies a different aggregation of the portion of the data assigned to the behavior tag;

mathematically aggregating the portion of the data using the new policy; and

storing the mathematically aggregated portion of the data in a data store.

4. The computer implemented method of claim 1 further comprising:

sending the data and behavior tag to a second receiving application, wherein the second receiving application associates a different policy to the behavior tag, and wherein the second receiving application mathematically aggregates the data in accordance with the different policy.

5. The computer implemented method of claim 1 further comprising:

creating a tempered list of behavior tag definitions which define behaviors for a subset of behavior tags created from a set of all behavior tags encountered for a given document being processed.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the data and the behavior tag are stored in one of a plurality of tables of the database based upon a type of the behavior tag.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the policy comprises a plurality of different mathematical operations to be performed on the portion of data associated with the behavior tag.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the data and the behavior tag comprising the plurality of sub-tags are all included in a document that is sent to the receiving application, and wherein at least one of the sub-tags is associated with a plurality of operation tag definitions.

9. The method of claim 2, wherein the existing behavior tag definition is maintained in a database lookup table as a key value set.

10. A computer program product comprising a computer-readable recordable storage medium, said storage medium comprising program code for accomplishing the method of claim 1.

11. The computer program product of claim 10 further comprising program code for:

associating a new policy to the behavior tag, wherein the new policy specifies a different aggregation of the portion of the data assigned to the behavior tag; and

mathematically aggregating the portion of the data using the new policy.

12. The computer program product of claim 10, wherein the policy comprises a plurality of different mathematical operations to be performed on the portion of data associated with the behavior tag.

13. The computer program product of claim 10, wherein the data and the behavior tag comprising the plurality of sub-tags are all included in a document that is sent to the receiving application, and wherein at least one of the sub-tags is associated with a plurality of operation tag definitions.

14. A data processing system for aggregating data, said data processing system comprising a data processor and a memory storage device operatively coupled to the data processor, and further comprising:

a data provider of the data processing system that collects data, wherein the data provider assigns a behavior tag to a portion of the data in accordance with a data template to form modified data, and wherein the behavior tag includes a sub-tag;

a data sender of the data processing system, wherein the data sender sends the modified data to a data receiver program that writes the modified data into a database;

a data aggregator of the data processing system, wherein the data aggregator reads the modified data from the database and parses the modified data for the behavior tag assigned to the portion of the data; and

a rules engine of the data processing system wherein, responsive to data aggregator detecting the behavior tag and contacting the rules engine, the rules engine determines if a policy is associated with the behavior tag and if so, provides the policy to the data aggregator, and wherein the policy defines how the portion of the data assigned to the behavior tag is to be aggregated by the data aggregator; and

wherein the data aggregator aggregates the portion of the data using the policy to perform mathematical operations on the portion of the data associated with the behavior tag;

wherein the data aggregator provides the rules engine with the behavior tag and other system information associated with the data processing system, and wherein the rules engine creates a tempered list of behavior tag definitions based on the other system information to form the policy.

15. The system of claim 14 wherein the policy is user configurable such that an existing behavior tag definition is augmentable by a user to include an additional operational tag for the existing behavior tag definition such that an additional mathematical operation is subsequently performed by the data aggregator when encountering an associated behavior tag that the existing behavior tag definition is associated with.

16. The system of claim 14 in combination with a second system for aggregating data, wherein the second system comprises:

a second data receiver program that also receives the modified data and writes the modified data into a second database;

a second data aggregator, wherein the second data aggregator reads the modified data from the second database and parses the modified data for the behavior tag assigned to the portion of the data; and

a second rules engine wherein, responsive to second data aggregator detecting the behavior tag and contacting the second rules engine, the second rules engine determines if a second policy is associated with the behavior tag, wherein the second policy defines how the portion of the data assigned to the behavior tag is to be aggregated by the second data aggregator, and wherein the second data aggregator aggregates the portion of the data using the second policy to perform mathematical operations on the portion of the data associated with the behavior tag;

wherein the policy and the second policy are different, such that data receiver program and the second data receiver program both receive the modified data and aggregate the portion of the data in a different manner according to the policy and the second policy, respectively.

17. The system of claim 14, wherein the other system information comprises at least one of an identification of an amount of data included in the portion of data and a time when the portion of data should be aggregated by the rules engine.

18. The system of claim 14, wherein the policy comprises a plurality of different mathematical operations to be performed on the portion of data associated with the behavior tag, and wherein the tempered list is a subset of the plurality of different mathematical operations that takes into account an operational configuration of the data aggregator.

19. The system of claim 14, wherein the data and the behavior tag comprising the plurality of sub-tags are all included in a document that is sent to the receiving application, and wherein at least one of the sub-tags is associated with a plurality of operation tag definitions.

20. The system of claim 15, wherein the existing behavior tag definition is maintained in a database lookup table as a key value set.