Techniques for automatically provisioning a database over a wide area network

• US 7,739,308 B2
• Filed: 05/31/2001
• Issued: 06/15/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 09/08/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Oracle International Corporation (Oracle Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Oracle International Corporation (Oracle Corporation)
• Inventors: Baffier, Jean-Louis, Ziegler, Olaf, Sechrest, Christina, Sero, Pascal, Tan, Dean, Walsh, Kevin, Dangeard, Marc, Gruet, Thierry
• Primary Examiner(s): Le; Miranda
• Application Number:
  US09/872,235
• Publication Number:
  US 20080306883A1
• Time in Patent Office: 3,302 Days
• Field of Search: 707 1- 10, 707100-102, 707200-201, 707/104.1, 707/802, 707/812, 715/501.1, 715/513, 715/234, 715/205, 717 1- 2, 709217-224, 709201-203, 709/231
• US Class Current: 707/802
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1446 Point-in-time backing up or restoration of persistent data
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/21 Design, administration or maintenance of databases
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/27 Replication, distribution or synchronisation of data between databases or within a distributed database system; Distributed database system architectures therefor
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/61 Installation
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0283 Price estimation or determination
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/04 Billing or invoicing
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/02 for separating internal from external traffic, e.g. firewalls

Abstract

Techniques for provisioning databases for users on a wide area network such as the Internet include a first party managing one or more database systems. Second parties subscribe to database services supported by the database systems managed by the first party. The first party provides, over a network, to database applications controlled by the second parties, access to the database services to which the second parties are subscribed. The database systems may use database appliances hosting both database process(es), and non-database process(es) tailored to the needs of the database process(es). A user is therefore able to obtain database resources from an Internet Database Service Provider (IDSP) without the user incurring the full costs of database administrator(s), dedicated database equipment facilit(ies), or even dedicated database device(s), depending on usage. Meanwhile, the IDSP incurs minimum staffing loads because of various self-service tools Costing model and automatic billing features are also described.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

a first party managing one or more database systems;

receiving from a plurality of second parties, information for subscribing to database services supported by the one or more database systems managed by the first party, wherein the database services include services for storing and managing data provided by the second parties; and

wherein the information is gathered during registration processes during which said second parties identify database resources, provided by the first party in support of said database services, for which the second parties are willing to pay;

providing, to database applications controlled by the second parties access to the database services to which the second parties are subscribed;

wherein the database applications controlled by the second parties interact with the one or more database systems managed by the first party by sending, to the one or more database systems, database commands that conform to a database language supported by the one or more database systems;

whereby the second parties use the database applications under their control, while the database applications send the database commands to the one or more database systems managed by the first party, thereby obviating the need for the second parties to manage the one or more database systems used by their database applications;

wherein execution of the database commands allows the second parties to manipulate data objects stored within at least one of the one or more database systems;

delivering to one of said second parties, one or more messages which cause generation of one or more user interfaces that allow the second party to subscribe to said database services provided by said first party;

delivering to a user associated with said one of said second parties, one or more messages which cause generation of one or more user interfaces that allow the user to access information in a database for a database service to which said one of said second parties has subscribed; and

the first party configuring a database device used to provide said database services as one of;

(a) a dedicated device or (b) a plurality of virtual devices;

wherein the steps of receiving, providing, and delivering are performed by one or more computing devices.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein:

at least one of said second parties is an application service provider that provides application services to a plurality of third parties over a network; and

the step of providing access to the database services includes providing database services to an application used by said application service provider to provide said application services to said third parties.

3. The method of claim 1 further comprising the steps of:

receiving over a network a request to perform a database management operation from a user associated with a particular second party of said plurality of second parties; and

responding to said request by performing said database management operation on one or more databases controlled by said first party without human intervention by said first party.

4. The method of claim 3 wherein the step of performing the database management operation involves allocating a different amount of resources to said particular second party than is currently allocated for said particular second party.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the step of providing access includes providing access over a public network of computer networks.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein:

the first party also provides database application services over a network; and

the method further comprises the step of delivering over the network, to a user associated with one of said second parties, one or more messages which cause generation of one or more user interfaces that allow the user to access a database application service to which said one of said second parties has subscribed.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of delivering over a network, to a user associated with one of said second parties, one or more messages which cause generation of one or more user interfaces that allow the user to specify or indicate changes to at least one of profile information, payment information, and the selection of services to which said one of said second parties is subscribed.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of delivering over a network, to a user associated with one of said second parties, one or more messages which cause generation of one or more user interfaces that allow the user to supply content for a subscribed database.

9. The method of claim 8, further comprising the steps of:

presenting to the user a set of selectable sources of content;

receiving user input indicating a selected source; and

launching a source update process to connect to the selected source and update a database with information received from the selected sources.

10. The method of claim 8, further comprising the steps of:

in response to user input that specifies that data should be loaded into a subscribed database, determining whether the subscribed database currently exists for said one of said second parties; and

creating the subscribed database if the subscribed database does not currently exist for said one of said second parties.

11. The method of claim 9, wherein

the user input indicating a selected source also indicates a schedule for updating from the selected source;

and

the source update process connects to the selected source according to the schedule for updating from the selected source.

12. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of delivering over a network, to a user associated with one of said second parties, one or more messages which cause generation of one or more user interfaces that allow the user to develop a new database application.

13. The method of claim 12, further comprising the steps of:

presenting representations of selectable application development kits;

receiving user input indicating a selected development kit from the user; and

launching a staging process including

configuring consumable database resources on a staging database device, wherein a staging database device can be accessed by the user for developing the new database application and cannot be accessed by users associated with other parties of said plurality of second parties,

receiving development input from the user; and

building a new application on the staging database device based on the selected development kit and the development input.

14. The method of claim 13, the step of developing the new database application further comprising the steps of

after receiving user input indicating a selected development kit, determining whether a client process of the selected development kit must be downloaded to a computer of the user over a wide area network;

and

if it is determined the client process of the selected development kit must be downloaded, downloading the client process to the computer of the user over the wide area network before the step of building the new application.

15. The method of claim 13, the step of developing a new database application further comprising the steps of:

receiving input from the user indicating the new application is ready for operational use; and

in response to receiving input from the user indicating the new application is ready for operational use, launching a production transfer process including sending a request to the first party to transfer the new application to a production device on which the new application may be accessed by users who did not develop the new application.

16. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of delivering over a network, to a user associated with one of said second parties, one or more messages which cause generation of one or more user interfaces that allow the user to integrate an external service.

17. The method of claim 16, further comprising integrating the external service, wherein the step of integrating comprises the steps of:

presenting a representation of a selectable external service;

receiving user input indicating a selected external service; and

launching an integration process to provide the external service to the user.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein the selectable external service includes at least one of a payment service, a mobile Internet portal, an enterprise resource planning application, and a customer relationship management application.

19. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of delivering over a network, to a user associated with one of said second parties, one or more messages which cause generation of one or more user interfaces that present a status of a user subscribed resource selected from database resources managed by said first party.

20. The method of claim 1, further comprising the steps of:

delivering over a network, to a user associated with one of said second parties, one or more messages which cause generation of one or more user interfaces that present the user with a user-selectable representation of a web site building wizard for building a Web page with a database component associated with an interface to a database;

receiving user input indicating the web site building wizard; and

executing said web site building wizard, including presenting a series of screens to the user to prompt user input for building the Web page.

21. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of the first party updating the one or more database systems by receiving from a community server over a network an update to the one or more database systems, wherein the community server provides the update to a plurality of service providers over said network.

22. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of the first party sending to a community server a status of a user subscribed resource, wherein the user subscribed resource is maintained by said first party.

23. The method of claim 1, further comprising presenting to a user associated with said first party a user interface to allow said first party to configure the database device used to provide said database services as one of:

said dedicated device and said plurality of virtual devices.

24. The method of claim 1, further comprising presenting to a user associated with said first party a user interface to allow said first party to configure at least one of said dedicated device and a virtual device of said plurality of virtual devices as one of a staging device available only to a database service developer for developing database services, and a production device for making database services available to a user who is not the database service developer.

25. The method of claim 24, further comprising presenting a user interface for transferring an application from a staging device to a production device.

26. The method of claim 1 wherein:

the step of delivering to one of said second parties one or more messages which cause generation of one or more user interfaces that allow the party to subscribe to said database services is performed as part of a registration process;

the interfaces include controls for receiving a user input value for a maximum amount of subscribed resources; and

the method further includes the step of presenting an alert if an amount of subscribed resources consumed by said party exceeds a threshold percentage of the maximum amount of subscribed resources.

27. The method of claim 26, wherein the maximum amount of subscribed resources includes a maximum amount of at least one of

an amount of storage space,

a number of users connected to a platform in a period of time,

an amount of processor time used in a period of time, and

a number of transactions completed in a period of time.

28. The method of claim 1, further comprising the first party performing at least one of the steps of:

setting up database parameters;

reporting database usage;

backing up the database;

upgrading the database;

controlling database versions;

implementing database security; and

implementing data security within the database.

29. The method of claim 1, further comprising the steps of:

if a costing database does not already exist, then

automatically creating the costing database of database resource usage by user, and

initiating a costing model with price per unit of consumable resource per service;

inserting data into the costing database based on actual use of database resources by the user;

executing the costing model to compute a cost-per-user based on the data in the costing database and the price per unit of consumable resource per service; and

billing the user for the cost computed by the costing model.

30. The method of claim 29, wherein the costing model supports:

fixed price per unit of usage;

variable price per unit usage as a function of usage;

flat price up to a maximum value of usage;

different prices for different users;

different prices for different services; and

different prices for increments of usage above a maximum subscribed usage.

31. The method of claim 1, wherein one of the plurality of second parties is an Internet Service Provider (ISP).

32. The method of claim 1, where the step of receiving information includes receiving, from a particular second party, information that specifies one or more of:

a maximum amount of storage space of the database resources to be used by the particular second party;

a maximum amount of users of the database resources to be used by the particular second party;

a maximum transaction rate of the database resources to be used by the particular second party;

a frequency of backup of the database resources to be used by the particular second party;

a frequency and format of usage reports of the database resources to be used by the particular second party;

Internet access parameters for mobile devices to be used by the particular second party;

a payment service for the database resources to be used by the particular second party;

or

information about development of applications for the database resources to be used by the particular second party.

33. The method of claim 1, wherein the second parties control the source code of the database applications that the second parties use to send database commands to the database management systems managed by the first parties.

34. The method of claim 1, wherein the second parties own said database applications.

35. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

in response to the subscription information;

allocating at least one of the database resources at the database device.

36. The method of claim 1, wherein at least one of said database applications is a database application hosted by the first party on behalf of the second party.

37. The method of claim 1, wherein at least one of said database applications is a database application hosted by the second party at a computing device connected to the database system via a network.

38. One or more computer-readable storage media storing instructions which, when executed by one or more processors, cause:

a first party managing one or more database systems;

receiving from a plurality of second parties, information for subscribing to database services supported by the one or more database systems managed by the first party, wherein the database services include services for storing and managing data provided by the second parties; and

wherein the information is gathered during registration processes during which said second parties identify database resources, provided by the first party in support of said database services, for which the second parties are willing to pay;

providing, to database applications controlled by the second parties access to the database services to which the second parties are subscribed;

wherein the database applications controlled by the second parties interact with the one or more database systems managed by the first party by sending, to the one or more database systems, database commands that conform to a database language supported by the one or more database systems;

whereby the second parties use the database applications under their control, while the database applications send the database commands to the one or more database systems managed by the first party, thereby obviating the need for the second parties to manage the one or more database systems used by their database applications;

wherein execution of the database commands allows the second parties to manipulate data objects stored within at least one of the one or more database systems;

delivering to one of said second parties, one or more messages which cause generation of one or more user interfaces that allow the second party to subscribe to said database services provided by said first party;

delivering to a user associated with said one of said second parties, one or more messages which cause generation of one or more user interfaces that allow the user to access information in a database for a database service to which said one of said second parties has subscribed; and

the first party configuring a database device used to provide said database services as one of;

(a) a dedicated device or (b) a plurality of virtual devices.

39. The one or more computer-readable storage media of claim 38 wherein:

at least one of said second parties is an application service provider that provides application services to a plurality of third parties over a network; and

the step of providing access to the database services includes providing database services to an application used by said application service provider to provide said application services to said third parties.

40. The one or more computer-readable storage media of claim 38 further comprising instructions for performing the steps of:

receiving over a network a request to perform a database management operation from a user associated with a particular second party of said plurality of second parties; and

responding to said request by performing said database management operation on one or more databases controlled by said first party without human intervention by said first party.

41. The one or more computer-readable storage media of claim 40 wherein the step of performing the database management operation involves allocating a different amount of resources to said particular second party than is currently allocated for said particular second party.

42. The one or more computer-readable storage media of claim 38 wherein the step of providing access includes providing access over a public network of computer networks.

43. The one or more computer-readable storage media of claim 38, wherein:

the first party also provides database application services over a network; and

the computer-readable medium further comprises instructions for performing the step of delivering over the network, to a user associated with one of said second parties, one or more messages which cause generation of one or more user interfaces that allow the user to access a database application service to which said one of said second parties has subscribed.

44. The one or more computer-readable storage media of claim 38, further comprising instructions for performing the step of delivering over a network, to a user associated with one of said second parties, one or more messages which cause generation of one or more user interfaces that allow the user to specify or indicate changes to at least one of profile information, payment information, and the selection of services to which said one of said second parties is subscribed.

45. The one or more computer-readable storage media of claim 38, further comprising instructions for performing the step of delivering over a network, to a user associated with one of said second parties, one or more messages which cause generation of one or more user interfaces that allow the user to supply content for a subscribed database.

46. The one or more computer-readable storage media of claim 45, further comprising instructions for performing the steps of:

presenting to the user a set of selectable sources of content;

receiving user input indicating a selected source; and

launching a source update process to connect to the selected source and update a database with information received from the selected sources.

47. The one or more computer-readable storage media of claim 45, further comprising instructions for performing the steps of:

in response to user input that specifies that data should be loaded into a subscribed database, determining whether the subscribed database currently exists for said one of said second parties; and

creating the subscribed database if the subscribed database does not currently exist for said one of said second parties.

48. The one or more computer-readable storage media of claim 46, wherein

the user input indicating a selected source also indicates a schedule for updating from the selected source;

and

the source update process connects to the selected source according to the schedule for updating from the selected source.

49. The one or more computer-readable storage media of claim 38, further comprising instructions for performing the step of delivering over a network, to a user associated with one of said second parties, one or more messages which cause generation of one or more user interfaces that allow the user to develop a new database application.

50. The one or more computer-readable storage media of claim 49, further comprising instructions for performing the steps of:

presenting representations of selectable application development kits;

receiving user input indicating a selected development kit from the user; and

launching a staging process including

configuring consumable database resources on a staging database device, wherein a staging database device can be accessed by the user for developing the new database application and cannot be accessed by users associated with other parties of said plurality of second parties,

receiving development input from the user; and

building a new application on the staging database device based on the selected development kit and the development input.

51. The one or more computer-readable storage media of claim 50, the step of developing the new database application further comprising the steps of

after receiving user input indicating a selected development kit, determining whether a client process of the selected development kit must be downloaded to a computer of the user over a wide area network;

and

if it is determined the client process of the selected development kit must be downloaded, downloading the client process to the computer of the user over the wide area network before the step of building the new application.

52. The one or more computer-readable storage media of claim 50, the step of developing a new database application further comprising the steps of:

receiving input from the user indicating the new application is ready for operational use; and

in response to receiving input from the user indicating the new application is ready for operational use, launching a production transfer process including sending a request to the first party to transfer the new application to a production device on which the new application may be accessed by users who did not develop the new application.

53. The one or more computer-readable storage media of claim 38, further comprising instructions for performing the step of delivering over a network, to a user associated with one of said second parties, one or more messages which cause generation of one or more user interfaces that allow the user to integrate an external service.

54. The one or more computer-readable storage media of claim 53, further comprising instructions for integrating the external service, wherein the step of integrating comprises the steps of:

presenting a representation of a selectable external service;

receiving user input indicating a selected external service; and

launching an integration process to provide the external service to the user.

55. The one or more computer-readable storage media of claim 54, wherein the selectable external service includes at least one of a payment service, a mobile Internet portal, an enterprise resource planning application, and a customer relationship management application.

56. The one or more computer-readable storage media of claim 38, further comprising instructions for performing the step of delivering over a network, to a user associated with one of said second parties, one or more messages which cause generation of one or more user interfaces that present a status of a user subscribed resource selected from database resources managed by said first party.

57. The one or more computer-readable storage media of claim 38, further comprising instructions for performing the steps of:

delivering over a network, to a user associated with one of said second parties, one or more messages which cause generation of one or more user interfaces that present the user with a user-selectable representation of a web site building wizard for building a Web page with a database component associated with an interface to a database;

receiving user input indicating the web site building wizard; and

executing said web site building wizard, including presenting a series of screens to the user to prompt user input for building the Web page.

58. The one or more computer-readable storage media of claim 38, further comprising instructions for performing the step of the first party updating the one or more database systems by receiving from a community server over a network an update to the one or more database systems, wherein the community server provides the update to a plurality of service providers over said network.

59. The one or more computer-readable storage media of claim 38, further comprising instructions for performing the step of the first party sending to a community server a status of a user subscribed resource, wherein the user subscribed resource is maintained by said first party.

60. The one or more computer-readable storage media of claim 38, further comprising instructions for presenting to a user associated with said first party a user interface to allow said first party to configure the database device used to provide said database services as one of:

said dedicated device and said plurality of virtual devices.

61. The one or more computer-readable storage media of claim 38, further comprising instructions for presenting to a user associated with said first party a user interface to allow said first party to configure at least one of said dedicated device and a virtual device of said plurality of virtual devices as one of a staging device available only to a database service developer for developing database services, and a production device for making database services available to a user who is not the database service developer.

62. The one or more computer-readable storage media of claim 61, further comprising instructions for presenting a user interface for transferring an application from a staging device to a production device.

63. The one or more computer-readable storage media of claim 38 wherein:

the step of delivering to one of said second parties one or more messages which cause generation of one or more user interfaces that allow the party to subscribe to said database services is performed as part of a registration process;

the interfaces include controls for receiving a user input value for a maximum amount of subscribed resources; and

the computer-readable medium further includes instructions for the step of presenting an alert if an amount of subscribed resources consumed by said party exceeds a threshold percentage of the maximum amount of subscribed resources.

64. The one or more computer-readable storage media of claim 63, wherein the maximum amount of subscribed resources includes a maximum amount of at least one of

an amount of storage space,

a number of users connected to a platform in a period of time,

an amount of processor time used in a period of time, and

a number of transactions completed in a period of time.

65. The one or more computer-readable storage media of claim 38, further comprising instructions for the first party performing at least one of the steps of:

setting up database parameters;

reporting database usage;

backing up the database;

upgrading the database;

controlling database versions;

implementing database security; and

implementing data security within the database.

66. The one or more computer-readable storage media of claim 38, further comprising instructions for performing the steps of:

if a costing database does not already exist, then

automatically creating the costing database of database resource usage by user, and

initiating a costing model with price per unit of consumable resource per service;

inserting data into the costing database based on actual use of database resources by the user;

executing the costing model to compute a cost-per-user based on the data in the costing database and the price per unit of consumable resource per service; and

billing the user for the cost computed by the costing model.

67. The one or more computer-readable storage media of claim 66, wherein the costing model supports:

fixed price per unit of usage;

variable price per unit usage as a function of usage;

flat price up to a maximum value of usage;

different prices for different users;

different prices for different services; and

different prices for increments of usage above a maximum subscribed usage.

68. The one or more computer-readable storage media of claim 38, wherein one of the plurality of second parties is an Internet Service Provider (ISP).

69. The one or more computer-readable storage media of claim 38, where the step of receiving information includes receiving, from a particular second party, information that specifies one or more of:

a maximum amount of storage space of the database resources to be used by the particular second party;

a maximum amount of users of the database resources to be used by the particular second party;

a maximum transaction rate of the database resources to be used by the particular second party;

a frequency of backup of the database resources to be used by the particular second party;

a frequency and format of usage reports of the database resources to be used by the particular second party;

Internet access parameters for mobile devices to be used by the particular second party;

a payment service for the database resources to be used by the particular second party;

or

information about development of applications for the database resources to be used by the particular second party.

70. The one or more computer-readable storage media of claim 38, wherein the second parties control the source code of the database applications that the second parties use to send database commands to the database management systems managed by the first parties.

71. The one or more computer-readable storage media of claim 38, wherein the second parties own said database applications.

72. The one or more computer-readable storage media of claim 38, further storing instructions which, when executed by the one or more processors, cause:

in response to the subscription information;

allocating the database resource at the database device.

73. The one or more computer-readable storage media of claim 38, wherein at least one of said database applications is a database application hosted by the first party on behalf of the second party.

74. The one or more computer-readable storage media of claim 38, wherein at least one of said database applications is a database application hosted by the second party at a computing device connected to the database system via a network.