System and method for cleansing enterprise data

• US 7,865,461 B1
• Filed: 08/30/2005
• Issued: 01/04/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 08/30/2005
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Transpacific Delta SCI LLC
• Original Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property II LP (AT&T, Inc.)
• Inventors: Best, Rob, Eslambolchi, Hossein, McCanuel, John, Vasa, Prakash
• Primary Examiner(s): Mofiz, Apu M
• Assistant Examiner(s): NGUYEN, THU N
• Application Number:
  US11/215,411
• Time in Patent Office: 1,953 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 707/610
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/254 Extract, transform and load [ETL] procedures, e.g. ETL data flows in data warehouses

Abstract

A method, system, and article of manufacture for cleansing an enterprise database extracts data from an enterprise database, extracts reference data from a most-trusted database, determines discords between the data extracted from the enterprise database and the reference data extracted from the most-trusted database in accordance with a set of business rules, modifies the data extracted from the enterprise database based on the discords, and stores the modified data in the enterprise database. The data may be modified automatically with or without manual intervention. Discords are preferably determined on an atomic level.

Claims

1. A method of cleansing a plurality of enterprise databases comprising:

extracting data from a plurality enterprise databases;

extracting reference data from a most-trusted database, the reference data being associated with resources in a service provider network;

generating at least one of a cross-reference table and mapping information from metadata associated with the reference data extracted from the enterprise database and metadata associated with data extracted from the most-trusted database;

accumulating the data extracted from the plurality of enterprise databases and the reference data extracted from the most-trusted database in an aggregate extracted database, from which discords are determined, the aggregate extracted database being independent of the plurality of enterprise databases and the most-trusted database;

formatting the data extracted from the plurality of enterprise databases in a specified format;

determining discords between the data extracted from the plurality of enterprise databases and the reference data extracted from the most-trusted database in accordance with a set of rules, the determining using the reference data extracted from the most-trusted database as a reference against which the data extracted from the enterprise database is verified;

determining discords between the data extracted from the plurality of enterprise databases and industry standard data from an industry standard database, the data extracted from the plurality of enterprise databases being verified against the industry standard data of the industry standard database;

determining whether at least one of the discords requires manual intervention or whether an automatic system correction process is configured to automatically correct the discords;

modifying the data extracted from the plurality of enterprise databases automatically based on the discords and in response to a determination that the automatic system correction process is configured to automatically correct the discords;

reformatting the data extracted from the enterprise database to an original format after modifying the data based on the discords; and

storing the modified data in the plurality of enterprise databases.

2. A method of cleansing a plurality of enterprise databases as defined by claim 1, wherein modifying the data is performed automatically without manual intervention.

3. A method of cleansing a plurality of enterprise databases as defined by claim 1, wherein determining discords further comprises determining discords on an atomic level.

4. A method of cleansing a plurality of enterprise databases as defined by claim 1, further comprising:

determining discords between the data extracted from the plurality of enterprise databases and the reference data extracted from the most-trusted database in accordance with an industry-standard database;

modifying the data extracted from the plurality of enterprise databases based on the discords; and

storing the corrected data in the plurality of enterprise databases.

5. A method of cleansing a plurality of enterprise databases as defined by claim 4, wherein modifying the data is performed automatically without manual intervention.

6. A method of cleansing a plurality of enterprise databases as defined by claim 1, further comprising providing a graphical user interface, the graphical user interface being adapted to enable manual modification of the data extracted from the plurality of enterprise databases.

7. A method of cleansing a plurality of enterprise databases as defined by claim 1, further comprising providing a graphical user interface, the graphical user interface being adapted to enable at least one of manual entry and modification of the set of rules.

18. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

identifying a root cause of the discords; and

addressing the root cause using a modification request to substantially prevent the discords from recurring after the modification.

8. A system for cleansing a plurality of enterprise databases comprising:

a plurality of enterprise databases holding enterprise data;

a most-trusted database holding reference data being associated with resources in a service provider network; and

a computing device, the computing device configured to;

extract enterprise data from the plurality of enterprise databases;

extract the reference data from the most-trusted database;

generate at least one of a cross-reference table and mapping information from metadata associated with the data extracted from the plurality of enterprise databases and metadata associated with reference data extracted from the most-trusted database;

accumulate the data extracted from the plurality of enterprise databases and the reference data extracted from the most-trusted database in an aggregate extracted database, from which discords are determined, the aggregate extracted database being independent of the plurality of enterprise databases and the most-trusted database;

format the data extracted from the plurality of enterprise databases in a specified format,

determine discords between the enterprise data extracted from the plurality of enterprise databases and the reference data extracted from the most-trusted database in accordance with a set of rules, the computing device determining discords using the reference data extracted from the most-trusted database as a reference against which the enterprise data extracted from the plurality of enterprise databases is verified;

determine discords between the data extracted from the plurality of enterprise databases and industry standard data from an industry standard database, the data extracted from the plurality of enterprise databases being verified against the industry standard data of the industry standard database;

determine whether at least one of the discords requires manual intervention or whether an automatic system correction process is configured to automatically correct the discords;

modify the enterprise data extracted from the plurality of enterprise databases automatically based on the discords and in response to a determination that the automatic system correction process is configured to automatically correct the discords;

reformat the data extracted from the plurality of enterprise databases to an original format after modifying the data based on the discords; and

store the modified enterprise data in the plurality of enterprise databases.

9. A system for cleansing a plurality of enterprise databases as defined by claim 8, wherein at least one of the plurality of enterprise databases comprises at least one of a contract database, account database, billing database, ordering database, and provisioning database.

10. A system for cleansing a plurality of enterprise databases as defined by claim 8, wherein the most-trusted database comprises a network asset database.

11. A system for cleansing a plurality of enterprise databases as defined by claim 8, wherein the computing device modifies the data automatically without manual intervention.

12. A system for cleansing a plurality of enterprise databases as defined by claim 8, wherein the computing device determines discords on an atomic level.

13. A system for cleansing a plurality of enterprise databases as defined by claim 8, wherein the computing device determines discords between the data extracted from the plurality of enterprise databases and the reference data extracted from the most-trusted database in accordance with an industry-standard database, modifies the data extracted from the enterprise database based on the discords, and stores the modified data in the plurality of enterprise databases.

14. A system for cleansing a plurality of enterprise databases as defined by claim 13, wherein the computing device modifies the data automatically without manual intervention.

15. A system for cleansing a plurality of enterprise databases as defined by claim 8, further comprising a graphical user interface, the graphical user interface being adapted to enable manual modification of the data extracted from the plurality of enterprise databases.

16. A system for cleansing a plurality of enterprise databases as defined by claim 8, further comprising a graphical user interface, the graphical user interface being adapted to enable at least one of manual entry and modification of the set of rules.

17. An article of manufacture for cleansing a plurality of enterprise databases comprising:

a machine-readable medium comprising at least one program which when executed implements the steps of;

extracting data from a plurality of enterprise databases;

extracting reference data from a most-trusted database, the reference data being associated with resources in a service provider network;

generating at least one of a cross-reference table and mapping information from metadata associated with the reference data extracted from the plurality enterprise databases and metadata associated with data extracted from the most-trusted database;

accumulating the data extracted from the plurality of enterprise databases and the reference data extracted from the most-trusted database in an aggregate extracted database, from which discords are determined, the aggregate extracted database being independent of the plurality of enterprise databases and the most-trusted database;

formatting the data extracted from the plurality of enterprise databases to a specified format;

determining discords between the data extracted from the plurality of enterprise databases and the reference data extracted from the most-trusted database in accordance with a set of rules, the determining using the reference data extracted from the most-trusted database as a reference against which the data extracted from the plurality of enterprise databases is verified;

determining discords between the data extracted from the plurality of enterprise databases and industry standard data from an industry standard database, the data extracted from the plurality of enterprise databases being verified against the industry standard data of the industry standard database;

determining whether at least one of the discords requires manual intervention or whether an automatic system correction process is configured to automatically correct the discords;

modifying the data extracted from the plurality of enterprise databases automatically based on the discords and in response to a determination that the automatic system correction process is configured to automatically correct the discords;

reformatting the data extracted from the plurality of enterprise databases to an original format after modifying the data based on the discords; and

storing the modified data in the plurality of enterprise databases.