Cross varying dimension support for analysis services engine

• US 7,970,735 B2
• Filed: 03/20/2006
• Issued: 06/28/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 03/20/2006
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: D'Hers, Thierry, Atur, Bala, Dumitru, Marius
• Primary Examiner(s): Trujillo; James
• Assistant Examiner(s): Moser; Bruce M
• Application Number:
  US11/384,676
• Publication Number:
  US 20070219957A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,926 Days
• Field of Search: 707/3, 707/2, 707/6, 707/999.002, 707/999.003, 707/999.006, 707/601, 707/603, 707/713, 707/718, 707/776, 712/12
• US Class Current: 707/603
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/283 Multi-dimensional databases or data warehouses, e.g. MOLAP or ROLAP
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/957 Multidimensional

Abstract

A data processing and analysis system is provided. The system includes an analysis engine that queries one or more components of data. A rules component specifies a relationship between at least one dimension of the data with respect to at least one other dimension of the data in order to facilitate an analysis of the data. In one example, the analysis engine is provided as an online analytical processing component.

Claims

1. A data processing and analysis system for applying one or more relationships between a first dimension of data and at least one other dimension of data, the system comprising:

one or more processors upon which executes computer executable components comprising;

an analysis engine that comprises a data-mining engine and a rules component and queries one or more components of data;

a graphical user interface which accepts queries submitted to the analysis engine, which accepts rules specified for the rules component, accepts a query for varying multiple versions of a first dimension based upon members of a second dimension, and displays based upon the query and rules specified for each of the first and second dimensions;

wherein the rules component;

accepts input to enable specification of a plurality of data dimensions, the data dimensions comprising reference dimensions, base dimensions, and degenerate dimensions and the specifications defining one or more relationships between at least two of the plurality of data dimensions;

accepts input to define a relationship which defines how the first dimension varies based upon the second dimension;

defines rules that describe how data in the plurality of dimensions is to be processed and analyzed with respect to a data perspective and how, according to the defined relationship, data being varied in the second dimension impacts the first dimension.

2. The system of claim 1, the analysis engine is an online analytical processing component.

3. The system of claim 1, further comprising a graphical user interface to specify the relationship and view the data.

4. The system of claim 1, the data is associated with one or more cubes of data.

5. The system of claim 1, the rules component applies one or more rules between dimensions, between one dimension and a subset of dimensions, or between one dimension subset and one or more other dimension subsets.

6. The system of claim 1, further comprising at least one data model to facilitate data analysis.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the first dimension is a time dimension.

8. The system of claim 1, further comprising a component allowing a user to define which members of a dimension are valid for a specific entity or which combination of tuples are valid for a specific entity.

9. The system of claim 1, further comprising a filter component to display filtered views of a data set.

10. The system of claim 1, further comprising a business or a database application to interact with the analysis engine.

11. The system of claim 10, the analysis engine enables at least one of:

moving entities;

splitting entities;

merging entities;

ceasing entity activities;

starting a business division;

acquiring a new entity;

changing percentage of ownership;

or changing owners of a business.

12. The system of claim 1, further comprising a computer readable medium having computer executable instructions stored thereon to execute the analysis engine or the rules component.

13. A method for data processing and analytical modeling, comprising:

employing a processor to execute the following computer executable analytical modeling acts;

executing a data-mining algorithm to discover rules and patterns with respect to a first set of data;

generating from the discovered rules and patterns a data-mining model identifying the rules and patterns which can be utilized to analyze a second set of data;

defining one or more dimension rules for a third data set, wherein the rules describe how data is to be processed and analyzed with respect to a data dimension and how data being varied in one dimension impacts an other dimension;

applying the dimension rules to at least one dimension of the third data set;

processing multiple dimensions of the third data set in view of the dimension rules;

receiving a non-native data-mining algorithm component;

displaying a graphical user interface which accepts queries submitted for an analysis engine, which accepts dimension rules correlating the first and second set of data, which accepts a query for varying multiple versions of a first dimension based upon members of a second dimension, and which comprises a data view having dimension viewing support for displaying the first set of data;

masking data that is not relevant to the data perspective; and

displaying data that is not masked and which has been processed by the data-mining algorithm and the non-native data-mining algorithm.

14. The method of claim 13, further comprising processing one or more items of cube metadata including determining a source association intersection.

15. The method of claim 13, further comprising determining one or more reference dimensions having at least one implicit association to a table.

16. The method of claim 13, further comprising processing one or more semantic instructions that are applied between at least one axis of a query.

17. The method of claim 13, further comprising extending one or more degenerate dimensions in addition to at least one cross varying dimension.

18. The method of claim 13, further comprising:

querying at least one entity with highest filter selectivity, the filter selectivity is determined using statistics as a cost-balanced heuristic;

using results from the query of the at least one entity with highest filter selectivity to query remaining entities; and

performing a hash join to produce final query results.

19. The method of claim 13, further comprising generating at least one additional cell to notify client applications of missing cells.