Tracking changes to a business object

• US 8,234,248 B2
• Filed: 05/09/2008
• Issued: 07/31/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 01/24/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Oracle International Corporation (Oracle Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Oracle International Corporation (Oracle Corporation)
• Inventors: Karimisetty, Srikanth, Puri, Srinivasulu, Durgada, Savita
• Primary Examiner(s): LIANG, VEI CHUNG
• Application Number:
  US12/151,942
• Publication Number:
  US 20090193054A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,544 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 707/639
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/2358 Change logging, detection, and notification replication G06F16/27
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/86 Mapping to a database

Abstract

Systems, methods, and other embodiments associated with database auditing are described. One example method includes generating a first extensible markup language (XML) document using data from a database object. A database object may include data from multiple relational data tables. The method includes generating a second XML document in response to an event causing a change to the database object. The method also includes comparing the first and second XML documents to identify changed values. The method also includes displaying the identified changes.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method, comprising:

performing a database dump of substantially all user content of a database;

generating a first extensible markup language (XML) document using data from the database dump of the database, the first XML document representing a pre-change state of the database;

performing a second database dump of substantially all user content of the database in response to an event causing a change to the database;

generating a second XML document using data from the second database dump, the second XML document representing a post-change state of the database;

comparing the first and second XML documents to identify changed values where identifying changed values includes generating notations in the first XML document by adding XML tags to the first XML document that describe a change to the database from the second XML document, where the notations provide a history of changes in the first XML document; and

displaying the identified changed values.

2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, where identifying changed values includes modifying XML tags in the first XML document by adding elements to XML tags, and where the elements describe a change to the database.

3. The computer-implemented method of claim 2, where displaying the identified changed values includes reconstructing a database from the first XML document by using the notations to highlight changed values, where the changed values include a structure of the database and data associated with the database.

4. A computer-implemented method, comprising:

executing a batch process for a drug manufacturing process;

collecting data from the executing batch process at various times and storing the data into a database;

monitoring the batch process and capturing a snapshot of the database at a plurality of times, where a snapshot is of the whole database and represents the database in a different state;

generating an extensible markup language (XML) document from each of the snapshots of the database, the XML document representing data of the corresponding state of the database;

comparing a selected first XML document and a selected second XML document to identify changed data values, where identifying the changed values includes generating notations by adding XML tags to the second XML document that describe the changed values, and where the notations provide a history of changes in the first XML document; and

storing each of the XML documents in a computer-readable medium.

5. The computer-implemented method of claim 4, where the changed data values representing changes to the database from the associated states of the first and second XML documents.

6. A system, comprising:

at least one non-transitory computer-readable medium that stores a database that includes one or more database objects, where a database object includes data associated with one or more relational data tables;

a non-transitory computer-readable medium comprising a document logic to generate a state document upon detecting a change to one of the one or more database objects, where a state document includes state data from a database dump describing a state of a database object, where the state data is independent of the structure and arrangement of the database object;

a comparison logic to generate a differences document that includes notations that are tags describing content differences between two or more state documents to provide a history of changes for the one or more database objects, where the tags include elements describing content differences by notating a change and a previous value; and

an output logic to output data from the differences document.

7. The system of claim 6, where a state document is an extensible markup language (XML) document.

8. The system of claim 7, where the differences document is an XML document, and where the tags are XML tags in the differences document that include elements describing the content differences by notating a change and a previous value.

9. The system of claim 8, where the comparison logic generates the differences document by merging the two or more state documents.

10. The system of claim 9, including a data store to store state documents, and where state data describing a current state of a database object is stored in a state document in the database.

11. The system of claim 10, where the output logic stores data from the differences document to a machine readable medium that includes a set of previous differences documents.

12. The system of claim 10, where the output logic supplies data from the differences document to an external logic.

13. The system of claim 9, where the comparison logic generates the differences document upon receipt of a user driven request.

14. The system of claim 6, where the change to the database object is a result of a user driven query.

15. The system of claim 6, where the change to the database object is a result of a logic driven query.

16. The system of claim 6, where the document logic performs a data mining operation on the database dump to retrieve state data to generate the state document.

17. The system of claim 6, where the output logic displays the output data using a graphical user interface.

18. A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing processor executable instructions that when executed by a processor cause a machine to perform a method, the method comprising:

detecting a change to a database object in a database, where a database object includes data from one or more relational data tables;

performing a database dump of the database after detecting the change to the database;

storing one or more information records in a data store, where an information record includes information describing a condition of the database object from the database dump, where the information is independent of the structure and arrangement of the database object state;

generating a change log that includes data describing content differences between two or more information records stored in the data store, where generating the change log includes generating a differences document as the change log, where the content differences include XML tags that describe a change and a previous state in the database where the XML tags provide a history of changes for the database in the differences document; and

outputting data from the change log.

19. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 18, where the one or more information records are state documents.

20. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 19, where the state documents and the differences document are generated as extensible markup language (XML) documents.

21. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 18, where detecting a change includes detecting a change to a structure of the database.

22. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 18, where detecting the change to the database object is a result of one or more of, a user driven query, and a logic driven query.

23. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 18, where the data from the change log is output to one or more of, a display logic, a machine readable medium, and an external logic.

24. A system, comprising:

a non-transitory computer-readable medium including means for detecting a change to a database object in a database and for performing a dump of database objects in the database, where a database object includes data from one or more relational data tables;

means for generating a state document, where a state document includes state data describing a state of a database object from the dump;

means for storing one or more state documents;

means for comparing content differences between two or more of the state documents;

means for generating a differences document by merging two or more of the state documents, where a differences document includes data describing one or more content differences between the two or more state documents, where the differences documents includes notations that describe differences between the two or more state documents, and where the notations provide a history of changes in for the database; and

means for outputting data from the differences document.