Systems and methods for generating a push-up alert of fault conditions in the distribution of data in a hierarchical database

• US 8,315,174 B2
• Filed: 12/31/2009
• Issued: 11/20/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 12/31/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Red Hat, Inc. (International Business Machines Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Red Hat, Inc. (International Business Machines Corporation)
• Inventors: Williamson, Eric
• Primary Examiner(s): Duong, Frank
• Application Number:
  US12/651,195
• Publication Number:
  US 20110158106A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,055 Days
• Field of Search: 370241-252, 370389-392, 707/600, 707/603, 707/634
• US Class Current: 370/242
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/283 Multi-dimensional databases or data warehouses, e.g. MOLAP or ROLAP
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0681 Configuration of triggering conditions

Abstract

Embodiments relate to systems and methods for generating a push-up alert of fault conditions in the distribution of data in a hierarchical database. Higher-level data, such as yearly profit, may be desired to be spread from parent nodes to lower nodes, such as quarters, in a hierarchical data store. Parent nodes can be associated with a set of programmatic placeholder nodes. A spreading tool can insert child nodes representing quarters, months, or other insertion point(s) encoded by a placeholder nodes, dividing quantities appropriately. The spreading tool can access or host logic to ensure that data is spread in an order that takes dependencies, formatting, or other factors into account. The spreading tool can also be configured to detect numerical errors, logical errors, or other faults and attempt to identify conflicting rules or other sources of error. Those rules can be automatically removed and/or removed via user selection.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

receiving, by a processor, spread data to be inserted in a hierarchical database;

associating, by the processor, one or more child nodes with at least one parent node in the hierarchical database;

accessing, by the processor, one or more spreading rules to determine conditioning required to distribute data from the at least one parent node to the corresponding one or more child nodes;

identifying, by the processor, a violation in the one or more spreading rules when the conditioning required to distribute data causes a fault state; and

generating, by the processor, a notification to the user of the fault state.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more spreading rules comprises at least one of one or more rules related to data dependencies in the spread data, one or more rules related to the formatting of the spread data, and one or more rules related to routing of output of the one or more child nodes to other nodes.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the one or more spreading rules comprises one or more rules related to data dependencies in the spread data, and the one or more rules related to data dependencies in the spread data comprises one or more sequence rules specifying an order of distribution of the spread data to the one or more child nodes.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

distributing the spread data from the at least one parent node into the one or more child nodes, wherein the distributing comprises distributing the spread data via one or more placeholder nodes associated with the at least one parent node.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the one or more placeholder nodes encode one or more inheritance classes defining the one or more child nodes.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the spread data comprises at least one of medical data, technical data, scientific data, or financial data.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the hierarchical database comprises at least one of an online analytical processing (OLAP) data source or an extensible markup language (XML)-based data source.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the at least one parent node comprises a plurality of parent nodes.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising selecting at least one rule in the one or more spreading rules for adjustment, suspension, or removal from data spreading activity based on the violation.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the selecting is performed automatically via a database engine.

11. The method of claim 9, wherein the selecting is performed via user input a user interface configured to present the violation.

12. The method of claim 9, further comprising determining an altered conditioning required to distribute data from the at least one parent node to the corresponding one or more child nodes after removal or suspension of the at least one spreading rule.

13. A system for database operations, comprising:

an interface to at least one hierarchical database; and

a database engine, communicating with the at least one hierarchical database via the interface, the database engine being configured to

receive spread data to be inserted in the hierarchical database,

associate one or more child nodes with at least one parent node in the hierarchical database,

access one or more spreading rules to determine conditioning required to distribute data from the at least one parent node to the corresponding one or more child nodes,

identify a violation in the one or more spreading rules when the conditioning required to distribute data causes a fault state, and

generate a notification to the user of the fault state.

14. The system of claim 13, wherein the one or more spreading rules comprises at least one of one or more rules related to data dependencies in the spread data, one or more rules related to the formatting of the spread data, and one or more rules related to routing of output of the one or more child nodes to other nodes.

15. The system of claim 13, further comprising:

distributing the spread data from the at least one parent node into the one or more child nodes, wherein the distributing comprises distributing the spread data via one or more placeholder nodes associated with the at least one parent node.

16. The system of claim 15, wherein the one or more placeholder nodes encode one or more inheritance classes defining the one or more child nodes.

17. The system of claim 13, wherein the database engine is further configured to process a selection at least one rule in the one or more spreading rules for adjustment, suspension, or removal from data spreading activity based on the violation.

18. The system of claim 17, wherein the selection is performed automatically via the database engine.

19. The system of claim 17, wherein the selection is performed via user input a user interface configured to present the violation.

20. The system of claim 17, further comprising determining an altered conditioning required to distribute data from the at least one parent node to the corresponding one or more child nodes after removal or suspension of the at least one spreading rule.