Implementation of a web-scale data fabric

• US 8,930,581 B2
• Filed: 03/07/2014
• Issued: 01/06/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 03/15/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company (State Farm)
• Original Assignee: State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company (State Farm)
• Inventors: Anton, Alex, Sanidas, Tim G., Perschall, Jeff, Bernico, Michael, Cook, Michael K., Calvo, Lynn, Kanneganti, V. Rao
• Primary Examiner(s): Maung, Zarni
• Application Number:
  US14/201,325
• Publication Number:
  US 20140280457A1
• Time in Patent Office: 305 Days
• Field of Search: 709/203, 709223-229, 709/238, 709/250
• US Class Current: 709/250
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/113 Details of archiving lifecycle management in storage systems G06F3/0649; backup systems G06F11/1446
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/245 Query processing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/256 in federated or virtual databases
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9537 Spatial or temporal dependent retrieval, e.g. spatiotemporal queries
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/08 Insurance
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1097 for distributed storage of data in networks, e.g. transport arrangements for network file system [NFS], storage area networks [SAN] or network attached storage [NAS]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/51 Discovery or management thereof, e.g. service location protocol [SLP] or web services
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/329 in the application layer [OSI layer 7]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/40 Network security protocols

Abstract

Methods and systems for processing business operations transactions and associated augmented customer data using a Web-Scale Data Fabric (WSDF). According to embodiments, a plurality of computer servers are configured for economical large scale computation and data storage with resilience despite underpinning commodity hardware failure and grow-shrink capacity changes of nodes and associated interconnectivity. The servers communicate with direct attached storage (DAS) and include a co-processor coupled for computation capacity. The servers can connect to an external computer network (ECN) for external client input and output, as well as other functionalities such as physical-to-virtual network connectivity mapping and maintaining resilient storage of data received from the ECN or computationally derived from the received data.

Claims

1. A system for processing business operations transactions and associated augmented customer data, the system comprising:

a plurality of computer servers interconnected with a software defined network (SDN) via a plurality of network switches, controllers, and network interfaces, and facilitated by an operating system (OS) comprising a network operating system (NOS), a distributed file system (DFS), a grid node operating system (GNOS), and a resource negotiator (RN), the plurality of computer servers configured for economical large scale computation and data storage with resilience despite underpinning commodity hardware failure and grow-shrink capacity changes of nodes and associated interconnectivity, wherein the plurality of computer servers are configured to;

implement commodity hardware for economy measured by ownership cost, and

perform computation and store data within the computer grid;

direct attached storage (DAS) comprising just a bunch of disks (JBOD) configured for storage economy measured in total cost of ownership;

random access memory (RAM) coupled to the DAS to provide storage capacity for the plurality of computer servers;

a central processing unit (CPU);

a co-processor coupled to the CPU to provide computation capacity for the plurality of computer servers;

wherein;

the SDN is configured to connect to an external computer network (ECN) for external client input and output,

the NOS and the RN are configured to interface with the SDN to perform a physical-to-virtual network connectivity mapping between the plurality of computer servers and the ECN for negotiated bandwidth and latency conducive to at least one of computation, data receipt, and storage,

the DFS and the GNOS are configured to interface with the plurality of computer servers to maintain resilient storage of data received from the ECN or computationally derived from the received data,

the RN and the GNOS are configured to interface with the plurality of computer servers to perform physical-to-virtual parallel computation with negotiated computational capacity on data that is stored on the DAS or cached in the RAM,

the DFS is configured to implement a distributed file system (DFS),

the NOS is configured to facilitate physical-to-virtual network connectivity with managed bandwidth and latency, and

the RN is configured to implement a resource-management platform.

2. The system of claim 1, further comprising a federated database (FD) that comprises a distributed in-memory cache (DIMC) and a plurality of log-structured merge tree (LSM-Tree) databases configured for resilient high-throughput data accumulation, wherein:

the FD is configured to interface with client applications and machine sources via the ECN to provide consistent data persistence for retrieved data, and interface with the SDN to configure interconnectivity among the plurality computer servers, the client applications, and the machine sources,

the DIMC is configured to interface with the plurality of computer servers to provide transient and temporary data persistence, and interface with the LSM-Tree to provide data resiliency, and

the LSM-Tree is configured to provide permanent data persistence, implement a non-relational database, and interface with the DFS to provide storage optimization for persisted data.

3. The system of claim 2, further comprising a stream processor that comprises a plurality of message brokers (MB) and a plurality of complex event processors (CEP) configured for resilient high-throughput-low-latency data processing, wherein:

the plurality of MBs implement an advanced message queuing protocol (AMQP), provide reliable delivery of messages independent of data structure, interface with client applications and machine sources via the ECN for receipt of data and with the LSM-Tree for persistence of received data, and

the plurality of CEPs further comprise the DIMC, a plurality of semantic classifiers (SC) configured for semantic content management, and a plurality of in-memory rules engines.

4. The system of claim 2, further comprising:

a data-local processor (DLP) that enables resilient high-throughput-low-latency data parallel processing localized to each of the plurality of computer servers, wherein the DLP is configured to facilitate a High Performance Computing (HPC) with Message Passing Interface (MPI)-based computation, a Many-Task Computing (MTC) with Map Reduce (MR)-based computation, a math algorithm processing functionality for predictive analytics and machine learning, a natural language processing functionality for business meaningful categorization of text data, and wherein the SDN is configured to manage network traffic associated with the HPC and MTC.

5. The system of claim 1, further comprising:

an information retrieval (IR) component that facilitates resilient low latency indexing and query-using search on indexed federated database content, wherein the IR system comprises an indexer component configured to ingest data and a search server component configured to interface with at least one client application and process search queries made via the at least one client application.

6. The system of claim 1, further comprising:

an analytics system configured to provide a transient data aggregate analysis and a federated database (FD) data content aggregate analysis.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein data stored on the direct attached storage (DAS) and cached on the random access memory (RAM) is available for computation through the distributed file system (DFS) either local to one of the plurality of computer servers or across the plurality of computer servers via the software defined network (SDN) interconnect configured for this purpose, and wherein the resource negotiator (RN) is configured to manage computation and corresponding SDN interconnect demands.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein:

the direct attached storage (DAS) is configured for storage economy measured in total cost of ownership per terabyte;

the random access memory (RAM) is configured for computational speed and storage economy measured in total cost of ownership per gigabyte;

the central processing unit (CPU) comprises a mid-range multi-core CPU for computational economy measured in total cost of ownership per flop; and

the co-processor is configured for computation speed and economy measured in total cost of ownership per flop.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein the co-processor provides computation capacity via at least one of high performance computing (HPC) and many-task computing (MTC).

10. The system of claim 9, wherein the high performance computing (HPC) provides large computing power measured in teraflops over short periods of time measured in seconds to days.

11. The system of claim 9, wherein the many-task computing (MTC) provides computing power distributed over a large number of tasks measured in hundreds over short periods of time measured in seconds to days.