Conditioning the distribution of data in a hierarchical database

• US 8,984,013 B2
• Filed: 09/30/2009
• Issued: 03/17/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 09/30/2009
• 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): Woo, Isaac M
• Application Number:
  US12/571,009
• Publication Number:
  US 20110078200A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,994 Days
• Field of Search: 707600-899
• US Class Current: 707/791
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/282 Hierarchical databases, e.g. IMS, LDAP data stores or Lotus Notes
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/83 Querying

Abstract

Embodiments relate to systems and methods for conditioning the distribution of data in a hierarchical database. A data store can store data in a hierarchical format. Higher-level data, such as yearly profit, may be desired to be spread from parent nodes to lower nodes, such as quarters. Parent nodes can be associated with a set of programmatic placeholder nodes. A spreading tool can insert child nodes representing quarters, months, or other at insertion point(s) represented or encoded by a set of placeholder nodes, dividing quantities appropriately. In aspects, data can be spread from multiple parents at once. In aspects, the spreading tool can access or host sequence logic to ensure that data is spread in an order that takes dependencies, formatting, output connections, or other factors into account.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

receiving a set of data to be inserted in a hierarchical database;

associating each of a plurality of child nodes in the hierarchical database with a plurality of parent nodes in the hierarchical database;

accessing a set of spreading rules identifying an order of distribution of the set of data from the plurality of parent nodes to the corresponding child nodes;

conditioning, by a hardware processor, the set of data in view of the set of spreading rules; and

distributing the conditioned set of data from the plurality of parent nodes into the corresponding child nodes.

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

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the set of spreading rules further comprises a set of rules related to data dependencies in the set of data.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein distributing the set of data comprises distributing the set of data via a set of placeholder nodes associated with the plurality of parent nodes.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the set of placeholder nodes encode a set of inheritance classes defining the plurality of child nodes.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the set of 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 set of data distributed from the plurality of parent nodes to the corresponding child nodes is the same.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the plurality of parent nodes are located in different levels of the hierarchical database.

10. A system comprising:

an interface to a hierarchical database; and

a database engine executable by a hardware processor, to communicate with the interface, the database engine executable by a hardware processor to;

receive a set of data to be inserted in the hierarchical database,

associate each of a plurality of child nodes in the hierarchical database with a plurality of parent nodes in the hierarchical database,

access a set of spreading rules identifying an order of distribution of the set of data from the plurality of parent nodes to the corresponding child nodes,

condition the set of data in view of the set of spreading rules, and

distribute the conditioned set of data from the plurality of parent nodes into the corresponding child nodes.

11. The system of claim 10, wherein the set of spreading rules further comprises at least one of a set of rules related to data dependencies in the set of data, a set of rules related to the formatting of the set of data, or a set of rules related to routing of output of the plurality of child nodes to other nodes.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the set of spreading rules comprises a set of rules related to data dependencies in the set of data, and the set of rules related to data dependencies in the set of data comprises a set of sequence rules specifying the order of distribution of the set of data to the plurality of child nodes.

13. The system of claim 10, wherein distributing the set of data comprises distributing the set of data via a set of placeholder nodes associated with the plurality of parent nodes.

14. The system of claim 13, wherein the set of placeholder nodes encode a set of inheritance classes defining the plurality of child nodes.

15. The system of claim 10, wherein the set of data comprises at least one of medical data, technical data, scientific data, or financial data.

16. The system of claim 10, 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.

17. The system of claim 10, wherein the set of data distributed the plurality of parent nodes to the corresponding child nodes is the same.

18. A non-transitory computer readable storage medium comprising instructions that, when executed by a hardware processor, cause the processor to perform operations comprising:

receiving a set of data to be inserted in a hierarchical database;

associating each of a plurality of child nodes in the hierarchical database with a plurality of parent nodes in the hierarchical database;

accessing a set of spreading rules identifying an order of distribution of the set of data from the plurality of parent nodes to the corresponding set of child nodes;

conditioning, by the processor, the set of data in view of the set of spreading rules; and

distributing the conditioned set of data from the plurality of parent nodes into the corresponding child nodes.