System and method for generating an information integration flow design using hypercubes

• US 9,299,040 B2
• Filed: 10/26/2010
• Issued: 03/29/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 10/26/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Hewlett Packard Enterprise Development LP (Hewlett-Packard Enterprise Company)
• Original Assignee: Hewlett Packard Enterprise Development LP (Hewlett-Packard Enterprise Company)
• Inventors: Wilkinson, William K., Simitsis, Alkiviadis
• Primary Examiner(s): NGUYEN, CAM LINH T
• Application Number:
  US12/912,228
• Publication Number:
  US 20120101978A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,981 Days
• Field of Search: 707/602
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/254 Extract, transform and load [ETL] procedures, e.g. ETL data flows in data warehouses
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling

Abstract

A system, method, and computer readable medium for generating an information integration flow design (IIFD). The system includes a processor to receive a conceptual model of the IIFD, having an extract phase, a load phase, and a transformation phase, an extract unit to model an interface between a data source information object and a transformation function based on at least one extract hypercube, a load unit to specify at least one load hypercube and a data warehouse target object, a transformation unit to express one or more steps as a hypercube operation, and a translation unit to generate the IIFD based on the conceptual model. The method includes receiving a conceptual model of the IIFD having an extract phase, a load phase, and a transformation phase. The method generates logical information integration operations based on the conceptual model. A computer readable medium may include instructions to generate the IIFD.

Claims

1. A system comprising:

a non-transitory storage medium storing instructions; and

a processor, the instructions executable on the processor to;

receive a conceptual model of an information integration flow design, the conceptual model having an extract phase, a load phase, and a transformation phase, the conceptual model comprising a data source information object, a transformation function, and a data warehouse target object;

extract source data from a data source into the data source information object that is according to an extract hypercube;

model an interface between the data source information object and the transformation function based on the extract hypercube;

map, using the transformation function, the data source information object to a load hypercube; and

load data in the load hypercube into the data warehouse target object.

2. The system of claim 1, further comprising including in the conceptual model at least one annotation specifying how the extract hypercube is created from the data source information object.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the conceptual model includes one or more high-level semantics of the information integration flow design.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the instructions are executable on the processor to machine translate the conceptual model into a logical model.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the instructions are executable on the processor to check a semantic consistency of the information integration flow design.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein one or more steps of the transformation function are expressed as a hypercube operation based on the load hypercube, the load hypercube containing a result of transformation, by the hypercube operation of the transformation function, of data in the data source information object.

7. The system of claim 6, wherein the extract hypercube is a member of a set of extract hypercubes extracted from respective data source information objects, the load hypercube is a member of a set of load hypercubes, and the hypercube operation is part of a set of hypercube operations to map the set of extract hypercubes to the set of load hypercubes.

8. The system of claim 7, wherein the set of hypercube operations comprises a graph of hypercube operations.

9. The system of claim 7, wherein the instructions are executable to load data of the load hypercubes into respective data warehouse target objects that are part of at least one data warehouse.

10. The system of claim 1, wherein the data warehouse target object is modeled as a star schema in which a fact table references dimension tables, and the star schema is modeled as the load hypercube where cells of the load hypercube correspond to values in the fact table, and dimensions of the load hypercube correspond to the dimension tables.

11. The system of claim 1, wherein the data warehouse target object is part of a data warehouse that provides a repository of data converted from data sources according to transformation functions of the conceptual model.

12. A method comprising:

receiving, by a system comprising a processor, a conceptual model of an information integration flow design, the conceptual model comprising data source information objects, transformation functions, and data warehouse target objects;

extracting, by the system, source data from data sources into respective data source information objects that are according to extract hypercubes;

modeling, by the system, an interface between the data source information objects and the transformation functions based on the extract hypercubes;

mapping, by the system using the transformation functions, the data source information objects to corresponding load hypercubes; and

loading, by the system, data in the load hypercubes into the data warehouse target objects.

13. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 12, wherein the instructions upon execution cause the system to further machine translate the conceptual model into a logical model that includes a graph comprising data source information objects, transformation functions, and data warehouse target objects.

14. The method of claim 12, wherein each transformation function of the transformation functions is expressed as a corresponding hypercube operation, and each respective load hypercube of the load hypercubes contains a result of transformation, by the hypercube operation of a corresponding transformation function of the transformation functions, of data in a corresponding data source information object of the data source information objects.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein the hypercube operations are part of a graph of hypercube operations.

16. The method of claim 12, wherein a first data warehouse target object of the data warehouse target objects is modeled as a star schema in which a fact table references dimension tables, and the star schema is modeled as a first load hypercube of the load hypercubes, where cells of the first load hypercube correspond to values in the fact table, and dimensions of the first load hypercube correspond to the dimension tables.

17. A non-transitory computer readable medium storing instructions that upon execution cause a system to:

receive a conceptual model of an information integration flow design, the conceptual model having an extract phase, a load phase, and a transformation phase, the conceptual model comprising a data source information object, a transformation function, and a data warehouse target object;

extract source data from a data source into the data source information object that is according to an extract hypercube;

model an interface between the data source information object and the transformation function based on the extract hypercube;

map, using the transformation function, the data source information object to a load hypercube; and

load data in the load hypercube into the data warehouse target object.

18. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 17, wherein one or more steps of the transformation function are expressed as a hypercube operation, and the load hypercube contains a result of transformation, by the hypercube operation, of data in the data source information object.

19. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 18, wherein the extract hypercube is a member of a set of extract hypercubes extracted from respective data source information objects, the load hypercube is a member of a set of load hypercubes, and the hypercube operation is part of a set of hypercube operations to map the set of extract hypercubes to the set of load hypercubes.

20. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 19, wherein the set of hypercube operations comprises a graph of hypercube operations.