Non-exclusionary search within in-memory databases

• US 9,355,152 B2
• Filed: 12/02/2014
• Issued: 05/31/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 12/02/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Finch Computing LLC (Qbase, LLC)
• Original Assignee: Qbase, LLC
• Inventors: Lightner, Scott, Weckesser, Franz
• Primary Examiner(s): Casanova, Jorge A
• Application Number:
  US14/558,101
• Publication Number:
  US 20150154194A1
• Time in Patent Office: 546 Days
• Field of Search: 707/770
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/24532 of parallel queries
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/24578 using ranking
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/2468 Fuzzy queries
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/2471 Distributed queries

Abstract

Methods for non-exclusionary searching within clustered in-memory databases are disclosed. The non-exclusionary search methods may allow the execution of searches where the results may include records where fields specified in the query are not populated or defined. The disclosed methods include the application of fuzzy matching and scoring algorithms, which enables the system to search, score and compare records with different schemata. This may significantly improve the recall of relevant records.

Claims

1. A system comprising:

one or more storage nodes comprising a non-transitory machine-readable storage medium storing one or more collections of database records, wherein each respective collection stores one or more records according to a schema, and wherein the schema defines one or more fields storing a type of data in each respective record, wherein the non-transitory machine-readable storage medium comprises a main memory storing an in-memory database which contains the one or more collections of database records;

a search manager comprising a processor receiving a search query containing search parameters associated with data of one or more data types, determining whether field processing is requested in the search query, generating one or more search conductor queries based on a search query and transmitting the one or more search conductor queries to one or more search conductors nodes;

a search conductor node comprising a processor querying a collection associated with the search conductor and transmitting to the search manager a set of one or more results records containing data satisfying one or more parameters of the search conductor query in response to receiving the search conductor query from the search manager node, wherein the in-memory database contains the collection and the set of one or more results records, wherein the search manager receives a first set of search result records containing data matching at least one parameter of the search query, wherein the fields of the first set of search result records are based on a first schema, wherein the search manager receives a second set of search result records containing data matching at least one parameter of the search query, wherein the fields of the second set of search result records are based on a second schema, wherein the first schema is different from the second schema.

2. The system according to claim 1, wherein the search conductor matches each respective field of the one or more records satisfying the search parameters based on a match of the type of data in the respective field of the one or more records and the type of data of the search query.

3. The system according to claim 2, wherein the search conductor assigns a score for each respective records based on a number of matches between data in the fields of each record and the one or more search parameters.

4. The system according to claim 3, wherein the search conductor scores each respective field of the records of the collection based on the number of matches, and wherein the score assigned to each record is based on a search algorithm specified by the search conductor query.

5. The system according to claim 3, wherein the search conductor query indicates a threshold score value, and wherein the score assigned to each respective record of the set of results records satisfies the threshold score.

6. The system according to claim 3, wherein the search conductor sorts the set of results records based on the score assigned to each respective record of the collection associated with the search conductor.

7. The system according to claim 1, where the processor of the search manager executes field processing on one or more fields in accordance with the search query in response to determining that field processing is requested in the search query.