Techniques for semantic business policy composition

• US 9,672,478 B2
• Filed: 02/26/2010
• Issued: 06/06/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 02/26/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Oracle International Corporation (Oracle Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Oracle International Corporation (Oracle Corporation)
• Inventors: B'Far, Reza, Golden, Ryan, Cengiz, Yasin, Tseng, Tsai-Ming, Stebelton, Mark, Nguyen, Huyvu, Jacobs, Nigel, Boucher, Lloyd, Goh, Logan, Chakrabarti, Malini
• Primary Examiner(s): RIEGLER, PATRICK F
• Application Number:
  US12/714,206
• Publication Number:
  US 20100218134A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,657 Days
• Field of Search: 715760, 715764, 715769, 715771, 715777, 715780, 715810, 715825, 715826
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/254 Extract, transform and load [ETL] procedures, e.g. ETL data flows in data warehouses
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/258 Data format conversion from or to a database
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/048 Interaction techniques based on graphical user interfaces [GUI]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/34 Graphical or visual programming
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/00 Administration; Management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/0637 Strategic management or analysis, e.g. setting a goal or target of an organisation; Planning actions based on goals; Analysis or evaluation of effectiveness of goals
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0893 Assignment of logical groups to network elements
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0894 Policy-based network configuration management
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 715/967 Visual or iconic programming

Abstract

Embodiments of the present invention relate to techniques for creating policies. A plurality of objects representative of semantic objects are provided to a user. An arrangement of a subset of the objects, the arrangement representative of a policy, is received. The arrangement is converted to instructions for implementation by an application configured to implement policies. One or more of the objects may include fields and/or controls for specifying criteria of semantic objects represented by the objects.

Claims

1. A method for defining logic for analysis, comprising:

under control of one or more computer systems configured with executable instructions,

providing graphical objects to a user through an interface, the graphical objects representative of semantic objects;

receiving an arrangement of a subset of the graphical objects, the arrangement representative of logic for an analysis to be performed as part of implementing a policy, said arrangement based at least in part on interaction by the user with the interface, wherein the logic depends at least partially on whether two of the subset of the graphical objects are arranged in one orientation of multiple mutual orientations, and wherein the arrangement of the subset of the graphical objects at least partially defines the policy;

generating, based at least in part on the arrangement, executable instructions for execution by an application configured to operate according to the instructions to monitor transaction data according to the policy, the transaction data corresponding to business activity related to an organization, wherein the policy specifies of a set of conditions and the monitoring comprises monitoring transaction data resulting from future transactions for fulfillment and/or violation of the set of conditions;

encoding business data into an ontology at least in part by extracting information from one or more data stores communicably coupled to the one or more computer systems, converting the information to a uniform format, and storing converted information in the ontology; and

processing the ontology to monitor the transaction data according to the policy, the processing the ontology comprising partitioning the ontology into partitions, distributing the partitions over a plurality of reasoner instances that reason the partitions according to the policy, and combining results of the plurality of reasoner instances to create combined results;

wherein the combined results comprise one or more indications of the fulfillment and/or the violation of the set of conditions.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein at least one object of the subset of the graphical objects comprises a field configured to allow definition of criteria for a semantic object corresponding to the at least one object.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the arrangement includes a first object representative of a first semantic object and a second object representative of a second semantic object, the second semantic object being an attribute of the first semantic object.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

providing an analytic object representative of an analysis to be performed as part of implementing the policy; and

wherein the arrangement is based at least in part on an association of the analytic object representative of the analysis with at least the subset of the graphical objects.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein at least one member of the subset includes an element whose appearance depends on at least one other member of the subset.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the monitoring is continuous.

7. A system for analyzing data, comprising:

a computing device configured to allow user-creation of an arrangement of objects, each of the objects representative of a semantic object and the arrangement representative of logic for an analysis to be performed as part of implementation of a policy, wherein the logic depends at least partially on whether two of the objects are arranged in one orientation of multiple mutual orientations, and wherein the arrangement of the objects at least partially defines the policy;

at least one data store accessible by the computing device that is configured to store data; and

a policy engine configured to perform the analysis with respect to the data and to monitor transaction data according to the policy, the transaction data corresponding to business activity related to an organization, wherein the policy specifies of a set of conditions and the monitoring comprises monitoring transaction data resulting from future transactions for fulfillment and/or violation of the set of conditions, wherein the policy engine is configured to;

encode business data into an ontology at least in part by extracting information from one or more data stores communicably coupled to the computing device, converting the information to a uniform format, and storing converted information in the ontology; and

process the ontology to monitor the transaction data according to the policy, the processing the ontology comprising partitioning the ontology into partitions, distributing the partitions over a plurality of reasoner instances that reason the partitions according to the policy, and combining results of the plurality of reasoner instances to create combined results;

wherein the combined results comprise one or more indications of the fulfillment and/or the violation of the set of conditions.

8. The system of claim 7, wherein the computing device is further configured to convert the arrangement of the objects to a form suitable for use by the policy engine.

9. The system of claim 7, wherein the arrangement of the objects includes a first object representative of a first semantic object and a second object representative of a second semantic object, the second semantic object an attribute of the first semantic object.

10. The system of claim 7, wherein the computing device is further configured to provide user-defined criteria for the semantic object.

11. The system of claim 7, wherein the computing device is further configured to allow user selection of a data analysis technique to be applied during implementation of the policy.

12. The system of claim 7, wherein the computing device is further configured to include an analytic object as part of the arrangement, the analytic object representative of a particular analysis to be performed by the policy engine when applying the policy.

13. A computer-readable storage medium, which is non-transitory, having stored thereon instructions for controlling at least one processor of one or more computer systems to generate executable instructions, the instructions comprising:

instructions that cause the at least one processor to provide a plurality of objects to a user through an interface, the objects representative of semantic objects;

instructions that cause said at least one processor to receive an arrangement of a subset of the objects, the arrangement representative of an analysis to be performed as part of implementation of a policy, said arrangement based at least in part on interaction by the user with the interface, wherein the analysis depends at least partially on whether two objects of the subset of the objects are arranged in one orientation of multiple mutual orientations, and wherein the arrangement of the subset of the objects at least partially defines the policy; and

instructions that cause said at least one processor to generate, based at least in part on the arrangement, executable instructions suitable for implementation by an application configured to operate according to the instructions to monitor transaction data according to the policy, the transaction data corresponding to business activity related to an organization, wherein;

the policy specifies of a set of conditions and the monitoring comprises monitoring transaction data resulting from future transactions for fulfillment and/or violation of the set of conditions, wherein;

the monitoring the transaction data according to the policy comprises processing an ontology to monitor the transaction data according to the policy,

business data is encoded into the ontology at least in part by extracting information from one or more data stores communicably coupled to the one or more computer systems, converting the information to a uniform format, and storing converted information in the ontology, and

the processing the ontology comprising partitioning the ontology into partitions, distributing the partitions over a plurality of reasoner instances that reason the partitions according to the policy, and combining results of the plurality of reasoner instances to create combined results;

wherein the combined results comprise one or more indications of the fulfillment and/or the violation of the set of conditions.

14. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 13, wherein at least one object of the objects includes a field configured to allow user-definition of criteria for a semantic object corresponding to the at least one object.

15. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 13, wherein the arrangement includes a first object representative of a first semantic object and a second object representative of a second semantic object, the second semantic object being an attribute of the first semantic object.

16. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 13, wherein the instructions further comprise:

instructions that cause the at least one processor to provide an analytic object representative of a data analysis technique to be performed as part of implementing the policy; and

wherein the arrangement is based at least in part on an association of an analytic object representative of a data analysis technique with at least the subset of the objects.

17. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 13, wherein the instructions further comprise:

instructions that cause the at least one processor to provide an analytic object representative of an analysis to be performed as part of implementing the policy; and

wherein the arrangement is based at least in part on an association of the analysis with at least the subset of the objects.

18. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 13, wherein at least one member of the subset includes an element whose appearance depends on at least one other member of the subset.

19. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 13, wherein the instructions include instructions that cause the at least one processor to receive a grouping of a plurality of members of the subset of the objects and performing a user-specified analysis on data corresponding to the plurality of members.