Techniques for specifying and collecting data aggregations

• US 20060235879A1
• Filed: 04/15/2005
• Published: 10/19/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 04/15/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Peterson, Glenn R.
• Granted Patent: US 7,689,616 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/24556 Aggregation; Duplicate elimination
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99936 Pattern matching access

Abstract

Data records containing one or more fields, which can be considered keys and/or values, are received, and processed such that data values of records that contain key values of interest are aggregated together. The keys of the resultant aggregations or “resultant keys” are created under the control of simple parameters to an aggregation framework. Similarly, the particular aggregations performed are also under the control of a similar set of simple parameters to the aggregation framework. Mapping of keys to reduce originality is one of the important features of resultant key creation. Finally, the structure of the parameters used to control aggregation is simple, flexible, and powerful.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

receiving a data record that includes one or more fields;

selecting a subset of the one or more fields as keys according to supplied parameters;

computing data aggregations of the fields according to the supplied parameters; and

producing collections of aggregations populated as specified by the supplied parameters.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the selecting is performed dynamically.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the selecting comprises mapping the keys.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the computing is based on a record control limit.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the parameters are defined by aggregation parameter sets.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein the parameters are implemented in a two-dimensional array of Booleans.

7. The method of claim 6 further comprising determining aggregation control subsets by Boolean operations.

8. The method of claim 1 further searching the parameters for subsets, marking the subsets, and deferring the marked subsets for processing.

9. The method of claim 8 further comprising computing subsets from the marked subsets.

10. A computer comprising:

a processor;

a memory accessed by and operated on by the processor; and

an aggregator framework component accessed by and operated on by the processor, further accessing the memory, configured to receive data records and aggregate data in the data records using keys in the data records.

11. The computer of claim 10 wherein the memory includes aggregators that act on the data records.

12. The computer of claim 10 further comprising one or more aggregation collection parameter sets that are provided to the aggregation framework component to aggregate data in the data records.

13. The computer of claim 10 further comprising a data source that provides the data records.

14. The computer of claim 10 further comprising a data streamer that streams the data records such that the data records are processed individually.

15. The computer of claim 10 further comprising aggregation collections wherein aggregated data is placed.

16. A computer computer-readable media comprising computer-executable instructions that, when executed, perform the steps comprising:

receiving an individual data record that includes fields which are treated as key values and data values according to one or more aggregation parameter sets;

processing the individual data record through its key values; and

identifying key values of the processed individual data record to a particular aggregation collection

17. The computer-readable medium of claim 16 wherein the step of processing includes applying an aggregation parameter set to the individual data record.

18. The computer-readable medium of claim 16 wherein the step of identifying includes creating a key mapping.

19. The computer-readable medium of claim 18 wherein the key mapping includes a composite key.

20. The computer-readable medium of claim 16 further comprising the steps of receiving and processing another data record in a queue of data records.