REMOTE DATA COLLECTION SYSTEMS AND METHODS

• US 20100179940A1
• Filed: 08/26/2009
• Published: 07/15/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 08/26/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: ZeeWise, Inc.
• Original Assignee: ZeeWise, Inc.
• Inventors: Zalewski, Bartosz J., Hix, Joshua, Gilder, Clark S.
• Granted Patent: US 8,214,329 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/622
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/25 Integrating or interfacing systems involving database management systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/252 between a Database Management System and a front-end application
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/254 Extract, transform and load [ETL] procedures, e.g. ETL data flows in data warehouses
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/256 in federated or virtual databases
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/258 Data format conversion from or to a database

Abstract

The present disclosure provides remote data collection systems and methods for retrieving data including financial, sales, marketing, operational and the like data from a plurality of databases and database types remotely over a network in an automated, platform-agnostic manner. The present invention is designed to work across a plurality of LOB applications, database vendors and business models or businesses, as well as business infrastructure (various PCs, embedded devices and POS devices) and business processes while still providing the centralized ability to automatically collect data from multiple remote business sites. The present invention includes one or more central servers communicating with a plurality of remote data collection agents. The remote data collection agent is designed to overcome existing requirements or limitations as it is able to automatically collect remote data from a wide range of businesses, as well as multiple LOB applications while connecting to multiple databases vendors and formats.

Claims

1. A remote data collection system, comprising:

one or more servers coupled to one or more databases;

one or more remote clients communicatively coupled to the one or more servers, each of the one or more remote clients comprise a remote client agent communicatively coupled to one or more client databases; and

a metadata message transport mechanism configured to coordinate, control, and replicate data between the remote clients and the one or more databases.

2. The remote data collection system of claim 1, further comprising:

a definition server communicatively coupled to each of the one or more remote clients, wherein the definition server is configured to provide a plurality of definitions for each remote client agent, and wherein the plurality of definitions define collection rules for data in the client database.

3. The remote data collection system of claim 1, further comprising:

an update server communicatively coupled to each of the one or more remote clients, wherein the update server is configured to provide updates to the one or more remote client agents.

4. The remote data collection system of claim 1, wherein the client database comprises data from one of a line of business application and point of sale application;

and

wherein the remote client agent comprises an abstract implementation configured to operate on a plurality of database types.

5. The remote data collection system of claim 1, wherein the metadata message transport mechanism comprises a plurality of message types exchanged between the one or more remote clients and the one or more servers;

and

wherein the metadata message transport mechanism contains formatted data that is abstracted by a remote data collection system using message handlers thereby enabling future upgrades to the message handlers.

6. The remote data collection system of claim 5, wherein the plurality of message types comprise data messages, log messages, exception messages, update ready messages, update server online messages, update complete messages, update interrupted messages, update file messages, update configuration messages, definition request messages and definition messages.

7. The remote data collection system of claim 1, further comprising:

one or more shadow databases utilized in a data collection task, wherein the data collection task copies data from one of the one or more client databases to one of the one or more shadow databases and processes the copied data in accordance with a requested collection definition object.

8. The remote data collection system of claim 7, wherein the data collection task comprises a comparison function verifying copied data responsive to the requested collection definition object and a sending function to the one or more databases.

9. A computer, comprising:

a network interface;

a connection to a database; and

a processor communicatively coupled to the network interface and the connection, wherein the processor is configured to execute a remote data collection agent;

wherein the remote data collection agent is configured to coordinate, control, and replicate data between the database and a server, and wherein the remote data collection agent utilizes a metadata message transport mechanism to communicate to the server through the network interface.

10. The computer of claim 9, wherein the remote data collection agent is configured to receive a plurality of definitions defining collection rules for data in the database from the server.

11. The computer of claim 9, wherein the remote data collection agent is configured to receive code updates from the server.

12. The computer of claim 9, wherein the database comprises data from one of a line of business application and point of sale application;

and

wherein the remote data collection agent comprises an abstract implementation configured to operate on a plurality of database types.

13. The computer of claim 9, wherein the metadata message transport mechanism utilizes Java Message Service;

wherein the metadata message transport mechanism comprises a plurality of message types exchanged between the remote data collection agent and the server; and

wherein the metadata message transport mechanism contains formatted data using message handlers thereby enabling future upgrades to the message handlers.

14. The computer of claim 9, further comprising:

a shadow database utilized in a data collection task, wherein the shadow database is communicatively coupled to the processor, wherein the data collection task copies data from one of the database to one of the shadow database and processes the copied data in accordance with a requested collection definition object.

15. The computer of claim 14, wherein the data collection task comprises a comparison function verifying copied data responsive to the requested collection definition object and a sending function to the database.

16. A method of remote data collection, comprising:

receiving an agent installation package at a remote client;

initiating the agent installation package;

installing a service process that facilitates automatically starting a launcher process;

loading the launcher process thereby installing a plurality of components the remote client agent; and

communicating through a plurality of metadata messages with a server to provide defined data from a database at the remote client to the server.

17. The method of claim 16, further comprising:

receiving collection definitions from the server;

extracting data from the database responsive to the collection definitions;

writing the extracted data to a local shadow database;

comparing the extracted data to data in the local shadow database; and

sending data messages comprising the extracted data to the server.

18. The method of claim 17, further comprising:

extracting a table and a column definition from the collection definitions;

matching a requested table and column definition with a table and column of at least one of the database, the local shadow database and a server database.

19. The method of claim 16, further comprising:

sending an update number to the server;

receiving an update package from the server; and

installing the update package on the remote client.

20. The method of claim 16, wherein the database comprises data from one of a line of business application and point of sale application.

21. A remote data collection system comprising;

one or more network communication endpoints dynamically created to connect a plurality of remote agents to one or more central servers comprising a network namespace of endpoints which are dynamically monitored, managed and which provide a real-time linkage between remote agent and central database.