Content-based storage management

• US 7,664,794 B2
• Filed: 01/30/2004
• Issued: 02/16/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 02/14/2000
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Nice Ltd
• Original Assignee: Nice Systems Limited (Nice Ltd)
• Inventors: Kor, Ilan, Kasmirsky, Yehoshaphat, Elazar, Avishai
• Primary Examiner(s): Alam; Shahid A
• Assistant Examiner(s): LE, THU NGUYET T
• Application Number:
  US10/766,851
• Publication Number:
  US 20040193740A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,209 Days
• Field of Search: 707/204, 707/104.1, 382/173, 369/1
• US Class Current: 707/640
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/40 of multimedia data, e.g. slideshows comprising image and additional audio data retrieval of still image data G06F16/50; retrieval of audio data G06F16/60; retrieval of video data G06F16/70
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/435 Filtering based on additional data, e.g. user or group profiles
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/48 Retrieval characterised by using metadata, e.g. metadata not derived from the content or metadata generated manually
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2003/0697 device management, e.g. handlers, drivers, I/O schedulers
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0601 Interfaces specially adapted for storage systems

Abstract

A system and method for data management according to the content of the data. The present invention enables data to be stored in one of a plurality of different storage options according to at least one characteristic of the data, in which the at least one characteristic is related to the content of the data. The present invention comprises a rule-based storage management mechanism for the processes of archiving and/or retrieving data. It should be noted that at least one storage option according to the present invention is optionally deletion and/or destruction of the data, such that the data may optionally be removed from storage media or may optionally not be stored initially on the storage media. Optionally and more preferably, the data is stored for a time interval according to the at least one characteristic of the data. Most preferably, the data is moved to a different type of storage option after an event occurs, for example the time interval has elapsed.

Claims

1. A method for managing data storage comprising:

receiving a stream of audio or video data related to a communication over a communication network;

automatically analyzing the content of at least one frame of said received stream of the audio or video data to determine at least one characteristic of the audio or video content of the received stream, wherein said characteristic comprises at least presence of a human subject in said at least one frame;

generating based on said content analysis of the audio or video data metadata associated with the at least one characteristic;

selecting one of a plurality of storage options having different types of accessibility and/or capacity according to said generated metadata pertaining to said at least one characteristic and according to at least one role; and

placing the data into said selected storage option.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein said placing said data further comprises compression of the data according to access needs or data importance.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein said data is data which needs formatting.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising receiving computer telephony integration (CTI) metadata information associated with the communication;

wherein selecting one of a plurality of storage options comprises selecting said storage option based on said CTI metadata, wherein the CTI metadata is received from a CTI server.

5. The method of claim 1 comprising:

receiving Computer Relationship Management (CRM) data associated with the communication from a CRM server.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein said selected storage option causes deletion of the data.

7. The method of claims 1, wherein said plurality of storage options include storage options having at least two different types of devices.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein at least one storage option includes an on-line storage device.

9. The method of claim 7, wherein at least one storage option includes an off-line storage device.

10. The method of claim 7, wherein at least one storage option includes a near-line storage device.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the data is analyzed automatically according to a type of the data.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the data includes a plurality of different types of data, and said plurality of different types of data is analyzed concurrently.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein the data is rendered into a common format before being analyzed automatically.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein the data is rendered into a common format after being analyzed automatically.

15. The method of claim 1, wherein said at least one rule includes a time interval for holding the data in said selected storage option.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein the data is migrated from a first selected storage option to a second selected storage option after said time interval has elapsed.

17. The method of claim 1, wherein said at least one rule is entered manually.

18. The method of claim 1, wherein said at least one rule is generated automatically.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein said at least one rule is generated automatically according to business data.

20. The method of claim 15, wherein said at least one rule includes an action to be performed on the data according to an event, wherein said event is related to said at least one characteristic of the data.

21. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving data from an input source, wherein said data includes at least one of coded data, e-mail messages, e-mail attachments, chat messages, other types of messaging system messages, documents transmitted by facsimile and user interface data; and

automatically analyzing the content of the data received from the input source to determine at least one characteristic of the content of the data.

22. The method of claim 1, wherein feedback from an analysis of the content of the data is used for determining said at least one characteristic.

23. The method of claim 1, wherein the communication is a telephone call between a customer and a member of service center personnel.

24. The method of claim 1, wherein the communication is a voice communication and further comprising converting the audio data of the voice communication to textual data.

25. The method of claim 24, further comprising analyzing the textual data to categorize the voice communication.

26. The method of claim 1, wherein said characteristic of the content further comprises motion detection, and wherein analyzing the content of at least one frame further comprises detecting motion in said at least one frame.

27. The method of claim 1, wherein said characteristic of the content further comprises face recognition, and wherein analyzing the content of at least one frame further comprises recognizing a face in said at least one frame.

28. A system for data management according to content of the data, comprising:

an input source to deliver a stream of audio or video data related to a communication over a communication network;

an analysis module for analyzing the content of at least one frame of said received stream of the data to determine at least one characteristic of the audio or video content of the delivered data stream and to generate based on said content analysis of the audio or video data metadata associated with the at least one characteristic, wherein said characteristic comprises presence of a human subject in said at least one frame;

a rule engine to compare at least a portion of the generated metadata to at least one rule and to select one of a plurality of storage options based on said comparison;

a storage manager for receiving a decision related to the selected storage option from said rule engine; and

a plurality of storage devices having different types of accessibility and/or capacity, wherein said storage manager stores the data in one of said plurality of storage devices according to said decision.

29. The system of claim 28, wherein said storage devices have different characteristics.

30. The system of claim 29, wherein said different characteristics include lifetime of stored data, and reliability to a user.

31. The system of claim 28, further comprising a client, wherein said rule engine determines if data is to be retrieved to said client.

32. The system of claim 28, further comprising:

a format analyzer to format the data prior to being delivered to the analysis module,

wherein said rule engine determines if the data is to be used as feedback to said format analyzer.

33. The system of claim 28, wherein an operation of said rule engine is manually triggered.

34. The system of claim 28, wherein an operation of said rule engine is automatically triggered.

35. The system of claim 34, wherein said rule engine is an initiator of a process for at least storing the data.

36. The system of claim 28 comprising:

a correlator for correlating data originated from more than one source of data, the data selected from the group containing computer metadata, telephony metadata, formatted data and telephony content data for determining at least one characteristic of the data to be stored.

37. The system of claim 28, wherein said characteristic of the content further comprises motion detection, and wherein said analysis module is further to analyze the content of at least one frame by detecting motion in said received stream of video data.

38. The system of claim 28, wherein said characteristic of the content further comprises face recognition, and wherein said analysis module is to further analyze the content of at least one frame by recognizing a face in said received stream of video data.

39. The system of claim 28, wherein said characteristic of the content further comprises motion detection, and wherein said analysis module is to further analyze the content of at least one frame by detecting motion in said received stream of video data.

40. The system of claim 28, wherein said characteristic of the content further comprises face recognition, and wherein said analysis module is further to analyze the content of at least one frame by recognizing a face in said received stream of video data.

41. The system of claim 28, further comprising a computer telephony integration (CTI) server to provide CTI metadata information associated with the communication, wherein said rule engine is further to compare at least a portion of the CTI metadata to at least one rule and to select one of a plurality of storage options based on said comparison.

42. A system for data management according to metadata, comprising:

an input source to deliver a stream of audio or video data related to a communication over a communication network;

an analysis module for analyzing the content of the data to determine at least one characteristic of the audio or video content of at least one frame of the delivered data stream and to generate based on said content analysis of the audio or video data metadata associated with the at least one characteristic, wherein said characteristic of the content comprises human presence, and wherein said analysis module is to analyze the content of at least one frame by determining the presence of a human subject in said at least one frame;

a rule engine to compare at least a portion of the generated metadata to at least one rule and to select one of a plurality of storage options based on said comparison;

a storage manager for receiving a decision related to the selected storage option from said rule engine; and

a plurality of storage devices having different types of accessibility and/or capacity, wherein said storage manager stores the data in one of said plurality of storage devices according to said decision.

43. The system of claim 42, further comprising a client relationship management (CRM) server to provide CRM metadata input associated with the communication, wherein said rule engine is further to compare at least a portion of the CRM metadata to at least one rule and to select one of a plurality of storage options based on said comparison.