CN105453086B

CN105453086B - Concept utilization to obtain user-specific data of interest from one or more data storage locations

Info

Publication number: CN105453086B
Application number: CN201480045064.1A
Authority: CN
Inventors: R·W·阿诺德; T·P·毕舍普; O·O·艾修; J·R·麦考伊
Original assignee: International Business Machines Corp
Current assignee: International Business Machines Corp
Priority date: 2013-08-15
Filing date: 2014-08-12
Publication date: 2020-01-10
Anticipated expiration: 2034-08-12
Also published as: CN105453086A; WO2015021907A1

Abstract

A computer-implemented method of obtaining data of interest from a larger dataset that has been indexed is provided, the method comprising defining, via a user interface of a computing device, a set of attributes associated with a concept. Each attribute associated with the concept is mapped to an attribute associated with the indexed data, and data of interest related to the concept is retrieved based on the mapping of the attribute associated with the concept to the attribute associated with the indexed data.

Description

Concept utilization to obtain user-specific data of interest from one or more data storage locations

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application claims priority from U.S. provisional patent application No. 61/866,202 filed on 8, 15, 2013; and claim priority from U.S. provisional patent application No. 61/866,258 filed on 8, 15, 2013; each of which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.

Technical Field

Embodiments of the present invention relate to data management, and in particular, to providing a mechanism to index and retrieve data managed within one or more data stores to provide the data at a desired level of detail and based on user preferences.

Background

Legal documents, documents that may need to be retained due to legal storage measures or containing responses to lawyer questions, and business or regulatory documents are example market segments for which many industries require data mining and control assistance. As the amount of digital data generated by companies is growing at a significant rate, e.g., 60% to 120%, each year, Information Technology (IT) officers and staff are under tremendous pressure in controlling the costs associated with managing the data. The desired cost goal may be accomplished by understanding the data being managed, the data that needs to be retained, and the type of data that can be safely and permanently deleted.

Furthermore, given the large amount of data within a repository, it is difficult to efficiently access the data and information about the data (or metadata) for a particular use. Specifically, one user may need to access a particular subset of data that is different from the needs of another user (e.g., the user may need to find files that belong to Fred but not Jane). Users may be required to manually convert business concepts (e.g., identity, department, vendor, etc.) into filters and other tools required to access the particular types of data (or metadata) required by the business concepts, which can be a tedious and inefficient process.

Disclosure of Invention

According to one embodiment of the present invention, there is provided a computer-implemented method of obtaining data of interest from a larger dataset that has been indexed, the method comprising defining, via a user interface of a computing device, a set of attributes associated with a concept. Each attribute associated with the concept is mapped to an attribute associated with the indexed data, and data of interest related to the concept is retrieved based on the mapping of the attribute associated with the concept to the attribute associated with the indexed data.

Drawings

In general, like reference numerals are used to designate like components in the various figures of which:

FIG. 1 is an illustration of an example computing environment of an embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 2 is a flow diagram of an example manner in which information sets may be created according to an embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 3 is a schematic illustration of an example graphical user interface screen for selecting a set of source information, according to an embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 4 is a schematic illustration of an example graphical user interface screen for selecting a filter for creating an information set from a source information set, in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 5 is a schematic illustration of an example graphical user interface screen for entering names and other metadata for an information set, according to an embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 6 is a flow diagram of an example manner of applying operations to data specified by a set of information, according to an embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 7 is a schematic illustration of an example graphical user interface screen for selecting an operation to apply to data specified by an information set, according to an embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 8 is a flow diagram showing a management flow of generating and defining concepts for obtaining desired data associated with the concepts from a data store, according to an embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 9 is a flowchart showing a user selecting concepts to obtain desired data from a data store, according to an embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 10 is a flow diagram showing the manner in which a concept engine implemented in the computing environment of FIG. 1 implements concepts to generate one or more data sets, according to an embodiment of the present invention;

FIGS. 11-13 provide schematic illustrations of example graphical user interface screens for selecting and using concepts according to embodiments of the present invention.

Detailed Description

Embodiments of the present invention pertain to the management of data within various data repositories while allowing the data to remain intact within those repositories. Information (or metadata) about the data is extracted and inserted into an index that is stored separately from the data of the data store.

Embodiments of the present invention include a framework for retrieving information and metadata from a data repository. The individual data stores are accessed via adapters that are authenticated to be retrievable and, in some instances, change data. The user may provide their own rules for defining sets of information (or managed subsets of data) to include information of interest to the user, and indicate references to the defined sets of information, thereby allowing access rules across different access methods and different repositories to be implemented. For example, a user may be interested in data stored in UNIX and WINDOWS file systems. The user may name and store a set of information with desired result data for later access to the data.

Data within the information set is created by applying a filter based on the collected information to the managed data. This collected information provides a degree of understanding, enabling the user to identify data that is specific or interesting to the use case.

Embodiments of the present invention further allow for the collection of specific data for decision-making or task-performing without having to understand details regarding the underlying specific data placement and data access methods. In particular, embodiments of the invention may utilize concepts that define and represent categories or types of information that represent one or more business objects of interest to a user to generate a set of information as described in further detail herein. Concepts are defined by a set of attributes that describe and distinguish the constituent items (constraints) of the concept, and the attributes are mapped to attributes of indexed data obtained by data collection for one or more data stores. Component items are also associated with the defined concepts, and the creation of the information set is carried out utilizing the defined concepts and the associated component items.

Embodiments of the present invention may ensure efficiency in which expensive or time consuming operations are performed only when necessary and only on a specified subset of the overall data being managed. For example, Information Technology (IT) personnel may start by collecting system metadata only from documents, emails, collaboration, or other servers. The collected information includes one or more indexes associated with information to map attributes of the defined concepts to attributes within the indexes to allow a user to access data within the information set corresponding to a particular concept.

Embodiments of the present invention provide several advantages, including (but not limited to): external users can define the meaning of a concept when it applies to its particular context or situation (i.e., usage); the defined concepts according to the present invention provide a way for users to retrieve information about data without needing to know the details of the way and place in which the data was originally stored; and the defined concepts facilitate the execution of complex queries on the indexed data (from the data collection), thus reducing the time to store and to retrieve answers to a particular query (and freeing the user from the complexities associated with the concepts).

Example embodiments are initially described herein to show how an example system architecture can be utilized to generate a set of information (as depicted in FIG. 1). Next, example embodiments for defining and utilizing concepts for accessing data within a data store are described in the context of obtaining a set of information. It should be noted, however, that the present invention is not limited to these example embodiments, as obtaining data related to concepts from a data store using the concepts as described herein may also be implemented using other suitable techniques.

One example environment for use with embodiments of the present invention is illustrated in FIG. 1. The environment provides data management for data that remains intact within a data store. In particular, the environment includes an application server system (or application stack) 2000, a gateway system 2100, one or more data server systems 2200, and one or more client or end-user systems to enable users and/or administrators to access various data management services. The application server system, gateway system, data server system, and client system may be remote from each other and communicate via a network. The network may be implemented by any number of any suitable communication mediums, such as a Wide Area Network (WAN), a Local Area Network (LAN), the internet, an intranet, etc. Alternatively, the systems may all be local to each other and communicate via any suitable local communication medium (e.g., a Local Area Network (LAN), hard-wired, wireless link, intranet, etc.).

The application server system (or application stack) provides the backbone of a browser-based Graphical User Interface (GUI) and holds and provides information (e.g., metadata, state information, etc.) about the application objects. The application server includes a management component 2010 and a data component 2020. The management component provides various management tasks (e.g., configuration of volumes, data sources, system information sets, usage-specific filters, actions, information sets, workflows, dashboards, etc.). These tasks may be performed by various users, such as Information Technology (IT) experts, data management experts, and subject matter experts, among others. The data component provides data management tasks (e.g., information set creation, execution of data augmentation, etc.) for the end user.

The gateway system 2100 acts as a gateway between the application server system (or application stack) 2000 and the data server system 2200, and relays commands from the application server system to the data server system. The data server systems register with and connect to the gateway system, wherein the gateway system maintains up-to-date information about the registered and connected data server systems. The gateway system further holds additional (and in some cases) more detailed metadata and state information about the application-level objects, and also maintains certain types of data aggregated from the data server system.

One or more data server systems 2200 may reside at various local or remote locations (e.g., remote office, global office, etc.) to access data for customers or consumers of the data management services. The data server system may be expanded horizontally to meet processing needs. Data server systems have connectors to many types of customer or consumer data sources where their data resides. These connectors have the ability to interrogate, collect, and in some cases modify the content of the data source. In addition, each data server maintains an index of any data that it has collected from the client data servers assigned to the data server system. The data server system performs most of the processing and computation in terms of collecting data, performing actions, performing searches, and deeper data analysis. Thus, the data server system provides access to customer or consumer data to allow management of the data to be achieved while the customer data remains intact within the customer data repository or server system.

The application server system 2000, gateway system 2100, data server system 2200, and client systems may be implemented by any conventional or other computer system preferably equipped with: a display or monitor, a base (e.g., including at least one processor, one or more memories, and/or an internal or external network interface or communication device (e.g., modem, network card, etc.)), optional input devices (e.g., a keyboard, mouse, or other input device), and any commercially available and custom software (e.g., server/communication software, data and management components, browser/interface software, etc.). These systems may include one or more modules or units to perform the various functions of the embodiments of the invention described below. The various modules may be implemented by any number and/or combination of software and/or hardware modules or units, and may reside within the memory of an application server, gateway, data server, and/or client system for execution by a system processor.

The information sets provide virtual data "containers" of data that have been indexed by the data server system 2200. For example, the information set may be in the form of a list of references or handles to records included in the index. The set of information may represent some or all of the data and may be immutable. The user may filter the contents of another set of information based on certain selection criteria to derive a new set of information from the other set of information. The information sets may be used and reused to perform a wide variety of operations on the data (e.g., copy data, delete data, etc.). As the underlying index is updated or recreated, a new set of information may be created to reflect the changes. Thus, the information set may provide a "snapshot" of the user's data in a timely manner.

A User Interface (UI) may allow a user to define rules for criteria (e.g., specify identities, departments, organizations, vendors, products, supervisors, object properties, attributes, etc.) to encapsulate indexed data, create information sets of indexed data that satisfy the criteria, adjust the criteria to form new information sets, perform set operations (e.g., comparisons, identify changes, unions, intersections, complements, differences in symmetry, etc.) on the information sets, present reports of the results of the operations, and convert the criteria into adapters with filters to retrieve data that satisfy the criteria.

The information set is created by applying user-defined criteria to the entire index or search expressions of at least a subset of the index and using the information set identification to tag each object that satisfies the criteria. In addition, a list or table of objects that satisfy the criteria is also created and stored. Subsequent use provides fast access to the data via the previously stored list. In other words, an information set may be viewed as a table of references to objects in an index. In one embodiment, each object in the index has an object id, and the information set table has a list of object ids. The object id may be monotonically assigned with an integer, an initial allocation pointer, or any other way of providing a unique identification.

The manner in which information sets are created from a source information set according to embodiments of the present invention is illustrated in fig. 2-5. Initially, at step 202, a user selects a set of source information via a browser-based graphical user interface screen 300 (FIG. 3) provided by a Web browser of client system 2300. For example, user interface screen 300 may include a drop-down list control 310 for selecting information sets by name. The user may generate a new information set from all data objects (e.g., by selecting the system information set of all data objects as the source information set), or create a new information set from a previously generated information set.

The user interface screen 300 may further include summary information 312 (e.g., total number of objects in the information set, size of the information set in megabytes, data and time created, description, etc.), a "details" radio button option 320 that enables the user to view details (e.g., lineage (lineage), execution log, data objects) of the selected information set, and other information and/or controls. For example, a user may review a lineage 330 of a set of information named "Word only files" (Word docs only) to confirm that the set of information was created from a system-provided set of information containing all data objects by selecting files with ". doc", ". docx", or any other suitable extension indicating a Word document from the set of information provided by the system.

At step 204, the user selects a filter to further narrow the content of the source information set. For example, the user may select the "Create" radio button option 420 of screen 400 (FIG. 4) to display a library 430 of existing filters and select a filter 432 for selecting files created before 1 month 2013. The user may choose to Create a New information set using the selected sources and filters by actuating the "Create New information set" button 440.

At step 206, the user names a new information set and begins its generation. For example, the user may type a name in a text box 520 of the dialog screen 510 (FIG. 5), and may type other metadata, such as a description, for the information set using the text box 530. The generation of the information set begins when the user saves this information. Specifically, at step 207, the browser of client system 2300 transmits user input defining the new data set to the Web service of application server system 2000. At step 208, the user may monitor the progress of generating the information set by selecting a new information set using screen 300 and periodically refreshing the screen to view, for example, summary information 312, status information, event history, available actions, and the like.

At step 210, the Web service of application server 2000 verifies the user input and reports any errors to the browser of client system 2300. At step 212, the Web service of application server 2000 stores the metadata and state information in its database (application server database 110). At step 214, the Web service of application server 2000 instructs gateway 2100 to begin creating the information set. At step 216, the Web service of the application server 2000 also begins status polling for the information sets being created in order to learn about any changes in processing and final status.

At step 220, the gateway 2100 determines the scope of the work to be performed. Specifically, the gateway 2100 determines which data servers 2200 are to participate in performing work. This may be determined using metadata of the source information set (e.g., in which the source data resides). At step 222, the gateway stores the metadata for the new information set and prepares the detailed status information for the participating data servers 2200 in its own database (gateway database 120). At step 224, the gateway commands each participating data server to begin information set creation. The data servers can perform their assigned jobs simultaneously and independently of each other.

At step 230, the data server 2200 tags objects that belong to the new information set. Specifically, the data server generates and stores references to objects in the data server database 130 that are members of the source information set and that also satisfy the filter expressions. The data server determines membership based on information stored in its index. Thus, during the process of creating a new information set, the data source on which the user's actual data resides is not accessed. For efficiency, the data server may divide membership generation into smaller tasks that may be performed in parallel.

The data server 2200 notifies the gateway 2100 at step 232 whenever one of the smaller tagging tasks is completed. The gateway receives these notifications at step 234. In response, the gateway updates the detailed status information of the new information set in the gateway database 210. When the Web service of the application server 2000 requests an update at step 216, this updated state information is then sent to the Web service.

At step 236, the data server 2200 generates aggregated information about the contents of the new information set and stores the information in the data server database 130. This information may be stored, for example, in a multidimensional data structure, referred to herein as a cube (cube). For efficiency, the data server may divide the cube generation into smaller tasks that may be performed in parallel. At step 238, the data server notifies the gateway 2100 each time a smaller cube generation task is completed. The gateway receives these notifications at step 240 and updates the detailed state information of the information sets in the gateway database 120. When the Web service requests an update at step 216, this updated state information is then sent to the Web service of application server 2000.

Information set generation is considered complete when each smaller task on each participating data server ends and state information is updated at the gateway and at the application server level.

The manner in which operations are applied to data specified by a set of information according to embodiments of the present invention is illustrated in fig. 6 and 7. Initially, at step 601, a user selects a set of information via a browser-based graphical user interface screen 700 (FIG. 7) provided by a Web browser of client system 2300. For example, the user interface screen 700 may include a drop-down list control 310 for selecting information sets by name. The user interface screen 700 may further include an "action (Act)" radio button option 720 to present a list of predefined actions to be applied block 730. At step 602, the user selects a desired action (e.g., delete, export, move, copy, etc.). For example, the user may select the delete operation 732 from the list box 730. The user may define the custom action, for example, using an action creation/editing interface. At step 603, the user initiates an Action by actuating the "execute Action" button 740. In one embodiment, the user confirms their intent to perform an action in an additional step (e.g., in response to a pop-up dialog). The user may monitor the status of the action at 604 by periodically refreshing a view of the execution log in the browser.

At step 605, the Web service of application server 2000 verifies the user input and reports any errors to the Web client of client system 2300. At step 606, the Web service of application server 2000 stores the metadata and profile information in application server database 110. At step 607, the Web service of application server 2000 instructs gateway 2100 to begin performing the specified action. At step 608, the Web service of the application server 2000 initiates a status poll for the action being performed to know when the action is complete.

At step 609, gateway 2100 determines the scope of the work by identifying the particular one of data servers 2200 that will actually have to do work. The available membership information of the information set is used for this purpose. At step 610, the gateway stores metadata and state information about the action in its gateway database 120. At step 611, the gateway commands each participating data server to begin performing actions. The data servers can perform their assigned jobs simultaneously and independently of each other. At step 612, the gateway also initiates a polling process in order to detect any serious conditions (e.g., power interruption) at the data server.

At step 613, the data server creates an iterator (iterator) for the member of the specified information set by reading the membership indicia and additional parameters from its database (data server database 130). The iterative process receives parameters identifying an operation to be performed. When the next item is requested, the item that has been operated on is bypassed and the next item that needs to be operated on is returned. At step 614, the data server performs a specified action for each member object of the information set. The application action requires the data server to mount the client's data 150 via the client network 140 to the server where it resides (and/or should be transferred) and to replicate, delete, move, or export the affected object based on the type of action at operation 160. The data server may use multiple processes to act on multiple objects simultaneously. At step 615, the results of the action on the member object are written as an audit record into the data server database 130. At step 616, the data server notifies the gateway when processing of the final object of the information set is complete.

At step 617, the gateway receives this notification and updates the state information of the action in the gateway database 120. This updated state information is then fed to the Web service of the application server 2000 when the Web service requests an update at step 608.

The action is considered complete when each participating data server ends (or has stopped responding) and the state information is updated at the gateway and at the Web service level.

At step 618, the user may View details of the exception condition of the selected type via an "Exceptions View" of the information set. At step 619, the Web service request gateway of the application server 2000 returns the exception status of the requested type and details of the failed object. At step 620, the gateway retrieves the requested information. In the case where the information has been cached in the local gateway database 120, the gateway retrieves the requested information from its local gateway database 120. Otherwise, at step 621, the gateway requests the data servers participating in the performance of the action to provide information, in which case the participating data servers identify and return the requested exception conditions and details based on the audit record in the data server database 130.

One way in which sets of information may be generated is based on concepts defined by a user and therefore specific to the user's needs for data from one or more data stores. Concepts are defined by the user using a suitable GUI to represent categories or types of data of interest to the user, such as identities (e.g., employees), departments, organizations, vendors, products, projects, supervisors, and so forth. For example, a user may define concepts based on employees of one or more particular companies or other business entities, supervisors of data, providers associated with one or more business entities, projects associated with one or more business entities, and so forth. Concepts are defined based on a set of attributes associated with the concepts. For example, a concept of an employee of a company may have attributes associated with the concept, such as a user name, a first name, a last name, an employee ID, an employee email address, and so forth. The attributes that define a concept describe and distinguish individual components of the concept (e.g., individual employees of an employee concept). The defined concepts and their attributes are stored in a suitable location (e.g., in data component 2020 or other suitable storage location of application server system 2000). The application server system 2000 can support any suitable number of different concepts for different users, where concepts can be created/generated by a user (e.g., via a suitable GUI) and/or predefined within the data component 2020.

After generating the concepts, component items may be defined and associated with the concepts to limit searching of data associated with the concepts based on the component items. In an example embodiment of an employee concept, a composition item may be an activity catalog of employees of one or more particular companies or other business entities of interest to a user, where the activity catalog may be imported from an external source (e.g., a data store associated with the business entity of interest), or obtained in any other suitable manner (e.g., by defining an iterator that iterates through employee data to generate a set of employees). Defined constituent items of a concept can be collected into groups for use by users in aggregating when searching for data associated with the concept.

The defined and stored concept is used to identify data of interest at one or more repositories where the data is maintained (each repository has its own access interface). In one use case scenario, a user defines or selects concepts (using a GUI associated with the user), identifies constituent items and mappings. A data store (e.g., a data store for employees of a company) defines rules to access particular data. There may be large bodies of data records (corps) at the repository, including word processing documents, emails, files, directories, and the like. User-supplied rules based on the attributes of the concepts and the identified constituent items may be mapped to the indexed data of the repository. Queries and filters (e.g., data ranges, types of data, etc.) may be used to retrieve information related to the indexed data.

This allows different users to provide different definitions for their concepts to retrieve data that these users are particularly interested in. For example, different customers may have different definitions for employees and supervisors. Information for a definition may be included in a document in a particular format (e.g., a word document may include a particular entry identifying an employee or vendor associated with the document). By allowing a customer to generate concepts as described herein, the customer may define information specific to how their company operates, and may then execute queries for accessing data from a data store associated with the company based on concepts that classify information unique to the form of the company.

The identified data of interest may be collected from the repository in any suitable manner. An adapter with a filter is used to retrieve data from a repository that has been associated with a retrieval query that utilizes the concept and one or more component items associated with the concept.

Techniques for generating/defining concepts using attributes, mapping concepts to indexed data, selecting constituent items of concepts, and generating information sets related to concepts having the selected constituent items with a concept engine are now described with reference to the flow diagrams of fig. 8-10.

Referring to fig. 8, a management flow of processing steps occurring at the application server 2000 is described, where concepts are initially defined by data attributes at 8010. The concepts may be predefined (e.g., one or more concepts initially loaded within data components 2020) for selection by a user utilizing, for example, a GUI associated with the user's client device, which interacts with application server 2000. Alternatively, using a GUI, a user may create a concept by initially defining attributes to be associated with the concept. For example, in the context of using concepts to define employees of one or more business entities, the attributes associated with the employee concepts may be, for example, first name, last name, employee ID, employee email address, and the like. The defined concepts with attributes may be saved (e.g., at a suitable memory location at the application server 200) for later use by the same and/or other users. At 8015, a mapping of the concept to indexed data of the data repositories to be searched (e.g., indexed data obtained by data collection from one or more repositories by one or more data server systems 2200) is defined. Specifically, attributes of concepts (e.g., first name, last name, etc. of an employee concept) are mapped to attributes of the indexed data. For example, in situations where a user needs to obtain email data from one or more data stores, the first and last name attributes of an employee concept may be mapped to email fields (e.g., mapping the first and last names of the employee to the recipient and sender fields of the email data). The mapping may be performed automatically by the application server 2000 based on concepts with attributes and indexed data.

At 8020, component items of the concept are added or imported and saved with the concept, where the component items are selectable by a user defining the concept. As described with respect to the process steps of FIG. 9, a user may select a component item of interest to be applied to a concept. For example, in the context of an employee concept, a composition item may be one or more specified sets of employees, such as a valid employee roster from company a or all employees from companies A, B and C working at a particular division (e.g., as defined by an employee ID), and so forth. The import of the composition items may be accomplished by accessing an appropriate data storage location that includes the composition item data (e.g., a valid employee roster of the company stored at the company's database). The addition or import of component item data can be an ongoing process in the management process, where the component item data is continuously updated based on any changes (e.g., changes to a company's active employee roster).

Referring to FIG. 9, a user flow is depicted showing process steps associated with a user selecting a concept for obtaining data of interest from one or more data stores. At 8025, using the GUI, the user selects a concept for the usage situation (previously defined based on the process steps of fig. 8). At 8030, the user-focused component item is selected for the use case using the GUI (e.g., one or more active employees are selected from one or more particular companies).

At 8035, a GUI is used to select an appropriate mapping of the attributes of the concept to the attributes of the indexed data. For example, the mapping may be selected based on the particular type of document desired by the user (e.g., email, word processing document, any other type of document file), the date the document is desired (e.g., email or other document having a send or create date within a specified range), and so on. In the previously mentioned example, when a user desires an email for a particular employee, the mapping that occurs may be a mapping of the first and/or last name of the employee to the recipient and sender fields associated with the email. In this scenario, the user may select an appropriate mapping, for example, by simply specifying an email as the desired document to be associated with the usage situation. At 8040, one or more information sets of data are automatically created based on the concepts, the selected constituent items, and the appropriate mappings associated with the usage status.

Referring to FIG. 10, process steps associated with a concept engine (e.g., provided as part of a data component 2020) for generating a set of information based on user usage of concepts are described. At 8045, the concept engine receives information related to concepts selected by the user (via the user's GUI) for the use case, selected component items associated with the concepts, and mapping information based on process steps associated with the user (as depicted in FIG. 9). At 8050, the concept engine generates data filters for the constituent terms using the mappings. For example, in a scenario where an employee concept is selected by a user for a use situation and the employee further selects email data as the data to be found by a particular employee, the data filter limits the search to the recipient and sender fields of the email data, where email documents associated with the particular employee are searched from one or more data stores using the generated data filter. At 8055, one or more sets of information are generated by the concept engine based on a search of one or more data stores using a data filter. At 8060, the concept engine reports one or more information sets to the user. A user may access the information set, for example, via a GUI associated with the user.

An example embodiment of a GUI that enables a user to interact with the data components 2020 (including the concept engine) of the application server 2000 is now described with respect to fig. 11-13. Referring to fig. 11, an IDENTITY (IDENTITY) concept is selected from a drop-down menu button 9002 within GUI9000, where GUI9000 is currently displaying a concept (concept) view (other views may be selected in a menu column at the top of the GUI). The concept (CONCEPTS) view displays concept members (first and last names, email address, owner ID, company, and department) that include attributes associated with the concept members. The user selects the CREATE MEMBER (CREATE MEMBER) function within GUI9000 (by selecting button 9004) to add another concept MEMBER to the identity (IDETITY) concept. In response to making a selection to create a member, a window 9006 is provided in FIG. 12, which window 9006 has fields through which a user can provide attributes associated with the new concept member. After typing information into fields within window 9006, the user may save this data, resulting in new concept members being added to the identity concept, as depicted in fig. 13, shown at 9000. While this example embodiment facilitates manual entry of concept constituents into a specified concept, as previously mentioned, this information may also be populated automatically for concepts (based on data imported from a suitable data source, e.g., a selected group of employees from a company).

Thus, example embodiments described herein facilitate efficient processing of data that is useful to a user based on the user's particular needs by allowing the user to utilize concepts having particular attributes and constituent items that are selected by the user to characterize and identify data that the user is interested in for particular use cases. The mapping of concepts having associated constituent items to indexed data allows complex queries to be performed on the indexed data while minimizing retrieval time for answers to the queries. Furthermore, the user can retrieve data from different repositories without knowing the details of the way and where the data is stored.

It should be appreciated that the embodiments described above and illustrated in the figures represent only a few of the many ways to implement an embodiment for utilizing concepts to obtain data of particular interest to a user from one or more data storage locations.

The environment for embodiments of the present invention may include any number of computer or other processing systems (e.g., client or end user systems, gateway systems, server systems, etc.) and databases or other repositories configured in any desired manner, where embodiments of the present invention may be applied to any desired type of computing environment (e.g., cloud computing, client-server, network computing, mainframe, stand-alone systems, etc.). The computer or other processing system used by embodiments of the invention may be implemented by any number of any personal or other type of computer or processing system (e.g., desktop computer, laptop computer, PDA, mobile device, etc.), and may include any commercially available operating system and any combination of commercially available and custom software (e.g., browser software, communication software, server software, data and management components, etc.). These systems may include any type of monitor and input device (e.g., keyboard, mouse, voice recognition, etc.) to enter and/or view information.

It should be understood that the software (e.g., browser software, communication software, server software, data and management components, etc.) of the embodiments of the present invention can be implemented in any desired computer language and can be developed by those skilled in the computer art based on the functional descriptions contained in the specification and the flowcharts illustrated in the drawings. Additionally, any reference herein to software performing various functions generally refers to a computer system or processor that performs these functions under software control. The computer system of embodiments of the invention may alternatively be implemented by any type of hardware and/or other processing circuitry.

The various functions of a computer or other processing system may be distributed in any manner among any number of software and/or hardware modules or units, processing or computer systems and/or circuits, where the computers or processing systems may be located locally or remotely from each other and communicate via any suitable communication medium (e.g., LAN, WAN, intranet, internet, hardwired, modem connected, wireless, etc.). For example, the functionality of embodiments of the present invention may be distributed in any manner among various end users/clients and server systems and/or any other intermediate processing devices. The software and/or algorithms described above and illustrated in the flowcharts may be modified in any manner that achieves the functionality described herein. Further, the functions in the flowcharts or descriptions may be performed in any order that achieves the desired operation.

The software (e.g., browser software, communication software, server software, data and management components, etc.) of embodiments of the present invention may reside on a non-transitory computer-readable or useable medium (e.g., magnetic or optical media, magneto-optical media, floppy disk, CD-ROM, DVD, storage device, etc.) of a fixed or portable program product apparatus or device for use with a stand-alone system or a system connected by a network or other communication medium.

The communication network may be implemented by any number of any type of communication network (e.g., LAN, WAN, internet, intranet, VPN, etc.). The computer or other processing system of embodiments of the present invention may include any conventional or other communication device to communicate over a network via any conventional or other protocol. A computer or other processing system may utilize any type of connection (e.g., wired, wireless, etc.) to access a network. The local communication medium may be implemented by any suitable communication medium (e.g., a Local Area Network (LAN), a hard-wired connection, a wireless link, an intranet, etc.).

The system may use any number of any conventional or other databases, data stores, or storage structures (e.g., files, databases, data structures, data or other repositories, etc.) to store information (e.g., metadata, state information, attribute information, mapping information, concepts, constituent items, information sets, etc.). A database system may be implemented by any number of any conventional or other databases, data stores, or storage structures (e.g., files, databases, data structures, data or other repositories, etc.) to store information (e.g., metadata, state information, attribute information, mapping information, concepts, constituent items, information sets, etc.). The database system may be included within or coupled to: a server, a gateway, and/or a client system. The database system and/or storage structure may be remote from or local to the computer or other processing system, and may store any desired data (e.g., metadata, state information, attribute information, mapping information, concepts, components, information sets, etc.).

Embodiments of the invention may use any number of any type of user interface (e.g., Graphical User Interface (GUI), command line, prompt, etc.) to obtain or provide information (e.g., metadata, state information, attribute information, mapping information, concepts, composition items, information sets, etc.), where an interface may include any information configured in any manner. The interface may include any number of any type of input or actuation mechanism (e.g., buttons, icons, fields, boxes, links, etc.) disposed in any location to enter/display information via any suitable input device (e.g., mouse, keyboard, etc.) and initiate a desired action. The interface screens may include any suitable actuators (e.g., links, tabs, etc.) to navigate between the screens in any manner.

The terminology used herein is for the purpose of describing particular embodiments only and is not intended to be limiting of the invention. As used herein, the singular forms "a", "an" and "the" are intended to include the plural forms as well, unless the context clearly indicates otherwise. It will be further understood that the terms "comprises" and/or "comprising," when used in this specification, specify the presence of stated features, integers, steps, operations, elements, and/or components, but do not preclude the presence or addition of one or more other features, integers, steps, operations, elements, components, and/or groups thereof.

The corresponding structures, materials, acts, and equivalents of all means or step plus function elements in the claims below are intended to include any structure, material, or act for performing the function in combination with other claimed elements as specifically claimed. The description of the present embodiments of the invention has been presented for purposes of illustration and description, but is not intended to be exhaustive or limited to the invention in the form disclosed. Many modifications and variations will be apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art without departing from the scope and spirit of the invention. The embodiment was chosen and described in order to best explain the principles of the invention and the practical application, and to enable others of ordinary skill in the art to understand the invention for various embodiments with various modifications as are suited to the particular use contemplated.

The description of the different embodiments of the present invention has been presented for purposes of illustration but is not intended to be exhaustive or limited to the disclosed embodiments. Many modifications and variations will be apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art without departing from the scope and spirit of the described embodiments. The terms used herein were chosen in order to best explain the principles of the embodiments, the practical application, or technical improvements to the technology in the marketplace, or to enable others of ordinary skill in the art to understand the embodiments disclosed herein.

The present invention may be a system, method and/or computer program product. The computer program product may include a computer-readable storage medium having computer-readable program instructions embodied therewith for causing a processor to implement various aspects of the present invention.

The computer readable storage medium may be a tangible device that can hold and store the instructions for use by the instruction execution device. The computer readable storage medium may be, for example, but is not limited to, an electronic memory device, a magnetic memory device, an optical memory device, an electromagnetic memory device, a semiconductor memory device, or any suitable combination of the foregoing. More specific examples (a non-exhaustive list) of the computer readable storage medium would include the following: a portable computer diskette, a hard disk, a Random Access Memory (RAM), a read-only memory (ROM), an erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM or flash memory), a Static Random Access Memory (SRAM), a portable compact disc read-only memory (CD-ROM), a Digital Versatile Disc (DVD), a memory stick, a floppy disk, a mechanical coding device, such as punch cards or in-groove projection structures having instructions stored thereon, and any suitable combination of the foregoing. Computer-readable storage media as used herein is not to be construed as transitory signals per se, such as radio waves or other freely propagating electromagnetic waves, electromagnetic waves propagating through a waveguide or other transmission medium (e.g., optical pulses through a fiber optic cable), or electrical signals transmitted through electrical wires.

The computer-readable program instructions described herein may be downloaded from a computer-readable storage medium to a respective computing/processing device, or to an external computer or external storage device via a network, such as the internet, a local area network, a wide area network, and/or a wireless network. The network may include copper transmission cables, fiber optic transmission, wireless transmission, routers, firewalls, switches, gateway computers and/or edge servers. The network adapter card or network interface in each computing/processing device receives computer-readable program instructions from the network and forwards the computer-readable program instructions for storage in a computer-readable storage medium in the respective computing/processing device.

Computer-readable program instructions for carrying out operations of the present invention may be assembler instructions, Instruction Set Architecture (ISA) instructions, machine-related instructions, microcode, firmware instructions, state setting data, or source or object code written in any combination of one or more programming languages, including an object oriented programming language such as Smalltalk, C + + or the like and conventional procedural programming languages, such as the "C" programming language or similar programming languages. The computer-readable program instructions may execute entirely on the user's computer, partly on the user's computer, as a stand-alone software package, partly on the user's computer and partly on a remote computer or entirely on the remote computer or server. In the case of a remote computer, the remote computer may be connected to the user's computer through any type of network, including a Local Area Network (LAN) or a Wide Area Network (WAN), or the connection may be made to an external computer (for example, through the Internet using an Internet service provider). In some embodiments, electronic circuitry, such as programmable logic circuitry, Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs), or Programmable Logic Arrays (PLAs), that can execute computer-readable program instructions to implement aspects of the present invention, are personalized with state information for the computer-readable program instructions.

Aspects of the present invention are described herein with reference to flowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams of methods, apparatus (systems) and computer program products according to embodiments of the invention. It will be understood that each block of the flowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams, and combinations of blocks in the flowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams, can be implemented by computer-readable program instructions. These computer-readable program instructions may be provided to a processor of a general purpose computer, special purpose computer, or other programmable data processing apparatus to produce a machine, such that the instructions, which execute via the processor of the computer or other programmable data processing apparatus, create means for implementing the functions/acts specified in the flowchart and/or block diagram block or blocks. These computer-readable program instructions may also be stored in a computer-readable storage medium that can direct a computer, programmable data processing apparatus, and/or other devices to function in a particular manner, such that the computer-readable storage medium storing the instructions comprises an article of manufacture including instructions which implement the function/act specified in the flowchart and/or block diagram block or blocks.

The computer readable program instructions may also be loaded onto a computer, other programmable data processing apparatus, or other devices to cause a series of operational steps to be performed on the computer, other programmable apparatus or other devices to produce a computer implemented process such that the instructions which execute on the computer, other programmable apparatus or other devices implement the functions/acts specified in the flowchart and/or block diagram block or blocks.

The flowchart and block diagrams in the figures illustrate the architecture, functionality, and operation of possible implementations of systems, methods and computer program products according to various embodiments of the present invention. In this regard, each block in the flowchart or block diagrams may represent a module, segment, or portion of instructions, which comprises one or more executable instructions for implementing the specified logical function(s). In some alternative implementations, the functions noted in the block may occur out of the order noted in the figures. For example, two blocks shown in succession may, in fact, be executed substantially concurrently, or the blocks may sometimes be executed in the reverse order, depending upon the functionality involved. It will also be noted that each block of the block diagrams and/or flowchart illustration, and combinations of blocks in the block diagrams and/or flowchart illustration, can be implemented by special purpose hardware-based systems which perform the specified functions or acts, or combinations of special purpose hardware and computer instructions.

One embodiment of the present invention can be characterized by methods, systems, and computer program products for obtaining data of interest from a larger data set, including facilitating user definition of concepts representing business objects via a user interface of a computing device; responsive to a user defining the concept, data is indexed according to the concept. The business objects may include any type of data including identity, department, organization, vendor, product, project, supervisor, and the like. The concept may include attributes that define the concept. Data accessed with respect to the concept may be maintained in banks, each bank having its own access interface. The user interface can be used to facilitate transforming the concept into an adapter with filters to retrieve data according to a user request for the concept.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method of obtaining a data set of interest from an indexed larger data set, the method comprising:

defining, via a user interface of a computing device, a set of attributes associated with a concept, the concept defining and representing a category of information, the category of information representing a business object;

mapping each attribute associated with the concept to an attribute associated with the indexed dataset;

identifying a component item of interest based on attributes associated with the concept and a mapping of the attributes, wherein the component item of interest is a data object associated with the concept;

transforming the concept by adding one or more interesting components to the concept and by generating one or more data filters for each of the one or more interesting components;

updating the mapping based at least on the one or more constituent items of interest;

generating a set of information related to the converted concept using one or more adapters with one or more data filters by tagging data objects in the index based on the updated mapping without accessing the underlying data source system of the indexed data set; and

applying one or more operations on the information set to transform corresponding data in a data source system of the underlying indexed data set, wherein the one or more operations include a delete operation, a copy operation, an export operation, and a move operation.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the concept comprises at least one of: identity, company department, organization, company supplier, product, project, and supervisor associated with a company.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the data records of the indexed data set are associated with one or more data repositories, each repository having an access interface.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

retrieving the indexed data set utilizing an adapter associated with a retrieval query utilizing the concept.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein retrieving the indexed data set further comprises: filtering the retrieved data set based on criteria such that data that does not match the criteria is excluded from the data set.

6. The method of claim 1, comprising:

storing the set of attributes associated with the concept;

storing a mapping of each attribute associated with the concept to the attribute associated with the indexed dataset; and

the stored set of attributes and the stored mapping are used for subsequent data retrieval.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein defining further comprises:

defining a first set of attributes associated with a concept;

defining a second set of attributes associated with the concept;

mapping the first set of attributes and the second set of attributes to attributes associated with the indexed set of data; and

retrieving a first data set and a second data set related to the concept such that the first data set associated with the first set of attributes and the second data set associated with the second set of attributes are different from each other.

8. The method of claim 1, comprising adding a component item to the concept, wherein the component item is an instance of data associated with the concept.

9. The method of claim 4, further comprising automatically creating a set of information corresponding to the retrieved set of data.

10. A system for obtaining a data set of interest from an indexed larger data set, comprising:

a memory;

a user interface of a computing device to receive information defining a set of attributes and to receive mapping information; and

a processor configured to:

associating a set of attributes with concepts, the concepts defining and representing categories of information, the categories of information representing business objects;

11. The system of claim 10, wherein the processor is configured to retrieve the indexed data set comprising data records associated with one or more data stores, each store having an access interface.

12. The system of claim 10, wherein the processor is configured to retrieve the indexed dataset utilizing an adapter associated with a retrieval query utilizing the concept.

13. The system of claim 12, wherein the processor is configured to filter the retrieved data set based on criteria such that data that does not match the criteria is excluded from the data set.

14. The system of claim 10, wherein the processor is configured to:

storing the set of attributes associated with the concept;

15. The system of claim 10, wherein the processor is configured to:

associating a first set of attributes with a concept;

associating a second set of attributes with the concept;

16. A computer readable storage medium having computer readable program code stored thereon, which when executed by a processor, causes the processor to:

associating a set of attributes defined via a user interface of a computing device with a concept, the concept defining and representing an information category, the information category representing a business object;

mapping each attribute associated with the concept to an attribute associated with an indexed dataset based on mapping information received via the user interface;

17. The computer readable storage medium of claim 16, the computer readable program code further configured to cause the processor to retrieve the indexed dataset utilizing an adapter, the adapter associated with a retrieval query utilizing the concept.

18. The computer readable storage medium of claim 16, the computer readable program code further configured to cause the processor to filter the retrieved data set based on criteria such that data that does not match the criteria is excluded from the data set.

19. The computer readable storage medium of claim 16, the computer readable program code further configured to cause the processor to:

storing the set of attributes associated with the concept;

20. The computer readable storage medium of claim 16, the computer readable program code further configured to cause the processor to:

associating a first set of attributes with a concept;

associating a second set of attributes with the concept;