Journaling database changes using minimized journal entries that may be output in human-readable form

a database and journal entry technology, applied in the field of computer systems, can solve the problems of not being able to the journal entry is compressed and may no longer be easily read, understood and recognized by a human or auditing program, and the field boundary recognition is made difficult, so as to achieve the effect of minimizing journal data and easy reading and recognition

Inactive Publication Date: 2008-08-21
INT BUSINESS MASCH CORP
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  • Summary
  • Abstract
  • Description
  • Claims
  • Application Information

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

This approach provides the performance benefits of minimized journaling while enabling easy auditing, allowing journal data to be displayed in a human-readable form, thus addressing the limitations of prior systems.

Problems solved by technology

Note, however, that this increase in performance comes at a usability cost.
Because a journal entry in a minimized data journal only includes the bytes that changed, the resulting journal entry is in a compressed format that may no longer be easily read, understood, and recognized by a human or auditing program.
Without a full record image, sensing the identity of the record (e.g., John Doe's bank account #12345), lining up the matching fields among the set of data collected, and recognizing field boundaries is made very difficult and does not constitute a friendly human interface.
Because most minimized data journal entries do not contain the full record, nor even full fields, the resulting encoded data is not human-readable.
As a result, environments that require auditing or occasional debugging based on the journal have not benefitted from the performance increase provided by minimized data journals.
Without a way to provide minimized journal data that may be output in human-readable form, the computer industry will be left with the undesirable choice between higher performance systems that use minimized journal data but cannot be easily audited, or lower performance systems that use full journal data that can be audited.

Method used

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  • Journaling database changes using minimized journal entries that may be output in human-readable form
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  • Journaling database changes using minimized journal entries that may be output in human-readable form

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Embodiment Construction

[0026]The preferred embodiments provide minimized journal data in human-readable form. This is accomplished by writing all data in each field that was changed, and in each field that is specifically selected for journaling, to the journal. A default object with default values in each field is also saved to the journal. When a journal entry needs to be output in human-readable form, the corresponding default object is read, the minimized journal entry is read, and the data from the minimized journal entry is overlaid on the default object. The result is a record that contains all the original fields, with data in all fields that changed and in all fields that were selected for journaling, and an indication of default data in the fields that did not change and were not selected for journaling. This record is human-readable, even though it contains minimized journal data. The preferred embodiments thus provide the best of both worlds: significantly improved performance due to minimizin...

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Abstract

A minimized journaling mechanism stores minimized journal data in a format that allows for display and outputting the journal data in human-readable form. When a change to a record occurs, instead of writing only the changed bytes, all of the bytes in each field that changed are written to the journal, along with all of the bytes in each field selected to be always journaled. A default object is created with default data in all of the fields. When the journal entry needs to be output in human-readable form, the default object is read, and the minimized journal entry is then overlaid on the default object. The result is an object that contains default data in all non-selected fields that were not changed, with the journal data in all fields and that did change and in all fields that were selected to always be journaled.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE TO PARENT APPLICATION[0001]This patent application is a continuation of a patent application with the same title, U.S. Ser. No. 11 / 291,582 filed on Dec. 1, 2005, which is incorporated herein by reference.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0002]1. Technical Field[0003]This invention generally relates to computer systems, and more specifically relates to journaling changes in a database.[0004]2. Background Art[0005]Database systems have been developed that allow a computer to store a large amount of information in a way that allows a user to search for and retrieve specific information in the database. For example, an insurance company may have a database that includes all of its policy holders and their current account information, including payment history, premium amount, policy number, policy type, exclusions to coverage, etc. A database system allows the insurance company to retrieve the account information for a single policy holder among the thousands and perhaps milli...

Claims

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Application Information

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Patent Type & AuthorityApplications(United States)
IPC IPC(8): G06F17/30
CPCG06F17/30368Y10S707/99955Y10S707/99933Y10S707/99943G06F16/2358
InventorSTALLMAN, ADAM THOMASYOUNGREN, LARRY WILLIAM
OwnerINT BUSINESS MASCH CORP