Federated System for Unified Access to Distributed Data Sources
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Accessing and managing information from multiple heterogeneous data sources is complex and costly, as it often requires knowledge of each data source's schema and format, and may involve duplication and translation errors, especially when sources are distributed across different organizations.
Innovation Solution
A federated system that allows access to multiple data sources without storing content in a centralized location, using taxonomy views and mappings between data sources to integrate information from various sources into a standardized schema, enabling seamless access and merging of data while maintaining original data locations.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If data is aggregated into a central location (data warehouse), then users can access information from a single location, but costs increase due to translation and duplication, and errors may be introduced
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a federated system with nodes that act as intermediaries between users and multiple data sources. These nodes provide unified access to distributed data without centralizing the data itself, thus avoiding translation and duplication costs while maintaining ease of access. The nodes translate queries into appropriate data source formats without creating duplicate data stores.
2Ease of operation
If data is aggregated into a central location, then users can access information from a single location, but data must be duplicated and stored at another location
Solution Approach 1:
The federated nodes serve as intermediaries that provide unified access to distributed data sources without duplicating the actual data. The system maintains data at its original locations while allowing centralized query access through the nodes, thus avoiding data duplication while preserving ease of access.
3Reliability
If multiple data sources are accessed individually, then data remains in original locations, but access becomes time consuming and complex
Solution Approach 1:
The federated nodes act as intermediaries that users access instead of directly querying multiple data sources. The nodes handle the complexity of accessing distributed data sources, translating user queries into appropriate formats for each source, thus reducing access time while maintaining data location integrity.
4Adaptability or versatility
If multiple data sources with varying schemas are accessed, then comprehensive information is available, but knowledge of each schema is required
Solution Approach 1:
The federated nodes serve as intermediaries that abstract away the complexity of varying data source schemas. Users interact with a unified interface provided by the nodes, which automatically translate queries into appropriate formats for each data source, thus providing comprehensive information coverage without requiring users to know individual schemas.
Data Source
AI summary
A federated system and methods and mechanisms of implementing and using such a system is disclosed. In some embodiments, one or more mappings are created between a taxonomy view at a node and one or more taxonomies of one or more data sources. The one or more data sources can then be accessed via the taxonomy view. In other embodiments, one or more mappings are created between content from different data sources and content from those data sources are merged using the one or more mappings.