Graph Model Overlay on Column-Oriented Database for Social Data

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Solution Overview

Problem

Social networking sites present challenges in managing and consolidating user information due to inconsistencies and differences in data formats across platforms, making it difficult for users and businesses to efficiently access and audit information for compliance purposes.

Innovation Solution

A system that overlays a graph model on a column-oriented database to efficiently store and access graph-oriented data from social networking sites, converting graph-oriented queries into key-value lookup queries to retrieve and present data in a graph model representation, allowing for scalable and secure data management across multiple servers.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Adaptability or versatility

If data is stored in different formats across multiple social networking sites, then data can be collected from diverse sources, but data consolidation and access become difficult and inefficient

Engineering Contradiction:
Improvedata source compatibilityVSAvoiddata consolidation complexity
Core Design Contradiction:
Adaptability or versatilityVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

The patent introduces a graph database as an intermediary layer between multiple social networking sites and user applications. This graph database receives data in various formats from different sources, normalizes it into a unified graph structure with nodes and edges, and provides consistent access interfaces. The graph database acts as a mediator that handles format conversion and data consolidation, eliminating the need for applications to directly manage diverse data formats from multiple sources.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #24Intermediary (Mediator)

2Loss of information

If user information is distributed across multiple social networking sites, then information diversity increases, but audit and compliance examination become difficult

Engineering Contradiction:
Improveinformation diversityVSAvoidaudit difficulty
Core Design Contradiction:
Loss of informationVSDifficulty of detecting and measuring

Solution Approach 1:

The patent merges data from multiple social networking sites into a unified graph database structure. All user information, relationships, and interactions are consolidated into a single graph model where nodes represent entities and edges represent relationships. This merging enables centralized audit capabilities, as compliance examinations can be performed on the unified graph structure rather than分散 across multiple external platforms, while still preserving the diversity of information sources.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #5Merging (Combining)

3Ease of manufacture

If traditional database structures are used to store social networking data, then data storage is simple, but graph-oriented queries and relationships become inefficient

Engineering Contradiction:
Improvedata storage simplicityVSAvoidquery efficiency
Core Design Contradiction:
Ease of manufactureVSProductivity

Solution Approach 1:

The patent changes the fundamental data structure parameters from traditional relational database models to a graph database model. Instead of storing data in tables with rows and columns, the system uses nodes and edges with properties, fundamentally altering how data is organized and accessed. This parameter change enables efficient graph-oriented queries by storing relationships in a native graph format, allowing for rapid traversal of connections and patterns that would be inefficient in traditional relational structures.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #35Parameter changes

Data Source

PatentUS10685071B2Methods, systems, and computer program products for storing graph-oriented data on a column-oriented database
Publication Date: 2020.06.16 PROOFPOINT INC
  • US10685071B2 patent drawing
  • US10685071B2 patent drawing
  • US10685071B2 patent drawing

AI summary

Systems, methods, and computer program products for efficiently storing and accessing graph-oriented information retrieved from disparate sources using an interface that effectively emulates a graph database to access a set of indexed, column-oriented tables. One embodiment is a system that includes a server and a plurality of storage nodes. The server retrieves graph-oriented social networking data for multiple users, identifies vertices, edges and associated properties within the data and stores this information in key-value lookup tables within a column-oriented database. The server can receive graph-oriented queries, convert the graph-oriented query to corresponding key-value lookup queries, and search the tables of the column-oriented database using the key-value lookup queries. The results of the lookup queries can be converted to a graph-oriented representation and presented to a user.