Metadata-Driven API Search for Unified Asset Visualization
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Solution Overview
Problem
In complex building management systems and cloud computing environments, disparate data sources lead to challenges in accessing and drawing insights from multiple data stores, resulting in inefficiencies and lack of unified approaches for data utilization.
Innovation Solution
An IoT platform utilizing an extensible object model with knowledge graphs and metadata-driven APIs to provide a unified search interface for visualizing and managing assets, enabling real-time data processing and actionable insights across various systems.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If multiple data stores and diverse access methods are used to manage building management systems data, then data coverage and source diversity are improved, but system complexity and difficulty in drawing insights worsen
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a unifying interface layer that acts as an intermediary between diverse data sources and the search system. This interface standardizes access to multiple data stores (relational databases, NoSQL databases, data lakes) through a common protocol, allowing the system to handle diverse data sources without increasing complexity in the search logic. The intermediary layer translates various data access methods into a unified search mechanism.
Solution Approach 2:
The search system is designed with universal capabilities to handle multiple types of data stores and access methods through a single interface. The system can search across relational databases, NoSQL databases, and data lakes using the same search mechanisms, making the system multi-functional without requiring separate access methods for each data type. This universality resolves the contradiction by enabling diverse data coverage while maintaining consistent system complexity.
2Adaptability or versatility
If cloud-based services deliver increasingly complex functions, then system capability and functionality are improved, but system complexity and difficulty in management worsen
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the complex cloud-based system into distinct modular components: data ingestion modules, processing modules, storage modules, and search modules. Each module handles specific functions independently, allowing the system to deliver complex capabilities through coordinated simple components. This segmentation reduces management complexity by making each component independent and manageable while maintaining overall system capability.
Solution Approach 2:
The unifying interface acts as an intermediary that abstracts the complexity of cloud-based services from the search functionality. By introducing this intermediate layer, the system can leverage complex cloud capabilities without exposing that complexity to the search operations, thus maintaining simplicity in the search path while utilizing advanced cloud functions.
3Quantity of substance
If data is spread across various IT systems with diverse access methods, then data comprehensiveness is improved, but ease of operation and unified approach to data utilization worsen
Solution Approach 1:
The search system implements universal access capabilities that allow users to search across all data stores (relational databases, NoSQL databases, data lakes) through a single interface. This multi-functional design enables comprehensive data coverage while maintaining ease of operation, as users interact with one unified search mechanism regardless of the underlying data source diversity.
Solution Approach 2:
The unifying interface serves as an intermediary that shields users from the complexity of diverse data access methods. Users interact with this single interface to access comprehensive data across all IT systems, while the intermediary handles the translation to appropriate access methods for each data store, thus maintaining ease of operation despite data comprehensiveness.
Data Source
AI summary
A computer-implemented method that includes causing display of a search user interface configured for searching visual representations of assets of a relational model comprising information indexed by an application programming interface (API); receiving one or more requests in the search user interface to update the visual representations; comparing, by the API, the one or more requests with the indexed information of the relational model; based on the comparing, determining whether a respective case of one or more cases of one or more assets is in a relationship with the one or more requests; and causing display of the respective case of the one or more cases of the one or more assets in the relationship in the visual representations.