Semantically Correct Collaborative Objects for Data Model Design

Resolve Bottlenecks,
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions

Solution Overview

Problem

Legacy approaches for multidimensional data model design in distributed data systems are limited in concurrent collaboration capabilities, leading to inefficiencies, design conflicts, and errors due to the inability of multiple designers to work simultaneously on the same model, resulting in resource-intensive manual merging of versions.

Innovation Solution

The implementation of semantically correct collaborative objects that generate unit of work objects based on design operations, allowing for concurrent merging, validation, and broadcasting of changes among designers, reducing processing power and memory usage while minimizing communication overhead.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Productivity

If multiple designers concurrently work on the same data model using legacy specialized tools, then design productivity increases, but design conflicts and errors increase due to inability to merge versions automatically

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvedesign collaboration efficiencyVSAvoiddesign error rate

Core Design Contradiction:

ProductivityVSReliability

Solution Approach 1:

The patent introduces a collaboration server as an intermediary between multiple designers and the data model. The server receives design operations from designers, converts them to semantically correct collaborative objects, merges them, and broadcasts updates to all designers. This mediator resolves conflicts automatically without requiring manual merging, thus improving productivity while maintaining reliability through semantic validation.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #24Intermediary (Mediator)

Solution Approach 2:

The patent changes the parameter representation from syntactic XML schemas to semantically validated collaborative objects with explicit type systems and validation rules. By transforming design operations into parameterized objects with defined schemas, the system can automatically validate and merge changes, enabling concurrent editing without increasing error rates.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #35Parameter changes

2Reliability

If manual merging of design versions is performed, then design conflicts are resolved, but time consumption and resource usage increase significantly

Engineering Contradiction:

Improveversion merge accuracyVSAvoidmerge operation duration

Core Design Contradiction:

ReliabilityVSLoss of time

Solution Approach 1:

The patent performs preliminary validation and structuring of design operations as they are created. Design operations are converted to semantically correct collaborative objects with validated schemas before being sent to the collaboration server. This preliminary preparation enables automatic merging without requiring time-consuming manual intervention, thus resolving version conflicts quickly and accurately.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #10Preliminary action

3Manufacturing precision

If specialized design tools are installed locally on each designer's computing device, then design precision is maintained, but communication overhead and processing resources increase

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvedata model design accuracyVSAvoidprocessing power consumption

Core Design Contradiction:

Manufacturing precisionVSUse of energy by moving object

Solution Approach 1:

The patent extracts the complex semantic validation and merging logic from local specialized tools and centralizes it in the collaboration server. Local tools only need to handle basic UI interactions and send operations to the server, significantly reducing their processing requirements. The server performs the resource-intensive semantic validation and merging, distributing the computational burden and reducing overall system resource consumption while maintaining design precision.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #2Taking out (Extraction)

Data Source

PatentUS10467250B2Data model design collaboration using semantically correct collaborative objects

Publication Date: 2019.11.05 ATSCALE INC

AI summary

The present disclosure provides a detailed description of techniques for data model design collaboration using semantically correct collaborative objects. Certain embodiments comprise detecting various interaction events from designers collaborating on designing a virtual multidimensional data model to generate unit of work objects characterizing certain design transactions invoked by the interaction events. The unit of work objects are used to determine a set of committed modifications to the virtual multidimensional data model design for broadcasting to the collaborating designers. Some embodiments comprise unit of work objects based on various multidimensional data model rules, syntactic rules, semantic rules, and/or other criteria to determine valid committed modifications. Other embodiments comprise unit of work objects from multiple design transactions that are merged to determine the committed modifications. Further embodiments comprise committed modifications that are derived from the differences between the design changes and the then current virtual multidimensional data model.