Data aggregation server for managing a multi-dimensional database and database management system having data aggregation server integrated therein

Abstract

Improved method of and apparatus for aggregating data elements in multidimensional databases (MDDB). In one aspect of the present invention, the apparatus is realized in the form of a high-performance stand-alone (i.e. external) aggregation server which can be plugged-into conventional OLAP systems to achieve significant improments in system performance. In accordance with the principles of the present invention, the stand-alone aggregation server contains a scalable MDDB and a high-performance aggregation engine that are integrated into the modular architecture of the aggregation server. The stand-alone aggregation server of the present invention can uniformly distribute data elements among a plurality of processors, for balanced loading and processing, and therefore is highly scalable. The stand-alone aggregation server of the present invention can be used to realize (i) an improved MDDB for supporting on-line analytical processing (OLAP) operations, (ii) an improved Internet URL Directory for supporting on-line information searching operations by Web-enabled client machines, as well as (iii) diverse types of MDDB-based systems for supporting real-time control of processes in response to complex states of information reflected in the MDDB. In another aspect of the present invention, the apparatus is integrated within a database management system (DBMS). The improved DBMS can be used to realize achieving a significant increase in system performance (e.g. deceased access/search time), user flexibility and ease of use. The improved DBMS system of the present invention can be used to realize an improved Data Warehouse for supporting on-line analytical processing (OLAP) operations or to realize an improved informational database system, operational database system, or the like.

1 . A stand-alone data aggregation server comprising: 
 an aggregation engine that is integrated with a multidimensional datastore and an interface;    the aggregation engine performing data aggregation operations on data loaded from a database and storing the resultant aggregated data in the multidimensional datastore; and    the interface receiving requests communicated from any one of a plurality of different computing systems, accessing the aggregation engine to retrieve from the multidimensional datastore aggregated data pertaining to said requests, and communicating the aggregated data corresponding to said requests to said one computing system that communicated said requests.    
     
     
         2 . The stand-alone data aggregation server of  claim 1 , wherein the plurality of different computing systems comprise an OLAP server.  
     
     
         3 . The stand-alone data aggregation server of  claim 2 , wherein the plurality of different computing systems comprise a plurality of different OLAP servers distributed by different vendors.  
     
     
         4 . The stand-alone data aggregation server of  claim 2 , wherein the plurality of different computing systems comprise at least one database system.  
     
     
         5 . The stand-alone data aggregation server of  claim 4 , wherein the at least one database system comprises one of: a data warehouse system, a data mart system, an RDBMS system, an OLAP system, a ROLAP system, a MOLAP system, and a URL directory management system.  
     
     
         6 . The stand-alone data aggregation server of  claim 1 , wherein the interface implements a standard protocol for accessing data.  
     
     
         7 . The stand-alone data aggregation server of  claim 1 , wherein the standard protocol comprises one of OLDB, OLE-DB, ODBC, SQL, and JDBC.  
     
     
         8 . The stand-alone data aggregration server of  claim 1 , wherein computational tasks performed by the aggregation engine is restricted to data aggregation operations.  
     
     
         9 . The stand-alone data aggregation server of  claim 1 , wherein said interface extracts dimensions from the received requests and forwards the dimensions to a storage management module, and wherein the storage management module accesses locations of the multidimensional datastore based upon the forwarded dimensions and returns the retrieved data back to the interface for communication to the one coomputing system that generated the requests.  
     
     
         10 . The stand-alone data aggregation server of  claim 1 , further comprising control logic that, upon determining that multidimensional datastore does not contain aggregated data required to service at least one given request, controls the aggregation engine to perform aggregation operations to thereby generate the required aggregated data and return the required aggregated data back to interface for communication to one coomputing system that generated the at least one given request.  
     
     
         11 . The stand-alone data aggregation server of  claim 10 , wherein the control logic controls a storage management module to store the required aggregation data generated by the aggregation engine in the multidimensional database.  
     
     
         12 . The stand-alone data aggregation server of  claim 1 , wherein data stored in the multidimensional datastore is logically partitioned into N dimensions, wherein the aggregation engine performs a first stage of aggregation operations along a first dimension, and performs and second stage of aggregation operations for a given slice in the first dimension along N−1 dimensions other than the first dimension.  
     
     
         13 . The stand-alone data aggregation server of  claim 12 , wherein the aggregation engine stores the resultant data of aggregration operations for the given slice as a record in a data file, wherein location of the record in the data file is stored in a directory.  
     
     
         14 . The stand-alone data aggregation server of  claim 13 , wherein the directory stores, for a given record, a start address and end address of the record and a physical address of the data file.  
     
     
         15 . The stand-alone data aggregation server of  claim 1 , wherein time delay in responding to said requests is equivalent to accessing a local datastore of the one computer system.  
     
     
         16 - 148 . (canceled)  
     
     
         149 . A decision support system operable with an enterprise, the system comprising: 
 a plurality of client machines communicating with a server over a network;    the server including analysis logic to enable user-directed analysis on data; and    the stand-alone aggregation server of  claim 1  that operably communicates with the server to perform data aggregation operations on the data, and store and manage such data for access by the server.    
     
     
         150 . The decision support system of  claim 149 , wherein the network includes the infrastructure of the Internet.  
     
     
         151 . The decision support system of  claim 150 , wherein said client machines include a web-browser-based user interface that enables said user-directed analysis.