Patent ID: 6760719
Filing Date: 2004-07-06
Classification: G06F,Y10S

Abstract:
A method of providing accessing and processing of heterogeneous data at the nodes of a plurality of heterogeneous data sources in response to user requests, said method comprising:(1) propounding a user request containing a data source object name wherein a plurality of heterogeneous data sources to be accessed are treated as a single data source object, said request containing accessing data for the data source object and also a data processing method to be performed on data extracted from said plurality of heterogeneous data sources; (2) determining whether said data source object is distributed across a plurality of data sources, said determining being performed using a local agent process for interpreting user requests; (3) if said data source object is determined to be distributed, breaking the user request into a plurality of new requests, each of said new requests containing data corresponding to said data source object and to said data processing method to be performed thereon indicated by the user request and each new request having a format appropriate to its respective data source; (4) transmitting the new requests in parallel to the respective data source nodes, each data source node having a respective agent process located at the node for interpreting its respective new request to indicate the data corresponding to said data source object in each data source and also said data processing method to be performed thereon; and (5) using said respective agent process located at each node for extracting the indicated data corresponding to said data source object from each respective data source and executing said data processing method thereon; and (6) returning to the user which initiated the user request the results of said executing of said data processing method on the data extracted from said data sources without returning the extracted data, thereby minimizing message traffic between the user and the data source nodes.