Patent ID: 7844570
Filing Date: 2010-11-30
Classification: G06F

Abstract:
1. A system for building a multidimensional database comprising: populating database with data from one or more heterogeneous data sources utilizing one or more load components; a development component to facilitate specification of multidimensional object definitions in the absence of an underlying relational database, the multidimensional object definitions comprising cube definitions; a schema generation component that receives the definitions and automatically generates a relational database schema with relational objects associated with specific multidimensional objects, the schema generation component also receiving data concerning modifications that have been made to a previously generated relational database schema and preserves the modifications when generating an updated version of the previously generated relational database schema from a corresponding multidimensional object definition, wherein the corresponding multidimensional object definition from which the updated version of the previously generated relational database schema was generated does not contain corresponding modifications; a database generation component that produces a database and applies the generated schema to the database stored in a computer readable memory; a monitor component for detecting modifications to previously generated relational database schemas that were made by components other than the schema generation component and for providing the modifications to the schema generations component such that the modifications are preserved when the schema generation component generates updated versions of previously generated relational database schemas from multidimensional object definitions; the load component that aids in loading data to the database, wherein the load component comprises: a schema modification component that enables the generated database schema to be altered in an iterative manner, wherein modification of at least one existing multidimensional model results in at least one related alteration of a related relational schema, a related database, or combination thereof, wherein a direct modification of at least a related relational schema generated from at least one multidimensional object is preserved by schema regeneration, wherein an indirect modification of at least a related relational schema generated from at least one multidimensional object is preserved by schema regeneration, facilitating both bottom-up and top-down multidimensional database interactions such that a developer can create multidimensional objects in both directions by creating multidimensional objects over existing multidimensional objects in the bottom-up multidimensional database interactions and creating the multidimensional objects in the absence of the underlying relational database in the top-down multidimensional database interactions; and upon receiving a request to regenerate the relational schema from a set of cubes and dimensions, accessing the modifications and applying the modifications to the regenerated relational schema so that the modifications are preserved; and modifying the cubes and dimensions and generating a modified schema reflecting the changes to the cubes and dimensions and preserving the modifications made to the relational schema a conflict component that retrieves information from a user regarding how to proceed if regeneration will cause data loss.