Patent ID: 8260820

Claim:
A method of facilitating searching for data on a plurality of heterogeneous databases connected over a network to a central computer, the databases including at least one named data field, and the method comprising, at the central computer: receiving, via the network, registration data for each said database to register the database with the central computer to enable centralized searching of the data in each database; receiving as part of the registration data, via the network, mapping data for each database, the mapping data mapping each of a plurality of predefined search terms with each of a corresponding plurality of data field names in each database; receiving from a client terminal a search request for data; determining at least one said predefined search term from the received search request; for each of at least one database of the plurality of databases: processing the mapping data to select at least one data field name in the database, said at least one data field name corresponding to said at least one determined predefined search term; generating a search command compatible with the database using said at least one data field name; transmitting the search command over the network to a data provider system associated with the database; and receiving over the network from the data provider system search results resulting from the execution of the search command on the database; processing the search results received from said at least one data provider to generate search report data; and transmitting the search report data to the client terminal, wherein at least of the step of selecting at least one database and the step of generating a search command for said at least one database further comprises retrieving the mapping data from a configuration database containing a plurality of records, each record containing mapping data relating to a data provider system associated with one of the plurality of databases.