Patent ID: 7519608

Claim:
A computer implementing a virtual data warehouse stored on a computer-useable medium, comprising: a plurality of virtual tables, each including one or more records, each virtual table representative of a conventional table in a remote database and each record within the virtual tables corresponding to a record within the represented conventional table and containing an identity value for accessing the corresponding record; a plurality of hyper-keys, each able to be resolved from look-up values into direct virtual links to target records as soon as the look-up values are entered into the warehouse, each hyper-key being used for linking records in one of the plurality of virtual tables to one or more records in a specified other virtual table from the plurality of virtual tables; at least one virtual table with one or more records, each record containing one or more hyper-keys, each hyper-key used to access one or more records in one of the virtual tables from the plurality of virtual tables representing a conventional table in a remote database; at least one virtual table index that is a conventional index created from data extracted from the records within a conventional table in a remote database and used to access the corresponding records within the virtual table representing the conventional table; and at least one hyper-index, which is a conventional index, derived from data exported from a virtual table index and used to access records within a virtual table other than the virtual table associated with the virtual table index by replacing, within a list of record identity values or similar structure associated with an indexed record, the record identity values from a first virtual table with record identity values for the records within a second virtual table that are linked by hyper-keys to the records in the first virtual table.