Patent ID: 7908125

Claim:
A computer-readable storage medium having computer-readable program instructions embedded therein for directing operation of a computer system, wherein the computer-readable program instructions, when executed by a processor on the computer system, enable the computing system implement a data processing system, that comprises: a model service system receiving, as an input, an object model description, indicative of a first object model that represents business data, and generating a dimensional model based on the input; an entity generator generating a second object model based on the dimensional model, the second object model representing business data represented by the dimensional model; a navigation service identifying a data navigation path from relationships between individual sets of data that comprise the business data, and outputting the data navigation path for navigation by a user from a first data set to a related second data set wherein the navigation service comprises: a plurality of navigation providers each associated with a specific type of navigation; a navigation service layer transmitting a navigation service request to one or more of the navigation providers that are registered with the navigation service layer; and a metadata service providing the plurality of navigation providers with access to a metadata store, each navigation provider responding to a received data navigation request by interacting with the metadata service to identify at least one data navigation path and returning the at least one identified data navigation path to the navigation service layer for output to the user; and a computer processor being a functional component of the data processing system and activated by the model service system, the entity generator and the navigation service to facilitate receiving the object model, generating the second object model and identifying the navigation path.