Patent ID: 8583626

Claim:
A computer-implemented method for identifying, in an extract-transform-load data integration process, reference data tables containing a set of values describing data, comprising: identifying, by operation of one or more computer processors, at least a first reference data operator in the process, wherein the first reference data operator references one or more tables; and determining whether at least a first table referenced by the reference data operator is a reference table by assigning, to the first table, a score reflecting a greater likelihood that the first table is a reference data table upon determining at least one of: that a computed number of columns of the first table equals a number of columns a reference data table has been defined to contain; that a computed ratio of a count of a number of rows of the first table to a count of a number of rows in a table having the greatest number of rows in a domain is less than a predetermined value; that a computed ratio of a count of the number of columns of the first table to a count of a number of columns in a table having the greatest number of columns in a domain is less than a predetermined value; that the first table is defined as a reference data table by a first business term in a business glossary; that a computed percentage of matches between semantic values in a first concept in a predefined ontology and values in the first table is greater than a predetermined value; and that a computed path length from a first concept node in an ontology graph to a second concept node in the ontology graph is lower than a predetermined value, wherein the first concept node matches a second business term defined as a reference data table in the business glossary, wherein the second concept node contains semantic values matching a description of the first table.