Patent ID: 7263520

Claim:
A method of aggregating data in an information management system, the method comprising: receiving a query for a response to a search on a database; loading data from the database into a memory if the data necessary to generate the response to the query is absent from the memory, otherwise using the data from memory; filtering a first block of the data based on the query to generate a list of results for the first block; buffering at least one key figure corresponding to a result in the list of results of the first block, the buffering of the least one key figure based at least in part on the result being in the list of results; buffering compressed values representing at least one dimension value corresponding to each key figure being one of the at least one key figures; aggregating the compressed values representing the dimension values corresponding to the each key figure to generate an aggregate key; aggregating key figures corresponding to the same aggregate key to generate one or more aggregate key figures; storing the aggregate key figures and aggregate keys; performing the filtering, buffering, and aggregating for a second block of the data; merging aggregate key figures of the first and second blocks of the data; and displaying the response to the search on a display device, wherein the response includes at least one aggregate key figure.