Patent ID: 7370272

Claim:
A method comprising: receiving input data comprising one or more integration object instances, wherein an integration object comprises a schema of a set of data, wherein the schema comprises a plurality of integration object components, the plurality of integration object components are hierarchically related, the plurality of integration object components comprises first and second integration object components, and the second integration object component is a child component of the first integration object component, and an integration object instance comprises data organized in a structure defined by the integration object, wherein the data is extracted from a first database, the data comprises a first and second integration object instance component each respectively corresponding to the first and the second integration object component; and modifying a database in response to the input data, the modifying comprising comparing a first database record with the first integration object component, modifying the first database record using the information associated with the first integration object instance component, if the first database record matches information associated with the first integration object component, finding one or more child database records associated with the first database record, modifying one or more of the child database records using the information associated with the second integration object instance component, if the second integration object component comprises a record matching a corresponding record in the one of the one or more child database records, and inserting a new database record comprising the information associated with the second integration object instance component, if the second integration object component does not comprise a record matching a corresponding record in one of the one or more child database records, wherein the one or more child database records comprises the new database record.