On-demand database catalog upgrade

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2018004792-A1
Application number	US-201615197856-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Jun 30, 2016
Priority date	Jun 30, 2016
Publication date	Jan 4, 2018
Grant date	—

Abstract

Upgrading a database while the database is accessible to applications. Specifically, the database upgrade is performed selectively as per demand from system catalog tables. With this on-demand technique, the upgrade of a database is run on a need basis to upgrade, over time, all the catalog objects.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1 . A method comprising:
performing a selective upgrade of a database instance from a first version of a database to a second version of the database, wherein the selective upgrade causes the database instance to refer to the second version of the database, and the selective upgrade does not modify, in the database instance, a reference of at least one catalog object of the first version; receiving a request from an application to access the at least one catalog object; identifying a set of rows in the at least one catalog object of the first version, the set of rows matching requirements of the request; and modifying the set of rows in the at least one catalog object of the first version to match a corresponding set of rows in a corresponding catalog object of the second version of the database.

2 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the at least one catalog object is a system catalog table.

3 . The method of claim 1 , wherein:
the at least one catalog object includes a first catalog object and a second catalog object, the request being to access the first catalog object; and further comprising: determining whether an additional request is received from the application to access the second catalog object.

4 . The method of claim 1 , wherein:
the at least one catalog object includes a first catalog object and a second catalog object, the request being to access the first catalog object; and further comprising: determining whether an additional request is received from another application to access the second catalog object.

5 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the identifying one or more rows from the catalog object includes searching every row of the catalog object.

6 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the modifying the set of rows includes performing an implicit catalog row conversion including:
making the set of rows compatible to the second version of the database; and updating the set of rows to refer to the second version of the database instead of the first version.

7 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the modifying the set of rows is performed while the database instance referring to the second version of the database is running.

8 . A computer program product comprising a computer readable storage medium having stored a set of instructions stored therein which, when executed by a processor, causes the processor to upgrade a database by:
performing a selective upgrade of a database instance from a first version of a database to a second version of the database, wherein the selective upgrade causes the database instance to refer to the second version of the database, and the selective upgrade does not modify, in the database instance, a reference of at least one catalog object of the first version; receiving a request from an application to access the at least one catalog object; identifying a set of rows in the at least one catalog object of the first version, the set of rows matching requirements of the request; and modifying the set of rows in the at least one catalog object of the first version to match a corresponding set of rows in a corresponding catalog object of the second version of the database.

9 . The computer program product of claim 8 , wherein the at least one catalog object is a system catalog table.

10 . The computer program product of claim 8 , wherein:
the at least one catalog object includes a first catalog object and a second catalog object, the request being to access the first catalog object; and further comprising: determining whether an additional request is received from the application to access the second catalog object.

11 . The computer program product of claim 8 , wherein:
the at least one catalog object includes a first catalog object and a second catalog object, the request being to access the first catalog object; and further comprising: determining whether an additional request is received from another application to access the second catalog object.

12 . The computer program product of claim 8 , wherein the identifying one or more rows from the catalog object includes searching every row of the catalog object.

13 . The computer program product of claim 8 , wherein the modifying the set of rows includes performing an implicit catalog row conversion including:
making the set of rows compatible to the second version of the database; and updating the set of rows to refer to the second version of the database instead of the first version.

14 . The computer program product of claim 8 , wherein the modifying the set of rows is performed while the database instance referring to the second version of the database is running.

15 . A computer system comprising:
a processor set; and a computer readable storage medium; wherein: the processor set is structured, located, connected, and/or programmed to run program instructions stored on the computer readable storage medium; and the program instructions which, when executed by the processor set, cause the processor set to upgrade a database by: performing a selective upgrade of a database instance from a first version of a database to a second version of the database, wherein the selective upgrade causes the database instance to refer to the second version of the database, and the selective upgrade does not modify, in the database instance, a reference of at least one catalog object of the first version; receiving a request from an application to access the at least one catalog object; identifying a set of rows in the at least one catalog object of the first version, the set of rows matching requirements of the request; and modifying the set of rows in the at least one catalog object of the first version to match a corresponding set of rows in a corresponding catalog object of the second version of the database.

16 . The computer system of claim 15 , wherein the at least one catalog object is a system catalog table.

17 . The computer system of claim 15 , wherein:
the at least one catalog object includes a first catalog object and a second catalog object, the request being to access the first catalog object; and further comprising: determining whether an additional request is received from the application to access the second catalog object.

18 . The computer system of claim 15 , wherein:
the at least one catalog object includes a first catalog object and a second catalog object, the request being to access the first catalog object; and further comprising: determining whether an additional request is received from another application to access the second catalog object.

19 . The computer system of claim 15 , wherein the identifying one or more rows from the catalog object includes searching every row of the catalog object.

20 . The computer system of claim 15 , wherein the modifying the set of rows includes performing an implicit catalog row conversion including:
making the set of rows compatible to the second version of the database; and updating the set of rows to refer to the second version of the database instead of the first version.

Assignees

• IBM

Inventors

• Desai Samar T
• Govindappanavar Dattatreya
• Kapse Prashant N

Classifications

• G06F16/252

  between a Database Management System and a front-end application · CPC title

• G06F16/21

  Design, administration or maintenance of databases · CPC title

• G06F16/2336 Primary

  Pessimistic concurrency control approaches, e.g. locking or multiple versions without time stamps · CPC title

• G06F16/219

  Managing data history or versioning (querying versioned data G06F16/2474; querying temporal data G06F16/2477) · CPC title

• G06F17/3056

  Physics · mapped topic