Method to reduce large OLAP cube size using cell selection rules

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9460172-B2
Application number	US-201414209739-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Mar 13, 2014
Priority date	Mar 13, 2013
Publication date	Oct 4, 2016
Grant date	Oct 4, 2016

Abstract

Various embodiments are directed to techniques for providing one or more reduced-size rule cubes indicating cell rules. A computer-program product embodied in a machine-readable storage medium includes instructions to cause a computing device to select a cell rule to include in a rule cube based on applicability of the cell rule to a selected portion of a data cube; analyze the cell rule to identify a wildcarded dimension in a specification of cells of the data cube that are subject to the cell rule; and generate the rule cube indicating applicability of the cell rule to the selected portion of the data cube, wherein a cell of the rule cube corresponds to multiple cells of the data cube, and wherein the wildcarded dimension of the rule cube is reduced in length in comparison to a length of the wildcarded dimension of the data cube. Other embodiments are described and claimed.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A computer-program product tangibly embodied in a non-transitory machine-readable storage medium, the computer-program product including instructions operable to cause a computing device to perform operations including:
select a first cell rule applicable to a data cube to include in a rule cube associated with the data cube based on applicability of the first cell rule to a selected portion of the data cube, the first cell rule comprising at least one of restricting read access to at least one cell of the data cube, restricting write access to the at least one cell, restricting access to change a measure or a pointer of the at least one cell, restricting a degree of change in at least one measure stored at the at least one cell during a calculation, imposing a minimum value on the at least one measure, and imposing a maximum value on the at least one measure;
analyze the first cell rule to identify at least one dimension of the data cube that is wildcarded in a first specification of the first cell rule of cells of the data cube that are subject to the first cell rule;
generate the rule cube indicating applicability of the first cell rule to the selected portion of the data cube, wherein a cell of the rule cube corresponds to multiple cells of the data cube, and wherein at least one dimension of the rule cube that corresponds to the at least one dimension of the data cube is reduced in length in comparison to a length of the at least one dimension of the data cube;
receive a request for an indication of cell rules applicable to the selected portion of the data cube; and
transmit the indication of the cell rules in response to the received request.

2. The computer-program product of claim 1 , the computing device caused to perform operations including:
analyze the first cell rule and a second cell rule applicable to the data cube to determine whether the first specification of the first cell rule and a second specification of the second cell rule wildcard identical dimensions of the data cube, wherein the second specification specifies cells of the data cube that are subject to the second cell rule; and
generate the rule cube to indicate applicability of the first and second cell rules to the selected portion of the data cube based on the determination.

3. The computer-program product of claim 2 , the computing device caused to perform operations including select the second cell rule to include in the rule cube based on applicability of the second cell rule to the selected portion of the data cube.

4. The computer-program product of claim 1 , the computing device caused to perform operations including:
receive a request via a network from another computing device for the selected portion of the data cube;
determine whether a cell of the rule cube stores an indication that the first cell rule denies access to any cell instantiated at a crossing within the selected portion of the data cube by the other computing device;
generate the selected portion of the data cube;
selectively instantiate a cell at the crossing within the selected portion of the data cube based on the determination; and
transmit the selected portion of the data cube to the other computing device via the network.

5. The computer-program product of claim 4 , the computing device caused to perform operations including:
aggregate detailed data to generate a measure, wherein operations to aggregate the detailed data comprise at least one of sum the detailed data, average the detailed data or take a weighted average of the detailed data; and
store the measure at the cell at the crossing within the selected portion of the data cube.

6. The computer-program product of claim 1 , the computing device caused to perform operations including:
perform a calculation that comprises storing a result as a measure of at least one cell of the selected portion of the data cube;
determine whether a cell of the rule cube that corresponds to the at least one cell stores an indication that the first cell rule does not permit storing the result as a measure of the at least one cell; and
selectively store the result as a measure of the at least one cell based on the determination.

7. The computer-program product of claim 1 , the computing device caused to perform operations including:
generate, on a display, an indication of the first cell rule; and
monitor a manually operable control for an indication of operation of the control to specify the selected portion of the data cube.

8. The computer-program product of claim 1 , the computing device caused to perform operations including:
analyze a cell of the rule cube that corresponds to at least one cell of the selected portion of the data cube to determine whether the first cell rule denies access to the at least one cell; and
selectively provide access to the at least one cell based on the determination.

9. A computer-implemented method comprising:
selecting, on a computing device, a first cell rule applicable to a data cube to include in a rule cube based on applicability of the first cell rule to a selected portion of the data cube, the first cell rule comprising at least one of restricting read access to at least one cell of the data cube, restricting write access to the at least one cell, restricting access to change a measure or a pointer of the at least one cell, restricting a degree of change in at least one measure stored at the at least one cell during a calculation, imposing a minimum value on the at least one measure, and imposing a maximum value on the at least one measure;
analyzing, on the computing device, the first cell rule to identify at least one dimension of the data cube that is wildcarded in a first specification of the first cell rule of cells of the data cube that are subject to the first cell rule;
generating, on the computing device, the rule cube indicating applicability of the first cell rule to the selected portion of the data cube, wherein a cell of the rule cube corresponds to multiple cells of the data cube, and wherein at least one dimension of the rule cube that corresponds to the at least one dimension of the data cube is reduced in length in comparison to a length of the at least one dimension of the data cube;
receiving, at the computing device, a request for an indication of cell rules applicable to the selected portion of the data cube; and
transmit the indication of the cell rules in response to the received request.

10. The computer-implemented method of claim 9 , comprising:
analyzing, on the computing device, the first cell rule and a second cell rule applicable to the data cube to determine whether the first specification of the first cell rule and a second specification of the second cell rule wildcard identical dimensions of the data cube, wherein the second specification specifies what cells of the data cube are subject to the second cell rule; and
generating, on the computing device, the rule cube to indicate applicability of the first and second cell rules to the selected portion of the data cube based on the determination.

11. The computer-implemented method of claim 10 , comprising selecting the second cell rule to include in the rule cube based on applicability of the second cell rule to the selected portion of the data cube.

12. The computer-implemented method of claim 9 , comprising:
receiving, at the computing device, a request via a network from another computing device for the selected portion of the data cube;
determining whether a cell of the rule cube stores an indication that the first cell rule denies access to any cell instantiated at a crossing within the select

Assignees

• Sas Inst Inc

Inventors

• Gong Qing
• Davis Amy Spelman
• Norris Ryan
• Stevanoni Enrico

Classifications

• G06F17/30563 Primary

  Physics · mapped topic

• G06F17/30592

  Physics · mapped topic

• G06F16/254 Primary

  Extract, transform and load [ETL] procedures, e.g. ETL data flows in data warehouses · CPC title

• G06F16/283 Primary

  Multi-dimensional databases or data warehouses, e.g. MOLAP or ROLAP · CPC title