System and method for managing complex relationships over distributed heterogeneous data sources

A method of constructing a navigation tree structure for managing a plurality of distributed heterogeneous data sources, said method comprising the steps of:

• obtaining pre-existing definitional data;
• instantiating a plurality of in-memory nodes for said pre-existing definitional data;
• initializing at least a relationship attribute and an entity attribute for each of said nodes, whereby a plurality of relationship attributes are initialized, at least some of said relationship attributes defining relationships among data in different ones of the data sources;
• and
• forming an updated navigation tree structure from said nodes having said attributes.

An article of manufacture for constructing a navigation tree structure for managing a plurality of distributed heterogeneous data sources, comprising a machine readable medium containing one or more programs which when executed implement the steps of:

• obtaining pre-existing definitional data;
• instantiating a plurality of in-memory nodes for said pre-existing definitional data;
• initializing at least a relationship attribute and an entity attribute for each of said nodes, whereby a plurality of relationship attributes are initialized, at least some of said relationship attributes defining relationships among data in different ones of the data sources;
• and
• forming an updated navigation tree structure from said nodes having said attributes.

A method of processing a query command associated with a plurality of distributed heterogeneous data sources, said method comprising the steps of:

• obtaining the query command;
• responsive to the query command, performing one of creating a navigation session and loading a pre-existing navigation session;
• passing the query command and the corresponding one of the new navigation session and the pre-existing navigation session to an integration engine;
• identifying and interpreting, via said integration engine, pertinent definition and computation templates associated with the query command, at least some of said templates defining relationships among data in different ones of the data sources;
• and
• computing and retrieving a desired query result, based at least in part on at least one of said definition and computation templates, from pertinent ones of the distributed heterogeneous data sources.

An article of manufacture for processing a user navigation request associated with a plurality of distributed heterogeneous data sources, comprising a machine readable medium containing one or more programs which when executed implement the steps of:

• obtaining the query command;
• responsive to the query command, performing one of creating a navigation session and loading a pre-existing navigation session;
• passing the query command and the corresponding one of the new navigation session and the pre-existing navigation session to an integration engine;
• identifying and interpreting, via said integration engine, pertinent definition and computation templates associated with the query command, at least some of said templates defining relationships among data in different ones of the data sources;
• and
• computing and retrieving a desired query result, based at least in part on at least one of said definition and computation templates, from pertinent ones of the distributed heterogeneous data sources.

A system for constructing a navigation tree structure for managing a plurality of distributed heterogeneous data sources, said system comprising:

• a relationship and navigation data repository;
• and
• an integration engine coupled to said relationship and navigation data repository, said integration engine being configured to:
• obtain pre-existing definitional data from at least one of:
• said relationship and navigation data repository, and
• at least one of the distributed data sources;
• instantiate a plurality of in-memory nodes for said definitional data;
• initialize at least a relationship attribute and an entity attribute for each of said nodes, whereby a plurality of relationship attributes are initialized, at least some of said relationship attributes defining relationships among data in different ones of the data sources;
• and
• form an updated navigation tree structure from said nodes having said attributes.