Clustered Information Processing and Searching with Structured-Unstructured Database Bridge

A system for information storage and retrieval, comprising:

• a search and information retrieval computing system, the search and retrieval computing system having associated with it an unstructured results repository and a structured results repository, the unstructured and structured results repositories essentially the same information clustered into one or more clusters to reflect relationships between data elements in the one or more clusters;
• an information clustering and storage routine running on the search and information retrieval computing system that processes new data received at the search and information retrieval computing system, the information clustering and storage routine determining a hybrid distance measurement for the new data, clustering the new data into one or more clusters based on the hybrid distance measurement, and storing the one or more clusters in the structured and unstructured results repositories;
• and
• an information retrieval routine running on the searching and information retrieval computing system that processes a query received at the search and information retrieval computing system, determine whether the query is best searched using the structured or the unstructured results repository, execute a search of either the structured or the unstructured results repository based on the determination, and return results including at least a portion of the contents of at least one of the clusters.