System and method for high performance template driven metadata schema mapping and data storage for surveillance and sensor devices

A surveillance and sensor application system, comprising:

• at least two devices, including at least one of a video surveillance device or a sensor device;
• at least two applications, including at least one of a surveillance application or a sensor network application, wherein the at least two applications produce metadata messages of varying formats;
• at least two metadata databases including a master metadata database and a regular metadata database, wherein the regular metadata database stores metadata contained in the metadata messages and the master metadata database only stores administrative data for managing the metadata;
• at least two metadata database adaptors associated with the at least two metadata databases, and
• a template database having a plurality of templates, wherein each of the plurality of templates predefines a collection of database elements for at least a first database of the metadata databases and is associated with a preselected set of database performance operations of the metadata database that are specific to the collection;
• wherein each of the plurality of templates allows a user to define a data definition to map user defined data with the collection of database elements of that template and form XML data schema so that template mapping knowledge can then be applied for fast XML data schema to non-XML database schema generation without translation processing;
• wherein each of the at least two metadata database adaptors comprises:
• an adaptor interface connecting with and receiving the metadata messages from at least one of the at least two applications;
• a metadata database interface connecting with at least one of the at least two metadata databases;
• and
• one or more functional modules adapting the metadata messages of varying formats according to needs of at least one of the at least two metadata databases,
• wherein at least one of the functional modules selects a first template from the plurality of templates and creates the predefined database elements of the first template in the first database;
• wherein the at least one of the functional modules populates the first template with the metadata contained in the metadata messages for storing the metadata in the first database and triggers the preselected set of database performance operations in the first database,
• wherein at least one of the functional modules employs an application domain template that allows the user to define a query definition that can then be processed with a mapping of the application domain template to translate a query of a first query language to a database query of a second query language.