I. Field
The field of the present invention relates to systems and methods for storing and accessing data, and more particularly to data storage, database queries and data retrieval.
II. Background
Many database and data storage systems have predetermined schema that impose a structure on data when it is received. The schema may not capture information regarding the structure of data as it is originally provided. In addition, the schema may be designed around predefined relationships that are not optimized for the way that data is actually provided or queried. The logical relationships inherent in the schema may also result in a database structure that is not optimized for the manner in which the data is actually stored. Moreover, the logical relationships inherent in the schema and/or their associated database structures may constrain the kinds of logical relationships that can be specified in data queries. A single query may require multiple accesses to storage resulting in significant inefficiencies, particularly given the increasing disparity between processing speeds and storage access speeds. While substantial efforts have been made to improve access methods for relational and other conventional databases, they are inherently limited by the predefined relationships and resulting structures imposed on the data. The tight coupling between these relationships and the structure of many databases also makes it difficult to efficiently capture, translate and process data provided in various different formats, such as flat files, comma separated value (CSV) files, and data defined using Extensible Markup Language (XML).