US Patent 7756827 Rule-based, event-driven, scalable data collection

A method, computer program and computer system for collecting data from one or more data sources, into which data is continuously stored, and for loading the collected data into one or more data targets is disclosed. One or more events are defined and one or more rules are associated with each event. When one of the one or more events occurs, unmarked data is collected from the one or more data sources in accordance with the rules associated with the one event, the collected, unmarked data in the one or more data sources is marked, and the collected data is stored in one or more of the data targets.