US Patent 8732213 Scalable analysis platform for semi-structured data

A method of operating a query system includes retrieving objects from a data source, wherein each of the retrieved objects includes (i) data and (ii) metadata describing the data. The method includes dynamically creating a cumulative schema by inferring a schema from each of the retrieved objects and merging the inferred schema with the cumulative schema. The method includes storing the data of each of the retrieved objects in a storage service. The method includes receiving, from a user, a query, and responding to the query based on data stored by the storage service.