Data Synchronization and Sharing Relationships

• US 20070294366A1
• Filed: 09/15/2006
• Published: 12/20/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 06/16/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Augustine, Matthew S., Ozzie, Jack E., Moromisato, George P., Ozzie, Raymond E., Suthar, Paresh S., Narayanan, Raman
• Granted Patent: US 8,370,423 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/217
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/273 Asynchronous replication or reconciliation
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/04 Real-time or near real-time messaging, e.g. instant messaging [IM]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1095 Replication or mirroring of data, e.g. scheduling or transport for data synchronisation between network nodes
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/55 Push-based network services

Abstract

Systems and methods for synchronizing and sharing data associated with sharing relationships are disclosed. Such systems and methods may be implemented by interfacing with an application that manages or accesses the data to be shared, and by making shared data available using a feed along with some mechanism for tracking changes or enabling synchronization between different endpoints.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

defining a sharing relationship using relationship metadata, the sharing relationship associated with a publishing endpoint and the relationship metadata including information that identifies a set of one or more items including an item, the information including at least one or more of the following;

a category that identifies at least some of the one or more items and a unique identifier that identifies the item;

initializing a storage location associated with the sharing relationship;

generating a feed by exporting an item;

storing the feed using the storage location; and

communicating at least a portion of the relationship metadata to a subscribing endpoint.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the feed uses Simple Sharing Extensions and the feed includes a sync data element associated with the item and an item data element associated with the item.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the one or more items are selected from at least one or more of the following item types:

contracts, calendar items, tasks, notes, and email messages.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the category enables the identification of items of different types.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

updating the feed when a second item changes at a later time so that the feed includes changed data associated with the second item.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein communicating further comprises transparently sending an electronic communication that contains the portion of the relationship metadata to the subscribing endpoint without further action by a user that creates the sharing relationship.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein generating the feed further comprises exporting a second item, and the item and the second item are of different types.

8. The method of claim 1 wherein a publisher native format of the item on the publishing endpoint is different from a subscriber native format of the item on the subscribing endpoint.

9. A method, comprising:

receiving from a publishing endpoint at a subscribing endpoint a portion of relationship metadata associated with a sharing relationship, the relationship metadata including information that identifies a set of one or more items including an item, the information including at least one or more of the following;

a category that identifies at least some of the one or more items and a uniciue identifier that identifies the item;

initiating a subscription to a feed associated with the portion of the relationship metadata; and

merging the item in the feed with a set of one or more items stored using a local storage associated with the subscribing endpoint.

10. The method of claim 9 wherein the portion of the relationship metadata is contained in an electronic communication and initiating the subscription further comprises:

transparently accessing the portion of the relationship metadata without an action by a user associated with the subscribing endpoint.

11. The method of claim 9, further comprising:

merging a second item in the feed with the set of items stored using the local storage when the feed changes.

12. The method of claim 9 wherein merging further comprises:

creating a conflict notification record when a conflict is identified.

13. The method of claim 12 wherein the conflict notification record comprises an email message that contains information about the conflict.

14. The method of claim 12, further comprising:

updating a subscriber feed provided by the subscribing endpoint by identifying the conflict as resolved.

15. The method of claim 9, further comprising:

generating a second feed by exporting a second item from the set of items stored using the local storage associated with the subscribing endpoint; and

storing the second feed using a second storage location associated with the sharing relationship.

16. The method of claim 9 wherein the feed uses Simple Sharing Extensions and the feed includes a sync data element associated with the item and an item data element associated with the item.

17. The method of claim 9 wherein the item includes a sync data element and an item data element and merging further comprises:

accessing the feed;

determining if the item is associated with a local item in the set of items stored using the local storage;

determining if the local item should be updated when the item is associated with the local item; and

updating the local item when the local item should be updated.

18. A system, comprising:

a personal information management application that maintains a set of items;

a storage module configured to access a storage location containing relationship metadata associated with a sharing relationship and data associated with an endpoint on behalf of a sharing module; and

the sharing module configured to;

define the sharing relationship;

generate a feed by exporting an item where the item is selected from the set of items maintained by the personal information management application;

store the feed using the storage module;

communicate at least a portion of the relationship metadata to a subscribing endpoint;

receive from a publishing endpoint a second portion of relationship metadata associated with a second sharing relationship;

initiate a subscription to a second feed associated with the second relationship metadata; and

merge a second item in the second feed with the set of items maintained by the application.

19. The system of claim 18 wherein the storage module is further configured to access two or more types of storage locations by using two or more storage providers.

20. The system of claim 18 wherein the storage location comprises a service that is configured to accept two or more feeds and is further configured to merge the two or more feeds to produce a single feed.