AUTOMATED CONVERSION OF VERSIONED DATA COLLECTIONS

• US 20100115126A1
• Filed: 10/31/2008
• Published: 05/06/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 10/31/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: NetApp, Inc.
• Original Assignee: NetApp, Inc.
• Inventors: Kanakadandi, Kiran, Bolen, David Brittain
• Granted Patent: US 8,898,236 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/237
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/219 Managing data history or versioning querying versioned data G06F16/2474; querying temporal data G06F16/2477
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/258 Data format conversion from or to a database

Abstract

Various computing components (such as devices, operating environments, and processes) may communicate by exchanging instances of a data collection, such as a class or data structure. However, the definition of the data collection may evolve to specify different numbers, types, properties, and orderings of the items in the data collection, and it may be difficult to verify the structure and contents of an instance received from another component and possibly of a different version. This difficulty may be mitigated by exchanging versioning information about the instance (e.g., as part of the communications wire protocol) and by allocating the converting such that the sender may downconvert to earlier versions requested by a recipient, while the recipient may upconvert to later versions than a version provided by a sender. These techniques may promote the accuracy and consistency of information exchange among many components that operate on different versions of the data collection.

Claims

1. A method of versioning an instance of a data collection comprising a sender version indicator in response to a request by a recipient, comprising:

identifying a recipient version indicator representing a preferred version that is preferred by the recipient;

comparing the recipient version indicator to the sender version indicator;

if the recipient version indicator does not precede the sender version indicator, sending the instance to the recipient; and

if the recipient version indicator precedes the sender version indicator;

generating a downconverted instance comprising the instance formatted according to the preferred version; and

sending the downconverted instance to the recipient.

2. The method of claim 1:

the instance represented during a communication session with the recipient, and

the identifying comprising;

receiving the recipient version indicator from the recipient while establishing the communication session with the recipient,

storing the recipient version indicator; and

retrieving the stored recipient version indicator when the request is subsequently received from the recipient.

3. The method of claim 1:

the recipient version indicator specified with the request, and

the identifying comprising;

referencing the recipient version indicator specified in the request.

4. The method of claim 1:

the instance comprising at least one member;

the preferred version specifying a representation format of the at least one member; and

the generating comprising;

translating the at least one member to the representation format of the at least one member in the preferred version.

5. The method of claim 4, the generating comprising:

upon identifying a member of the instance that is not included in the preferred version of the instance, omitting the member from the downconverted instance.

6. The method of claim 1, the generating comprising:

upon identifying a member of the preferred version of the instance that is not included in the instance, inserting the member into the downconverted instance with a default value.

7. The method of claim 4:

the at least one member of the instance comprising an array of an array size;

the representation format of the array specifying a preferred version array size that differs from the array size; and

the translating comprising;

resizing the array to a preferred version array sized according to the preferred version array size.

8. The method of claim 4, the instance comprising a version indicator member specifying the sender version indicator.

9. The method of claim 8, the version indicator member of the downconverted instance comprising the recipient version indicator.

10. A computer-readable medium comprising processor-executable instructions configured to perform a method of versioning an instance of a data collection comprising a sender version indicator in response to a request by a recipient, comprising:

identifying a recipient version indicator representing an preferred version that is preferred by the recipient;

comparing the recipient version indicator to the sender version indicator;

if the recipient version indicator does not precede the sender version indicator, sending the instance to the recipient; and

if the recipient version indicator precedes the sender version indicator;

generating a downconverted instance comprising the instance formatted according to the preferred version; and

sending the downconverted instance to the recipient.

11. A method of receiving from a sender an instance of a data collection comprising a sender version indicator and formatted according to a preferred version, comprising:

specifying to the sender a recipient version indicator representing the preferred version;

receiving the instance from the sender having a sender version indicator;

identifying a sender version indicator representing the version of the instance;

comparing the sender version indicator to a recipient version indicator; and

if the sender version indicator precedes the recipient version indicator, generating an upconverted instance comprising the instance formatted according to the preferred version.

12. The method of claim 11:

the instance represented during a communication session with the sender, and

the specifying comprising;

specifying the recipient version indicator while establishing the communication session with the sender.

13. The method of claim 11:

the instance represented during a communication session with the sender, and

the identifying comprising;

receiving the sender version indicator from the sender while establishing the communication session with the sender,

storing the sender version indicator; and

subsequently retrieving the stored sender version indicator.

14. The method of claim 11:

the specifying comprising;

specifying the recipient version indicator while requesting the instance from the sender.

15. The method of claim 11:

the instance comprising at least one member;

the preferred version specifying a representation format of the at least one member; and

the generating comprising;

translating the at least one member to the representation format of the at least one member in the preferred version.

16. The method of claim 15, the generating comprising:

upon identifying a member of the instance that is not included in the preferred version of the instance, omitting the member from the upconverted instance.

17. The method of claim 15, the generating comprising:

upon identifying a member of the preferred version of the instance that is not included in the instance, inserting the member into the upconverted instance with a default value.

18. The method of claim 15:

at least one member of the instance comprising an array of an array size;

the representation format of the array specifying a preferred version array size that differs from the array size; and

the translating comprising;

resizing the array to a preferred version array sized according to the preferred version array size.

19. The method of claim 15, the sender version indicator specified as a member of the instance.

20. The method of claim 19, the version indicator member of the upconverted instance comprising the recipient version indicator.