CONFLICT RESOLUTION, RETRY CONDITION MANAGEMENT, AND HANDLING OF PROBLEM FILES FOR THE SYNCHRONIZATION CLIENT TO A CLOUD-BASED PLATFORM

• US 20140201145A1
• Filed: 01/17/2014
• Published: 07/17/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 01/17/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Box Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Box Incorporated
• Inventors: Dorman, Griffin, Jourda, Florian, Smith, Ben, Parmar, Kunal, Sawyer, Dave
• Granted Patent: US 10,599,671 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/634
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/178 Techniques for file synchronisation in file systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/27 Replication, distribution or synchronisation of data between databases or within a distributed database system; Distributed database system architectures therefor

Abstract

Embodiments of the present disclosure include systems and methods of conflict resolution, retry condition management and/or handling of problem files in the synchronization architecture of the cloud-based platform. One embodiment of the disclosed technology detects conflicts between incompatible changes made on opposite file systems based on file system sync results when executing a sync event on the file system. In one embodiment, the disclosed technology applies self-healing strategies when unexpected failures occur. For example, if a synchronization action fails repeatedly, an external action (e.g., from user, file system, etc.) can return the system back to a consistent state again.

Claims

1. A processor-implemented method of resolving conflicts in a synchronization system, comprising:

detecting a conflict when executing a sync event on a first file system;

identifying a set of attributes associated with the sync event; and

based on the set of attributes, taking an action on the first file system or a second file system to resolve the conflict.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the conflict is detected based on a sync result from executing the sync event and wherein the set of attributes includes an event type associated with a sync event, a file system and a sync result.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein one of the first and second file systems is a local file system on a client device and other one of the first and second file systems is a cloud server file system.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein changes to the first and second file systems that cause the conflict occur in parallel.

5. The method of claim 2, wherein the action includes modifying one of the first file system or the second file system, associating a retry condition to the sync event, or a combination thereof.

6. The method of claim 5, further comprising:

in response to determining that the retry condition has been satisfied, executing the sync event on the first file system.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the action performed on one of the file systems to resolve the conflict are associated with a conflict resolver that is mapped to the set of attributes.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the sync event is associated with a create event, rename event, move event, edit event or delete event that changes the second file system.

9. The method of claim 2, wherein the conflict is detected when the sync result associated with an item indicates one of:

item not found, item name in use, item name not valid, item name too long, item locked or version mismatch.

10. The method of claim 6, wherein the retry condition is satisfied when another sync event updates an item associated with the sync event.

11. The method of claim 6, wherein the retry condition is satisfied after a period of time elapses.

12. A synchronization system with conflict resolution, comprising:

a synchronization component configured to execute sync events;

a plurality of conflict resolvers, wherein each conflict resolver is mapped to a corresponding set of sync event attributes, wherein the conflict resolver is configured to resolve a conflict associated with a sync event by making changes to a file system.

13. The system of claim 12, wherein the file system that is changed is one of a cloud server file system of a cloud server or local file system of a client device.

14. The system of claim 12, further comprising a sync failure detector that detects the conflict based on result from execution of the sync event.

15. The system of claim 12, further comprising a sync execution controller to update the sync event to include a retry condition.

16. The system of claim 15, further comprising a retry condition evaluator to monitor and determine when the retry condition is satisfied.

17. The system of claim 16, further comprising a retry condition manager that sends the sync event for re-execution when the retry condition is satisfied.

18. The system of claim 12, further comprising an ignored items detector configured to detect an ignored item and exclude the item from synchronization.

19. A processor-implemented method of conflict resolution, comprising:

executing a sync event on a first file system;

detecting a conflict when executing the sync event on the first file system;

resolving the conflict based at least on sync result from executing the sync event,

wherein resolving the conflict includes restoring the first file system or a second file system to a consistent state.

20. The method of claim 19, further comprising:

associating a retry condition with the sync event when the conflict is detected;

monitoring the retry condition associated with the sync event; and

re-executing the sync event when the retry condition associated with the sync event is satisfied.

21. A synchronization system with conflict resolution, comprising:

a memory;

a processor disposed in communication with the memory and configured to execute a plurality of instructions stored in the memory to;

detect that a synchronization operation failed due to a conflict, wherein the conflict is caused by incompatible changes made to a local file system and a cloud server file system;

identify a reason for the synchronization operation failure;

resolve the conflict by taking at least one action, wherein the at least one action that is taken depends on the reason for the synchronization operation failure.

22. The system of claim 21, wherein the action taken to resolve the conflict repairs one of the local file system or the cloud server file system to make the file systems consistent.

23. The system of claim 21, wherein when the synchronization operation is executed on opposing file systems, a sync result that identifies the reason for the synchronization operation failure is generated.

24. The system of claim 21, wherein when the incompatible changes causing the conflict include creation of a file having the same name on both the local file system and the cloud server file system, the reason for the synchronization operation failure is identified as item name in use, and wherein the at least one action taken to resolve the conflict includes renaming the file to have a new name both on the local file system and the cloud server file system.

25. The system of claim 24, wherein the at least one action further comprises retrying the synchronization operation that failed when a specified condition is satisfied.

26. The system of claim 21, wherein when the incompatible changes causing the conflict include renaming of a same file on both the local file system and the cloud server file system to different names, the reason for the synchronization operation failure is identified as version mismatch.