SCALABILITY IMPROVEMENT IN A SYSTEM WHICH INCREMENTALLY UPDATES CLIENTS WITH EVENTS THAT OCCURRED IN A CLOUD-BASED COLLABORATION PLATFORM

• US 20150039556A1
• Filed: 02/28/2014
• Published: 02/05/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 07/30/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Box Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Box Incorporated
• Inventors: Mackenzie, David, Spielberg, Miles, Luecke, Ryan, Bercovici, Tamar, Barreto, Tomas, Treyger, Alex
• Granted Patent: US 9,535,924 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/608
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/1767 Concurrency control, e.g. optimistic or pessimistic approaches

Abstract

Techniques are disclosed for improving scalability in a system which incrementally updates remote clients with events that occurred in a cloud-enabled platform. In one embodiment, a method comprises, in response to an action from a user in the cloud-enabled platform, determining a list of events to update one or more collaborators of the user about the action. The method further comprises separating the list of events into a plurality of sub-lists of events such that each sub-list of events can be stored in a database within a designated amount of time, and further comprises storing the plurality of sub-lists of events into the database to be read by the one or more collaborators. Among other advantages, embodiments disclosed herein provide enhancement in scalability, robustness and availability for cloud-based collaboration platforms with large numbers of collaborators by incorporating mechanisms to divide-and-conquer the workload of event updates in such platforms.

Claims

1. A method for updating remote clients with actions that occurred in a cloud-enabled platform, the method comprising:

in response to an action from a user in the cloud-enabled platform, determining a list of events to update one or more collaborators of the user about the action;

separating the list of events into a plurality of sub-lists of events such that each sub-list of events can be stored in a database within a designated amount of time; and

storing the plurality of sub-lists of events into the database to be read by the one or more collaborators.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

deciding how many events each sub-list can contain based on a throughput of the database.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the deciding is performed when an amount of sub-list of events fails to be stored in the database within the designated amount of time.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein the deciding is further based on a performance of a network connection of the database.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the determining is based on requesting a business logic to return a manifest of the collaborators associated with a folder where the action from the user takes place.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the plurality of sub-lists are stored as rows in a table before being stored into the database, and wherein each row represents one sub-list and has an collaborator identification field that specifies which collaborators to be updated about the action.

7. The method of claim 6, further comprising:

writing a timestamp for a respective row upon completion of storage of a respective sub-list into the database.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein remote clients of the collaborators are able to update based on the database to reflect the action.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the remote clients update only the action without updating other actions which have previously been updated at the remote client.

10. The method of claim 8, wherein a respective remote client sends a query to the database for synchronization of the updates specific to an associated collaborator.

11. A system for incrementally updating remote clients with actions that occurred in a cloud-based environment, the system comprising:

a processor; and

a memory coupled to the processor and storing a plurality of instructions which, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to;

in response to an action from a user in the cloud-enabled platform, determine a list of events to update one or more collaborators of the user about the action;

separate the list of events into a plurality of sub-lists of events such that each sub-list of events can be stored in a database within a designated amount of time; and

store the plurality of sub-lists of events into the database to be read by the one or more collaborators.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the processor is further instructed to:

decide how many events each sub-list can contain based on a throughput of the database.

13. The system of claim 12, wherein the processor is further instructed to decide when an amount of sub-list of events fails to be stored in the database within the designated amount of time.

14. The system of claim 12, wherein the processor is further instructed to decide based on a performance of a network connection of the database.

15. The system of claim 11, wherein the processor is further instructed, in the determining, to request a business logic to return a manifest of the collaborators associated with a folder where the action from the user takes place.

16. The system of claim 11, wherein the plurality of sub-lists are stored as rows in a table before being stored into the database, and wherein each row represents one sub-list and has an collaborator identification field that specifies which collaborators to be updated about the action.

17. The system of claim 16, wherein the processor is further instructed to:

write a timestamp for a respective row upon completion of storage of a respective sub-list into the database.

18. A machine-readable storage medium having stored thereon instructions which, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to:

in response to an action from a user in a cloud-enabled platform, determine a list of events to update one or more collaborators of the user about the action;

separate the list of events into a plurality of sub-lists of events such that each sub-list of events can be stored in a database within a designated amount of time; and

store the plurality of sub-lists of events into the database to be read by the one or more collaborators.

19. The storage medium of claim 18, wherein the processor is further caused to:

decide how many events each sub-list can contain based on a throughput of the database.

20. The storage medium of claim 19, wherein the processor is further caused to decide when an amount of sub-list of events fails to be stored in the database within the designated amount of time.

21. The storage medium of claim 19, wherein the processor is further caused to decide based on a performance of a network connection of the database.

22. The storage medium of claim 18, wherein the processor is further caused, in the determining, to request a business logic to return a manifest of the collaborators associated with a folder where the action from the user takes place.

23. The storage medium of claim 18, wherein the plurality of sub-lists are stored as rows in a table before being stored into the database, and wherein each row represents one sub-list and has an collaborator identification field that specifies which collaborators to be updated about the action.

24. The storage medium of claim 23, wherein the processor is further caused to:

write a timestamp for a respective row upon completion of storage of a respective sub-list into the database.

25. A system, comprising:

means for, in response to an action from a user in a cloud-enabled platform, determining a list of events to update one or more collaborators of the user about the action;

means for separating the list of events into a plurality of sub-lists of events such that each sub-list of events can be stored in a database within a designated amount of time; and

means for storing the plurality of sub-lists of events into the database to be read by the one or more collaborators.