ON-DEMAND MAILBOX SYNCHRONIZATION AND MIGRATION SYSTEM

• US 20150100655A1
• Filed: 12/10/2014
• Published: 04/09/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 04/26/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: BitTitan Incorporated (Idera, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: BitTitan Incorporated (Idera, Inc.)
• Inventors: POUZIN, DOMINIC JUSTIN, YIP, GEEMAN
• Granted Patent: US 9,729,488 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/206
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/214 Database migration support
• 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
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5011 the resources being hardware resources other than CPUs, Servers and Terminals
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/107 Computer-aided management of electronic mailing [e-mailing]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/42 Mailbox-related aspects, e.g. synchronisation of mailboxes
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/48 Message addressing, e.g. address format or anonymous messages, aliases
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/025 for remote control or remote monitoring of applications
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1095 Replication or mirroring of data, e.g. scheduling or transport for data synchronisation between network nodes

Abstract

A system for managing physical and logical resources to provide on-demand synchronization or migration of mailboxes and their corresponding content. Physical resources are managed by automatically assigning mailbox processing tasks to either reserved computing resources, or computing resources dynamically obtained from cloud computing services. Authentication resources are managed by automatically requesting credentials from users, accepting submitted credentials, and initiating mailbox processing tasks.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

receiving, with a migration system, configuration information about a source and a destination messaging system, including identification of a plurality of mailboxes associated with the source messaging system;

migrating mailbox content associated with the plurality of mailboxes from the source to the destination messaging system, wherein said migrating includes dynamically allocating computing resources including a plurality of instances to provide sufficient processing capacity for migration of the mailbox content associated with the plurality of mailboxes from the source messaging system to the destination messaging system;

assigning each task of a plurality of tasks involved in said migrating to an instance of the plurality of instances based on a workload of each instance of the plurality of instances; and

providing a web service or web site configured to display status information regarding the migrating.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising prioritizing the computing resources assigned based on at least one of cost, geographic location, bandwidth, availability, security, type, or speed.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the configuration information includes a messaging protocol employed by the source messaging system, the destination messaging system, or both.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving at least one of administrative credentials for accessing each mailbox of the plurality of mailboxes, user credentials for accessing a mailbox of the plurality of mailboxes, or a combination thereof.

5. The method of claim 4, further comprising:

prompting one or more users for the user credentials.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein assigning each task of a plurality of tasks to an instance of the plurality of instances based on workload of each instance of the plurality of instances comprises:

assigning each task of a plurality of tasks to an instance of the plurality of instances based on a workload to capacity ratio of each instance of the plurality of instances.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the plurality of instances includes on-demand instances obtained from one or more cloud service providers.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein migrating mailbox content associated with the plurality of mailboxes from the source to the destination messaging system includes migrating at least one of an e-mail, a task, a contact, an instant message, a text, a chat, a calendar, a folder, or a document.

9. An apparatus, comprising:

a memory component; and

a processing component that is arranged to operate on data to enable actions, the actions comprising;

receiving, with a migration system, configuration information about a source and a destination messaging system, including identification of a plurality of mailboxes associated with the source messaging system;

migrating mailbox content associated with the plurality of mailboxes from the source to the destination messaging system, wherein said migrating includes dynamically allocating computing resources including a plurality of instances to provide sufficient processing capacity for migration of the mailbox content associated with the plurality of mailboxes from the source messaging system to the destination messaging system;

assigning each task of a plurality of tasks involved in said migrating to an instance of the plurality of instances based on a workload of each instance of the plurality of instances; and

providing a web service or web site configured to display status information regarding the migrating.

10. The apparatus of claim 9, wherein the actions further comprise prioritizing the computing resources assigned based on at least one of cost, geographic location, bandwidth, availability, security, type, or speed.

11. The apparatus of claim 9, wherein the configuration information includes a messaging protocol employed by the source messaging system, the destination messaging system, or both.

12. The apparatus of claim 9, wherein dynamically allocating computing resources including a plurality of instances to provide sufficient processing capacity for migration of the mailbox content associated with the plurality of mailboxes from the source messaging system to the destination messaging system comprises:

dynamically allocating computing resources responsive to determining that the computing resources have insufficient processing capacity to execute each task of the plurality of tasks.

13. The apparatus of claim 9, wherein assigning each task of a plurality of tasks to an instance of the plurality of instances based on workload of each instance of the plurality of instances comprises:

assigning each task of a plurality of tasks to an instance of the plurality of instances based on a workload to capacity ratio of each instance of the plurality of instances.

14. The apparatus of claim 9, wherein dynamically allocating computing resources including a plurality of instances to provide sufficient processing capacity for migration of the mailbox content associated with the plurality of mailboxes from the source messaging system to the destination messaging system comprises:

determining the size of each mailbox of the plurality of mailboxes; and

determining the sufficient processing capacity based on the size of each mailbox of the plurality of mailboxes.

15. The apparatus of claim 9, wherein each mailbox of the plurality of mailboxes are mailboxes of a first type and wherein at least one task of the plurality of tasks includes translating a mailbox of the plurality of mailboxes to a mailbox of a second type.

16. The method of claim 9, wherein migrating mailbox content associated with the plurality of mailboxes from the source to the destination messaging system includes migrating at least one of an e-mail, a task, a contact, an instant message, a text, a chat, a calendar, a folder, or a document.

17. A method comprising:

enumerating a plurality of instances obtained from one or more cloud service providers, each of the plurality of instances configured to execute one or more computing tasks associated with migration of mailbox content from a source messaging system to a destination messaging system;

terminating a first instance of the plurality of instances;

assigning a task of the one or more computing tasks to a second instance of the plurality of instances; and

requesting new instances.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein enumerating a plurality of instances obtained from one or more cloud service providers comprises:

enumerating the plurality of instances and states of the plurality of instances;

identifying unfilled instances of the plurality of instances;

identifying pending instances of the plurality of instances; and

identifying registered and unregistered instances of the plurality of instances.

19. The method of claim 17, wherein terminating a first instance of the plurality of instances comprises:

identifying instances of the plurality of instances that are unfulfilled for a time period exceeding a first threshold;

identifying instances of the plurality of instances that are pending for a time period exceeding a second threshold; and

identifying instances of the plurality of instances that have no assigned task.

20. The method of claim 17, wherein assigning a task of the one or more computing tasks to a second instance of the plurality of instances comprises:

determining a workload of each instance of the plurality of instances; and

assigning the task of the one or more computing tasks to the second instance of the plurality of instances based on the workload of each instance of the plurality of instances.

21. The method of claim 17, wherein requesting new instances comprises:

determining whether an insufficient processing capacity exceeds an expected processing capacity;

if the insufficient processing capacity is greater than the insufficient processing capacity, determining a number of instances based on a difference between the insufficient processing capacity and the expected processing capacity; and

requesting the number of instances.

22. The method of claim 17, wherein assigning a task of the one or more computing tasks to a second instance of the plurality of instances includes assigning a task to migrate at least one of an e-mail, a task, a contact, an instant message, a text, a chat, a calendar, a folder, or a document.

23. An apparatus, comprising:

a memory component; and

a processing component that is arranged to operate on data to enable actions, the actions comprising;

enumerating a plurality of instances obtained from one or more cloud service providers, each of the plurality of instances configured to execute one or more tasks associated with migration of mailbox content from a source messaging system to a destination messaging system;

terminating a first instance of the plurality of instances;

assigning a task of a plurality of tasks to a second instance of the plurality of instances; and

requesting new instances.

24. The apparatus of claim 23, wherein enumerating a plurality of instances obtained from one or more cloud service providers comprises:

enumerating the plurality of instances and states of the plurality of instances;

identifying unfilled instances of the plurality of instances;

identifying pending instances of the plurality of instances; and

identifying registered and unregistered instances of the plurality of instances.

25. The apparatus of claim 23, wherein assigning a task of a plurality of tasks to a second instance of the plurality of instances comprises:

determining a workload of each instance of the plurality of instances; and

assigning the task of a plurality of tasks to the second instance of the plurality of instances based on the workload of each instance of the plurality of instances.

26. The apparatus of claim 23, further comprising:

retrieving the plurality of tasks from a web service.

27. The apparatus of claim 26, wherein retrieving the plurality of tasks from a web service comprises:

retrieving configuration information associated with each task of the plurality of tasks, information associated with one or more mailboxes, a location of the source messaging system, a location of the destination messaging system, mailbox credentials, or a combination thereof.

28. The method of claim 23, wherein assigning a task of the one or more computing tasks to a second instance of the plurality of instances includes assigning a task to migrate at least one of an e-mail, a task, a contact, an instant message, a text, a chat, a calendar, a folder, or a document.