HOSTED FILE SYNC WITH DIRECT ACCESS TO HOSTED FILES

• US 20170075921A1
• Filed: 09/14/2015
• Published: 03/16/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 09/14/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Inventors: Benton, James, Bishop, Spencer, Shay, Jason, Murstein, Michael, Kalach, Ran
• Granted Patent: US 10,019,460 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/178 Techniques for file synchronisation in file systems
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/02 based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/06 specially adapted for file transfer, e.g. file transfer protocol [FTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1095 Replication or mirroring of data, e.g. scheduling or transport for data synchronisation between network nodes

Abstract

Disclosed herein is a system and method that can be used to synchronize files from a hosted file system where the client endpoint devices have direct access to the files stored on a hosted file store/system. When the client synchronizes with the files stored on the hosted file store the synchronization process identifies the files that need to be synchronized with the client and prepares batches of files to be synced. During the process of synchronization the files are not locked from other user'"'"'s being able to use the files. If the file is modified by another endpoint during the file synchronization process the file will not be synchronized with the client device during the particular synchronization process. In this way synchronization becomes possible with the hosted service without impacting the performance of other devices that use and access the data in the hosted file store.

Claims

1. A system for storing, managing and synchronizing files on a hosted file system, comprising:

a hosting service configured to provide a file store to clients remote from the hosting service;

at least one client device remote from the hosting service;

a sync role configured to provide synchronization services to the at least one client device;

a change updater component, the change updater configured to identify changes made to a file in the file store by the at least one client device by comparing metadata stored in the sync metadata store for the file with metadata for the file in the file store.

the file store hosted on the hosting service, the file store storing copies of files accessible by the at least one client device, wherein the at least one client device can write to the file store through the sync role and write directly to the file store without using the sync role.

2. The system of claim 1 further comprising:

a sync metadata store configured to store metadata related to files contained in the file store in order to enable synchronization of the files with the at least one client device.

3. The system of claim 2 wherein the change updater is further configured to hash concurrency tracking properties for each file in a folder to generate a hash-concurrency tracking properties for the folder and to compare the hash-concurrency tracking properties with a precomputed hash-concurrency tracking properties for the folder to determine if a change has occurred to at least one file in the folder.

4. The system of claim 1 further comprising:

a management data store configured to manage the placement of data on the file store and to maintain at least one synchronization folder for the file store accessible to the at least one client device.

5. The system of claim 1 wherein the sync role further comprises:

a security library configured to provide an access level for files in a requested synchronization and

wherein the core service only synchronizes files from the file store permitted by the access level.

6. The system of claim 1 wherein the sync role is configured to identify a batch of files to be synchronized from one of the at least one client device to the file store, and to place an exclusive handle on each file in a corresponding version of the batch of files located in the file store, the exclusive handle identifying a file as being a file to be synchronized with.

7. The system of claim 6 wherein the sync role is configured to load the batch of files to a staging folder.

8. The system of claim 6 wherein the exclusive handle is dropped from the file in the batch of files on the file store when a write is performed on the file by a second of the at least one client device, wherein in the write is performed using a direct access to the file in the file store and wherein the sync role removes the file from the batch as a result of the dropped exclusive handle.

9. The system of claim 1 wherein the sync role is configured to identify a batch of files to be synchronized from the file store to at least one of the at least one client device, and to provide a full set of metadata for the batch of files to the client device.

10. The system of claim 9 wherein the sync role is configured to determine if concurrency properties in the metadata for each file in the batch of files match item properties in a metadata store for a live version of each file in the batch of files and is further configured to synchronize each file in the batch of files to the one or more client devices only if the properties match.

11. The system of claim 10 wherein a write on one of the files in the batch of files causes the file to be removed from the batch of files.

12. A method for synchronizing files between a client device and a file store through a sync role, comprising:

receiving a request from the client device to synchronize a set of files with a namespace in the file store;

locking access to the namespace through the sync role for other client devices;

uploading from the client device the set of files to a staging folder as a set of staged files;

sending a full set of file metadata for each file in the set of files to the sync role;

applying the file metadata for each file to a corresponding staged file; and

obtaining a first exclusive handle for a corresponding version of each staged file in the namespace;

obtaining a second exclusive handle for each staged file of the set of staged files; and

replacing the corresponding version of each staged file with the staged file when both the corresponding version of the staged file in the namespace and the staged file both have the first and the second exclusive handles.

13. The method of claim 12 wherein a direct write activity occurs on one of the corresponding versions of the staged file in the namespace prior to the step of replacing.

14. The method of claim 13 wherein the first exclusive handle is dropped form the one of the corresponding versions of the staged file in response to the direct write activity.

15. The method of claim 13 wherein the first exclusive handle is not obtained when the direct write activity is detected on the one of the corresponding versions of the staged file in the namespace prior to attempting to obtain the first exclusive handle.

16. The method of claim 12 wherein sending occurs prior to uploading.

17. A method for synchronizing files between a file store and client device, comprising:

receiving a request for a synchronization session from the client device;

generating a download batch of files from a file store;

obtaining metadata for each file in the download batch of files;

transmitting the download batch of files to the client device;

checking the concurrency properties for each file in the download batch against item properties in a metadata store for a live version of each file to determine if the properties match; and

downloading each file in the download batch to the client device when the concurrency properties for each file match.

18. The method of claim 17 wherein checking the concurrency properties comprises:

checking a current value of a timestamp for each file against the timestamp value.

19. The method of claim 17 further comprising:

skipping downloading of a file in the download batch when the concurrency properties for the file do not match the concurrency properties for a live version of the file in the file store; and

advancing to a next file in the download batch.

20. The method of claim 19 wherein the concurrency properties for the file do not match because a direct write occurred to the file on the file store after the download batch was generated.