Scalable computing system for managing dynamic communities in multiple tier computing system

• US 6,581,096 B1
• Filed: 06/24/1999
• Issued: 06/17/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 06/24/1999
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Cottrille, Scott C., Halim, Antony, Yaacovi, Yoram, DeMello, Marco A., Sinha, Alok K.
• Primary Examiner(s): Lim, Krisna
• Application Number:
  US09/339,635
• Time in Patent Office: 1,454 Days
• Field of Search: 709/203, 709/205, 709/219, 709/223
• US Class Current: 709/223
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/01 Protocols
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/10 in which an application is distributed across nodes in the network software deployment G06F8/60; multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/46
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/12 specially adapted for proprietary or special-purpose networking environments, e.g. medical networks, sensor networks, networks in vehicles or remote metering networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/329 in the application layer [OSI layer 7]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/40 Network security protocols

Abstract

A scalable computing system for managing dynamic communities stores and provides access to community and member information. A community is a dynamic and virtual association of users. Some example features of a community include: a home page, membership, non-real time based messaging (threaded messages), chats, community calendar, annotations, and management tools for access control. The scalable architecture of the computing system for managing dynamic communities provides a computing system capable of handling the increasing number of community members and the community elements associated with the community.

Claims

1. A multiple tier computer system for scalably managing dynamic communities, the multiple tier computing system comprising:

a plurality of community elements;

a server for storing indices of the plurality of community elements at a first tier; and

one or more persistent data stores for storing the plurality of community elements at a second tier, wherein response to a request to access one or more of the community elements the server assembles the community elements and dynamically generates one or more pages; and

wherein complex queries of said community elements are reduced to improve scalability by querying said indices to access said community elements.

2. The multiple tier computing system of claim 1, wherein the multiple tier computing system further comprises an authentication server to verify the identity of a user.

3. The multiple tier computing system of claim 1, wherein the community elements are selected from the group consisting of:

a home page, a membership management tool, a message board, a notification service, non-real timed messages, real-time messages, a chat, a community calendar, a file library, and a picture album.

4. A scalable computerized method of managing dynamic communities, the method comprising:

storing a plurality of community elements within a multiple tier computing system;

receiving a request from a client to access one or more the community elements at a first tier;

assembling the community elements as a function of the request from a second tier;

dynamically generating one or more pages of the assembled elements for display by the client; and

wherein to improve scalability said one ore more pages are generated with a reduced number of complex queries for said community elements.

5. The computerized method of claim 4, further comprising authenticating the user requesting the information.

6. The computerized method of claim 4, further comprising controlling access to the community elements.

7. The computerized method of claim 4, comprising controlling the layout of pages of the assembled elements for display by the client.

8. The computerized method of claim 4, wherein the community elements are selected from the group consisting of:

a home page, a membership management tool, a message board, a notification service, non-real timed messages, real-time messages, a chat, a community calendar, a file library, and a picture album.

9. A computing system for scalably managing dynamic communities and for managing annotations, the computing system comprising:

a tier III server to store data for the annotations;

a tier II server to maintain an index of the data for the annotations stored on the tier III server, to store community elements, and to process community queries; and

a tier I server to determine if a content source has annotations indexed by the tier II server an to indicate which communities own the annotations, thereby reducing number of complex queries for said annotations to improve scalability.

10. The computing system of claim 9, wherein the tier I server comprises a plurality of servers.

11. The computing system of claim 9, wherein the tier II server comprises a plurality of servers.

12. The computing system of claim 9, wherein the tier III server comprises a plurality of servers.

13. The computing system of claim 9, wherein the content source is identified by a document identifier.

14. The computing system of claim 13, wherein the document identifier is selected from the group consisting of:

a directory path, a uniform resource locator, and a file name.

15. A computer readable medium having computer executable instructions for a scalable method of managing dynamic communities stored thereon, the method comprising:

storing a plurality of community elements in a multiple tier computing system;

receiving a request from a client to access one or more of the community elements from a first tier;

assembling the community elements as a function of the request from a second tier;

dynamically generating one or more pages of the assembled elements for display by the client; and

wherein to improve scalability said one or more pages are generated with a reduced number of complex queries for said community elements.

16. The computer readable medium of claim 15, further comprising computer executable instructions for controlling access to the community elements.

17. The computer readable medium of claim 15, further comprising computer executable instructions for authenticating the user requesting the information.

18. The computer readable medium of claim 15, further comprising computer executable instructions for controlling the layout of pages of the assembled elements for display by the client.

19. The computer readable medium of claim 15, wherein the community elements are selected from the group consisting of:

a home page, a membership management tool, a message board, a notification service, non-real timed messages, real-time messages, a chat, a community calendar, a file library, and a picture album.