Preserving memory resources by limiting time-date information for a subset of properties

• US 7,305,423 B2
• Filed: 05/06/2005
• Issued: 12/04/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 04/30/2004
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Starbuck, Bryan T.
• Primary Examiner(s): FLEURANTIN, JEAN B
• Application Number:
  US11/123,763
• Publication Number:
  US 20050256995A1
• Time in Patent Office: 942 Days
• Field of Search: 707 1- 10, 707100-1041, 707200-206, 709/201, 709/203, 709/218, 709/219, 709/236, 709/240, 709/248, 711/1
• US Class Current: 1/1
• 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 16/275 Synchronous replication
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1095 Replication or mirroring of data, e.g. scheduling or transport for data synchronisation between network nodes
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/966 Distributed
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99952 Coherency, e.g. same view to multiple users
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99954 Version management

Abstract

Example embodiments provide for preserving memory resources by selecting property values to be assigned time-date information used in resolving conflicts between sync values. The property values may be selected based on the available resources of a remote device, e.g., when the time-date information is to be stored in a field of limited space. Further, the property values may be selected based on historical information, such as the most recently or frequently modified values. Other example embodiments also provide for storing an upper and/or lower boundary of time-date information for the remaining property values not selected. For example, the most recently modified property time-date value may be used for the upper boundary and the oldest modified time-date value may be used for the lower boundary.

Claims

1. In a distributed computing system capable of synchronizing data between distributed computing devices including work or home computers and mobile computing devices, a computer program product for implementing a method of preserving memory resources at a smaller computing device including a mobile computing device which has limited physical resources for storing data and thus is incapable of maintaining time-date information for all properties of a data structure item that is to be synchronized with other local computing systems, the computer program product comprising a computer-readable storage medium containing computer executable instructions for implementing the method, and wherein the method is comprised of the acts of receiving at a local computing device a plurality of property values from a remote device with limited physical resources for storing data;

selecting at the local computing device a limited set of property values from among the plurality of property values based on the available resources of the remote device;

identifying at the local computing device a set of time-date information corresponding to the limited set of property values selected;

receiving at the remote device the limited set of property values selected, and then storing the time-date information in one or more unused fields of a remote database of the remote device, the one or more unused fields comprising any property field not reserved for storing time-date information in order take advantage of the unused fields to conserve memory resources at the remote device;

identifying a portion of time-date information for one or more remaining property values that are not in the limited set of property values, and the identified portion of time-date information corresponding to when at least one of the one or more remaining property values where modified by a user; and

storing the identified portion of time-date information in one location in the remote database such that the identified portion of time-date information corresponds to all of the one or more remaining property values.

2. The computing system of claim 1, wherein the one or more remaining property values are represented by a combined representation value.

3. The computing system of claim 2, wherein the combined representation value is a hash of the remaining portion of property values.

4. The computing system of claim 2, wherein the identified portion of time-date information for the one or more remaining property values most recently time-date value, oldest time-date value, or both.

5. The computing system of claim 4, wherein the portion of time-date information for the one or more remaining property values is one or more of a Hexadecimal number of the time-date information, stored down to the seconds, stored down to the minutes or stored in a time zone independent format.

6. The computing system of claim 2, wherein each of the property values in the limited set are stored as a representation of the corresponding property value.

7. The computing system of claim 6, wherein the representation of the corresponding property values are a hash of the corresponding property value.

8. The computing system of claim 1, wherein each of the property values in the limited set are stored as a representation of the corresponding property value.

9. The computing system of claim 8, wherein the representation of the corresponding property values are a hash of the corresponding property value.

10. The computing system of claim 1, wherein the time-date information is one or more of a Hexadecimal number of the time-date information, stored down to the seconds, stored down to the minutes or stored in a time zone independent format.

11. The computing system of claim 1, wherein the available resources is a limited size of a field.

12. The computing system of claim 1, wherein the selection of the limited set of property values is also based on historical information associated with the modification of the plurality of property values.

13. The computing system of claim 12, wherein the historical information is the frequency for which each of the plurality of property values are modified, and wherein the most frequently modified property values are selected.

14. The computing system of claim 12, wherein the historical information is time-date information for the plurality of property values, and wherein the most recently modified property values are selected.

15. In a distributed computing system capable of synchronizing data between distributed computing devices including work or home computers and mobile computing devices, a method of preserving memory resources at the smaller mobile computing device which has limited physical resources for storing data and thus is incapable of maintaining time-date information for all properties of a data structure item that is to be synchronized with other local computing system, the method comprising acts of:

receiving at a local computing device a plurality of property values from a remote device with limited physical resources for storing data;

selecting at the local computing device a limited set of property values from among the plurality of property values based on the available resources of the remote device;

identifying at the local computing device a set of time-date information corresponding to the limited set of the property values, wherein the time-date information is one or more of a Hexadecimal number of the time-date information, stored down to the seconds, stored down to the minutes or stored in a time zone independent format;

receiving at the remote device the limited set of property values selected, and then storing the different portions of time-date information in one or more unused fields of a remote database of the remote device, the one or more unused fields comprising any property field not reserved for storing time-date information in order to take advantage of the unused fields to conserve memory resources at the remote device.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein the selection of the limited set of property values is also based historical information associated with the modification of the plurality of property values.

17. In a distributed computing system capable of synchronizing data between distributed computing devices including work or home computers and mobile computing devices, a computer program product for implementing a method of preserving memory resources at a smaller computing device including a mobile computing device which has limited physical resources for storing data and thus is incapable of maintaining time-date information for all properties of a data structure item that is to be synchronized with other local computing systems, the computer program product comprising a computer-readable storage medium containing computer executable instructions for implementing the method, and wherein the method is comprised of the acts of:

receiving at a local computing device a plurality of property values from a remote device with limited physical resources for storing data;

selecting at the local computing device a limited set of property values from among the plurality of property values based on the available resources of the remote device;

identifying at the local computing device a set of time-date information corresponding to the limited set of property values selected, wherein the time-date information is one or more of a Hexadecimal number of the time-date information, stored down to the seconds, stored down to the minutes or stored in a time zone independent format;

receiving at the remote device the standard URI format for the limited set of property values selected, and then storing the time-date information in one or more unused fields of a remote database of the remote device, the one or more unused fields comprising any property field not reserved for storing time-date information in order to take advantage of the unused fields to conserve memory resources at the remote device.

18. The computing system of claim 17, wherein the selection of the limited set of property values is also based historical information associated with the modification of the plurality of property values.