System and method for URL virtualization and mapping

• US 7,536,391 B2
• Filed: 05/20/2005
• Issued: 05/19/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 05/20/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Krabach, Todd, Christian, Brian S.
• Primary Examiner(s): Wong; Leslie
• Application Number:
  US11/133,319
• Publication Number:
  US 20060265345A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,460 Days
• Field of Search: 707/10, 707/101, 707/104.1, 707/E17.92, 707/E17.112, 709/203, 709/219
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9538 Presentation of query results
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99942 Manipulating data structure, e.g. compression, compaction, compilation

Abstract

A system and method are provided for URL virtualization. The system and method for URL virtualization provide a contextually relevant URL to a requesting agent. The system may include a browser parameter determination mechanism for matching incoming request header parameters with stored information indicative of a content version and a URL lookup mechanism for locating a contextual URL mapping to a non-contextual URL that leads to the requested content version. The system may additionally include navigation controls for navigating to the requested content version using the non-contextual URL and display controls for displaying the contextual URL to the requesting agent.

Claims

1. A method for URL virtualization to provide a contextually relevant URL to a requesting agent, the method comprising:

receiving a request from the requesting agent, wherein the request includes a non-contextual URL;

accessing a URL storage area to determine that the non-contextual URL maps to a contextual URL, wherein the contextual URL is more contextually relevant and more human-readable than the non-contextual URL;

determining whether the contextual URL is a server-side transfer or a server-side redirect, wherein in a server-side redirect at least one of the non-contextual URL and contextual URL is mapped to an alternative URL;

if the contextual URL is a server-side transfer, sending the content to the user browser for display and sending the contextual URL to the user browser for display in the user browser'"'"'s address bar; and

if the contextual URL is a server-side redirect, sending the content to the user browser for display and sending the alternative URL for display in the user browser'"'"'s address bar.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising reading request header parameters to determine a requested content version appropriate to the requesting agent.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising determining a request type and bypassing the virtualization if the request is of a pre-selected type.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising searching for the corresponding contextual URL in a database system.

5. The method of claim 4, further comprising searching for an additional attribute corresponding to the contextual URL.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the additional attribute comprises one of a redirect attribute and a transfer attribute.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the contextual URL comprises a URL that references a directory.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising providing the contextual URL without storing an associated physical file.

9. A method for URL virtualization to provide a contextually relevant URL to a requesting agent, the method comprising:

receiving a request for content hosted by a target server from the requesting agent, wherein the request includes a non-contextual URL;

reading request header parameters in order to select a version of the requested content;

accessing a URL storage area to determine that the non-contextual URL maps to a contextual URL, wherein the contextual URL is more contextually relevant and more human-readable than the non-contextual URL and wherein the URL storage area comprises a lookup table for matching the contextual URL to be supplied instead of the non-contextual URL;

determining whether the contextual URL is a server-side transfer or a server-side redirect, wherein in a server-side redirect at least one of the non-contextual URL and contextual URL is mapped to an alternative URL;

if the contextual URL is a server-side transfer, sending the content to the user browser for display and sending the contextual URL to the user browser for display in the user browser'"'"'s address bar; and

if the contextual URL is a server-side redirect, sending the content to the user browser for display and sending the alternative URL for display in the user browser'"'"'s address bar.

10. The method of claim 9, further comprising searching for the corresponding contextual URL in a database system.

11. The method of claim 9, wherein the contextual URL comprises a URL that references a directory.

12. The method of claim 9, further comprising providing the contextual URL without storing an associated physical file.

13. A system embodied on a computer readable storage medium for URL virtualization that provides a contextually relevant URL to a requesting agent, the system comprising:

a browser parameter determination mechanism for matching incoming request header parameters with a version of content, wherein the incoming request header parameters are indicative of a type of requesting agent and wherein the version of content is specific to the type of requesting agent;

a URL lookup mechanism for accessing a URL storage area to determine whether a contextual URL exists for a non-contextual URL received from the requesting agent, wherein the contextual URL provides a human-readable description of the contents of the requested content version, wherein the URL storage area comprises a lookup table for matching the non-contextual URL to the contextual URL, and wherein the URL lookup mechanism inspects the lookup table to determine whether the contextual URL is a server-side redirect or a server-side transfer;

a redirect path control to redirect the requesting agent to a new URL; and

a transfer path control to execute the non-contextual URL while the contextual URL is provided for display.

14. The system of claim 13, further comprising a database for storing the contextual URL that maps to the non-contextual URL.

15. The system of claim 14, wherein the database additionally stores attributes corresponding to the contextual URL.

16. The system of claim 15, wherein the additional attribute comprises one of a redirect attribute and a transfer attribute.

17. The system of claim 13, wherein the contextual URL comprises a URL that references a directory.

18. The system of claim 13, further comprising a physical content file corresponding to the non-contextual URL and a mapping between the contextual URL and non-contextual URL without an additional physical content file.