Contact management in a serverless peer-to-peer system

• US 7,571,228 B2
• Filed: 04/22/2005
• Issued: 08/04/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 04/22/2005
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Rao, Ravi T., Tao, Kevin R., Anirudh, Anirudh, Weisberg, Tomer, Thaler, David G., Parks, Upshur Warren III, Classen, Andre R., Gupta, Rohit
• Primary Examiner(s): Abdullahi; Salad
• Assistant Examiner(s): Mejia; Anthony
• Application Number:
  US11/112,135
• Publication Number:
  US 20060239279A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,565 Days
• Field of Search: 709/208, 709/227, 709/223, 709/218, 709/224, 370/401
• US Class Current: 709/224
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/104 Peer-to-peer [P2P] networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/54 Presence management, e.g. monitoring or registration for receipt of user log-on information, or the connection status of the users

Abstract

Systems and methods are described that facilitate the management of contact information, at least some of the contact information related to entities in a serverless, peer-to-peer system. A contact store may store information regarding which other entities of a plurality of other entities are authorized to monitor presence of a user entity. Presence of an entity may generally indicate the willingness and/or ability of the entity to communicate and/or collaborate with other entities, for example. The contact store may also store information regarding which other entities of the plurality of other entities the presence of which should be monitored by the system. A user entity may be able to add contacts to and/or delete contacts from the contact store, for example. The user entity may also be able to modify the contact store to modify which other entities are authorized to monitor presence of the user entity and/or which other entities the presence information of which should be monitored by the system, for example.

Claims

1. A method for managing contact information for use in a peer-to-peer system, the method comprising:

storing contact information in a contact store on one or more peer computing systems associated with a user entity, the contact store including a plurality of data structures wherein each data structure of the plurality of data structures corresponds to a different other entity of a plurality of other entities, and wherein the content information in the each data structure includes;

a secure unique identifier for the different other entity,

a human readable alias for the different other entity, and

an indication of at least one property of the different other entity, including at least one of an indication of an authorization of the user entity to monitor the at least one property of the different other entity or an indication of an authorization of the different other entity to monitor at least one property of the user entity, wherein;

the at least one property of a given entity includes presence information and at least one of capability information or objects information;

the presence information of the given entity includes a presence state of the given entity corresponding to an ability of the given entity to communicate with another given entity;

the capability information of the given entity includes at least one of;

an indication of a capability of a configuration of a computing system of the given entity to execute a particular software application, an indication of a presence of a particular hardware component on the computing system of the given entity, or a real-time capability of the given entity with respect to a currently executing software application; and

the objects information of the given entity includes at least one of;

a data object, a file, a structure, a picture, a sound, a description, a meta-data, a name-value pair, information specific to the currently executing software application, or real-time information;

modifying the content information in the contact store to indicate a first set of the plurality of other entities to which presence information of the user entity is to be transmitted by the one or more peer computing systems associated with the user entity to peer computing systems associated with the first set of the plurality of other entities; and

modifying the content information in the contact store to indicate a second set of the plurality of other entities to which presence information of the second set of the plurality of other entities is to be received by the one or more peer computing systems associated with the user entity from peer computing systems associated with the second set of the plurality of other entities;

wherein the first set of the plurality of other entities is capable of being different than the second set of the plurality of other entities.

2. A method according to claim 1, further comprising at least one of:

modifying the contact store to add a new data structure for a new other entity;

modifying the contact store to delete an existing data structure corresponding to an existing other entity in the plurality of other entities;

modifying the contact store to modify the contact information in a first data structure corresponding to a first other entity in the plurality of other entities;

retrieving the contact information from a second data structure corresponding to a second other entity in the plurality of other entities;

or

retrieving at least one indication of at least one property of a third other entity, the at least one indication retrieved from the contact information in a third data structure corresponding to the third other entity in the plurality of other entities.

3. A method according to claim 2, wherein modifying the contact store to modify the contact information in the first data structure comprises at least one of:

adding an indication of a new property of the first other entity;

or

deleting an indication of an existing property of the first other entity.

4. A method according to claim 1, further comprising:

receiving information associated with a new other entity in an extensible markup language; and

parsing the information associated with the new other entity;

creating a new data structure in the contact store, the new data structure corresponding to the new other entity; and

storing the parsed information in the new data structure.

5. A method according to claim 1, wherein the contact information in the each data structure corresponding to the different other entity further includes a contact classification of the different other entity and at least one of:

a mailing address, an email address, or a telephone number corresponding to the different other entity.

6. A method according to claim 1, wherein modifying the content information in the contact store to indicate the first or the second set of the plurality of other entities comprises at least one of:

modifying the contact store to add a new data structure for a new other entity;

modifying the contact store to delete an existing data structure corresponding to an existing other entity in the plurality of other entities;

or

modifying the contact store to modify the contact information in one of the data structures corresponding to one of the other entities in the plurality of other entities.

7. A method according to claim 6, further comprising generating an indicator of a modification of the contact store in response to at least one of modifying the contact store to add the new data structure, modifying the contact store to delete the existing data structure, or modifying the contact store to modify the contact information in the one of the data structures.

8. A method according to claim 1, further comprising storing in the contact store a data structure for the user entity.

9. A method according to claim 8, further comprising referencing the data structure for the user entity using a NULL value.

10. A method according to claim 1, wherein the indication of the authorization of the different other entity to monitor the at least one property of the user entity comprises at least one of:

an indication that the different other entity is awaiting permission to monitor the at least one property of the user entity;

an indication that the different other entity is prohibited from monitoring the at least one property of the user entity;

an indication that the different other entity is allowed to monitor the at least one property of the user entity,

an indication that the different other entity is allowed to monitor the at least one property of the user entity based on a value, the value comprising a time period;

or

an indication of an authorization of a category of other entities to monitor the at least one property of the user entity, the category of other entities including the different other entity.

11. A method according to claim 1, further comprising storing the contact information on at least two peer computing systems associated with the user entity.

12. A method according to claim 1, wherein the indication of the authorization of the user entity to monitor the at least one property of the different other entity comprises an indication of an authorization of the user entity to monitor a category of other entities, the category of other entities including the different other entity.

13. A peer computing system comprising:

a contact store to store contact information at a user entity associated with the peer computing system, the contact store including a plurality of data structures, wherein each of the plurality of data structures corresponds to a different other entity and includes;

a secure unique identifier for the different other entity,

a human readable alias for the different other entity, and

an indication of at least one property of the different other entity, including at least one of an indication of an authorization of the user entity to monitor the at least one property of the different other entity or an indication of an authorization of the different other entity to monitor at least one property of the user entity, wherein;

the at least one property of a given entity includes presence information and at least one of capability information or objects information;

the presence information of the given entity includes a presence state of the given entity corresponding to an ability of the given entity to communicate with another given entity;

the capability information of the given entity includes at least one of;

an indication of a capability of a configuration of a computing system of the given entity to execute a particular software application, an indication of a presence of a particular hardware component on the computing system of the given entity, or a real-time capability of the given entity with respect to a currently executing software application; and

the objects information of the given entity includes at least one of;

a data object, a file, a structure, a picture, a sound, a description, a meta-data, a name-value pair, information specific to the currently executing software application, or real-time information;

a contact manager coupled to the contact store and enabling an application to read or modify the contact information via a set of application program interfaces (APIs), the set of application program interfaces including an add contact API, a delete contact API, an update contact API, a get contact API, an export contact API, an enumerate contacts API, and a get contact from XML data API; and

a presence system coupled to the contact manager, a presence store, a capabilities store and an objects store, the presence system configured to transmit the at least one property of the user entity to peer computing systems associated with a first set of other entities authorized to monitor the at least one property of the user entity, and configured to request, receive and store from peer computing systems associated with the second set of other entities monitored by the user entity the at least one property of each member of the second set of other entities.

14. A peer computing system according to claim 13, further comprising an authentication system coupled to the contact store to authenticate information received from the different other entity based on information in the contact store.