Applying an action on a data item according to a classification and a data management policy

• US 8,805,779 B2
• Filed: 08/14/2012
• Issued: 08/12/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 08/14/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Longsand Limited (Open Text Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Longsand Limited (Open Text Corporation)
• Inventors: Ficara, Joseph S., Stabile, Lawrence A., Asher, David J., Kaufman, Mark A., LeBlanc, Jacob T., West, Jeffrey L., Boucher, Michael R.
• Primary Examiner(s): Beausoliel, Jr., Robert
• Assistant Examiner(s): ALLEN, NICHOLAS E
• Application Number:
  US13/584,886
• Publication Number:
  US 20140052689A1
• Time in Patent Office: 728 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 707/610
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/178 Techniques for file synchronisation in file systems

Abstract

A classifier classifies data to identify a class of the data. Based on the identified class, at least one action to apply to the given data item is determined according to the data management policy, where the data management policy specifies a plurality of actions to apply for different classes of data items.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

receiving, by a particular electronic device of a private cloud of electronic devices belonging to a user, a given data item;

classifying, by the particular electronic device, the given data item to determine a class of the given data item;

based on the classifying, determining, by the particular electronic device, at least one action to apply to the given data item according to a predetermined data management policy specifying a plurality of actions to apply for different classes of data items, the actions including synchronizing a data item with another electronic device of the private cloud, placing a hold on a data item, and sharing a data item among users;

applying, by the particular electronic device, deduplication on the given data item to determine a first portion of the given data item that is already available at a server, and a second portion that is not already available at the server; and

sending, by the particular electronic device, the second portion of the given data item to the server for handling, without sending the first portion, wherein the handling includes applying, by the server, classification of the given data item at a deeper level based on content of the given data item not considered by the classifying by the particular electronic device, and based on the classification at the deeper level, the server determining at least one further action to apply to the given data item according to a predetermined data management policy at the server.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the plurality of actions further include backing up a data item to a remote storage location or archiving a data item based on a characteristic of the data item.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the plurality of actions further include stubbing a data item by removing the data item from the particular electronic device, storing the removed data item at a remote storage location, and adding a link to the removed data item at the particular electronic device.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the plurality of actions further include deleting a data item according to a data retention criterion.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the plurality of actions further include compressing a data item and encrypting a data item.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the predetermined data management policy that specifies the plurality of actions further specifies performance of an ancillary action that is in addition to the at least one action applied to the given data, and wherein the method further comprises:

performing the ancillary action based on the classifying.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the at least one action includes synchronizing the given data item by the particular electronic device with the at least another electronic device, the particular electronic device and the at least another electronic device belonging to the user.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the plurality of actions are applied by invoking respective functional features in the particular electronic device, and wherein the applied at least one action includes deciding to skip invoking any of the functional features based on the classifying and according to the predetermined data management policy.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

performing restoration of data items at the particular electronic device, wherein the restoration includes first restoring a subset of the data items and restoring stubs corresponding to a remainder of the data items,

wherein the restoration further includes gradually restoring the remainder of the data items corresponding to the stubs after first restoring the subset of the data items.

10. An article comprising at least one non-transitory machine-readable storage medium storing instructions that upon execution cause a server to:

receive data from an electronic device;

apply classification, by a classifier, on the data to identify a class of the data, wherein the applied classification at the server is different from data classification on the data performed at the electronic device; and

based on the classification, determine at least one action to apply to the data according to a predetermined data management policy, where the predetermined data management policy specifies a plurality of actions to apply for different classes of data, the plurality of actions including synchronizing data among electronic devices in a private cloud, and sharing data among users.

11. The article of claim 10, wherein the received data is partial data due to deduplication applied at the electronic device, and wherein the instructions upon execution cause the server to further:

recreate a data item from the partial data,

wherein applying the classification on the data comprises applying the classification on the data item, and wherein the classification on the data item is based on content of the data item not considered by the data classification of the data item performed at the electronic device.

12. The article of claim 10, wherein the instructions upon execution cause the server to perform a classification-enriched search in response to a search request and according to the classification by the classifier.

13. The article of claim 12, wherein the instructions upon execution cause the server to interact with a legal discovery tool that manages data items for litigation.

14. The article of claim 10, wherein the plurality of actions further include compressing the received data, where the compressing selectively uses one of multiple compression approaches, the selecting based on content of the received data and a resource utilization goal.

15. The article of claim 10, wherein the classification applied at the server allows re-processing of the data for performing classification in a scenario where classification was skipped at the electronic device, or in a scenario where a classification technique has been updated since a classification performed on the data at the electronic device.

16. The article of claim 10, wherein the electronic devices in the private cloud belong to an individual user.

17. A server comprising:

a storage medium to store a data management policy;

at least one processor to receive data from an electronic device;

a classifier executable on the at least one processor to classify a given data item derived from the received data to identify a class of the given data item, wherein the classifying is a deeper classification of the given data item than a classification of the given data item performed at the electronic device, the deeper classification considering content of the given data item not considered by the classification of the given data item performed at the electronic device; and

a data manager executable on the at least one processor to;

based on the identified class, determine at least one action to apply to the given data item according to the data management policy, where the data management policy specifies a plurality of actions to apply for different classes of data items, the plurality of actions including synchronizing a data item with at least another electronic device in a private cloud of a user, backing up a data item, and sharing a data item among users.

18. The server of claim 17, further comprising a plurality of functional features invocable by the data manager, where the selected at least one action includes invocation of at least one of the plurality of functional features, or a decision to skip invocation of the functional features.

19. The server of claim 17, wherein the received data is partial data due to deduplication at the electronic device, and the server further comprises a data replication module to recreate the given data item from the partial data.