Backup and archival of selected items as a composite object

• US 9,594,759 B2
• Filed: 06/16/2009
• Issued: 03/14/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 06/16/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Inventors: Simard, Patrice Y., Murphy, Elissa E.S., Virk, Navjot, Jain, Kamal, Dickson, Mathew J.
• Primary Examiner(s): KUDDUS, DANIEL A
• Application Number:
  US12/485,328
• Publication Number:
  US 20100318500A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,828 Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1451 by selection of backup contents
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/113 Details of archiving lifecycle management in storage systems G06F3/0649; backup systems G06F11/1446

Abstract

An archive of items, which are computing data accessed by a user, is created at a semantic object level. The object archiving may group seemingly disparate items as a composite object, which may then be stored to enable retrieval by the user at a later point in time. The composite object may include metadata from the various items to enable identifying the composite object and providing retrieval capabilities. In some aspects, an archiving process may extract item data from an item that is accessed by a computing device. Next, the item may be selected by a schema for inclusion in a composite object when the item data meets criteria specified in the schema. The composite object(s) may then be stored in an object store as an archive.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method of archiving a composite object, the method comprising:

monitoring, by one or more processors of one or more computing devices, interactions by a user with an application to identify content associated with the interactions by the user with the application;

identifying, by the one or more processors of the one or more computing devices and based on the monitoring, an item to be archived, the item comprising at least a portion of the content associated with the interactions by the user with the application and being related to one or both of an email event or a calendar;

analyzing, by the one or more processors, the item based on a schema to determine whether the item has a semantic association with an other item, the item and the other item being results of a series of related computing activities that are user-initiated, and the schema including a set of instructions to identify items for archival;

determining that the item has a semantic association with the other item in the composite object based on the set of instructions and characteristics of data associated with the item;

associating the item with the other item in the composite object based on machine learning, preferences of other users, or heuristics;

modifying, by the one or more processors, content of the composite object to archive the item;

generating, by the one or more processors, a name for the item using one or both of the metadata of the item or attributes of the item; and

transmitting, by the one or more processors, the item in the composite object to a storage device for storage in a composite object archive, the item and the other item being stored together on the storage device as the composite object.

2. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the storage device is included in an object store having a policy engine, the policy engine to schematize the composite object for retrieval.

3. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the schema further packages items in the composite object prior to transmission to the storage device.

4. The method as recited in claim 1, further comprising populating metadata of the composite object with the metadata from the item.

5. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the analyzing the item includes matching metadata of the items to metadata in the schema to identify matching metadata, and determining based on the matching metadata that the item is to be included in the composite object.

6. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the application comprises at least one of an email application, a calendar application, a web-browser, or a video player.

7. A computer-implemented system comprising:

one or more processors;

memory to store computer readable instructions executable by the one or more processors;

a schema agent stored in the memory and configured to;

monitor computing actions that are user-initiated to identify items based on a set of instructions, wherein the items are related to on one or both of an email event or a calendar event;

determine that the items have a semantic association with each other;

designate the items for storage together as a composite object based on machine learning, preferences of other users, or heuristics; and

migrate metadata of the items to the composite object to identify the composite object for retrieval, the retrieval of the composite object including retrieval of the items stored as the composite object; and

a snapshot manager stored in the memory and configured to;

obtain a screenshot of at least one item of the items for storage in the composite object, wherein the at least one item comprises content accessed by a user; and

designate the screenshot as an item for archival with the items as the composite object.

8. The system as recited in claim 7, wherein the at least one item of the screenshot includes a website data item located remote from the memory.

9. The system as recited in claim 7, wherein the memory further stores a policy engine configured to:

designate a storage type of each of the items in the composite object; and

store the composite object for retrieval at a later point in time.

10. The system as recited in claim 7, wherein an originating storage location of one of the items is different than an originating storage location of another of the items.

11. The system as recited in claim 7, further comprising:

a policy engine stored in the memory and configured to store the composite object in an object store that is located remote from the computer-implemented system.

12. The system as recited in claim 7, wherein the memory stores a user interface module configured to cause a display of the stored composite object using a substantially chronological feed that lists one or more of the items in the composite object.

13. One or more computer-readable storage devices storing computer-executable instructions configured to be executed on one or more processors to cause the one or more processors to perform acts comprising:

monitoring interactions by a user with an application operating on a computing device to identify items associated with the interactions by the user with the application;

identifying an item of the items to be stored, the item related to on one or both of an email event or a calendar event;

extracting item data from the item, the item data including one or both of metadata or attributes of the item;

identifying, based on the item data matching item data of a schema, the item as having a semantic association with one or more other items of a pre-existing composite object, the schema using a machine learning based approach, preferences of other users, or heuristics to identify items for archival; and

storing the item together with the one or more other items of the pre-existing composite object in a storage media based on a storage policy.

14. The one or more computer-readable storage devices as recited in claim 13, wherein the acts further comprise replacing a redundant item in the storage media with a pointer mapped to a duplicate copy of the item.

15. The one or more computer-readable storage devices as recited in claim 13, wherein the schema includes instructions that are generated via an ontological analysis of item groupings from other users that interact with items of a same type as the item.

16. The one or more computer-readable storage devices as recited in claim 13, wherein the acts further comprise creating an identifier for the item using the item data.

17. The one or more computer-readable storage devices as recited in claim 13, wherein the acts further comprise indexing the pre-existing composite object with the item data to identify the composite object for retrieval.

18. The one or more computer-readable storage devices as recited in claim 13, wherein the computer-readable media is stored on a client computing device and the computer-executable instructions are executed locally to store the pre-existing composite object in local memory.