Scalable computing system for managing annotations

• US 20060212795A1
• Filed: 05/01/2006
• Published: 09/21/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 06/24/1999
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. (HP Inc.), Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Cottrille, Scott C., Halim, Antony, Yaacovi, Yoram
• Granted Patent: US 8,078,958 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/205
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/169 Annotation, e.g. comment data or footnotes

Abstract

A scalable computing system for managing annotations is capable of handling requests for annotations to millions of documents a day. The computing system consists of multiple tiers of servers. A tier I server indicates whether there are annotations associated with a content source. A tier II server indexes the annotations. A tier III server stores the body of the annotation.

Claims

1. A computing system for managing annotations, the computing system comprising:

a tier III server to store data for the annotations;

a tier II server to maintain an index of the data for the annotations stored on the tier III server; and

a tier I server to determine if a content source has data indexed by the tier II server.

2. The computing system of claim 1, wherein the tier II server further stores a plurality of generic properties for the annotations.

3. The computing system of claim 1, wherein the tier III server further stores one or more type specific properties for the annotations.

4. The computing system of claim 1, wherein the tier I server comprises a plurality of servers.

5. The computing system of claim 1, wherein the tier II server comprises a plurality of servers.

6. The computing system of claim 1, wherein the tier III server comprises a plurality of servers.

7. The computing system of claim 1, wherein the tier III server further stores client software to allow a user to view a type of annotation.

8. The computing system of claim 1, wherein the content source is identified by a document identifier.

9. The computing system of claim 8, wherein the document identifier is selected from the group consisting of:

a directory path, a uniform resource locator, and a file name.

10. A computerized method of posting an annotation, the method comprising:

sending an annotation post from a client to a tier III server;

storing a portion of the annotation on the tier III server;

sending a second portion of the annotation from the tier III server to a tier II server;

storing the second portion of the annotation on the tier II server;

sending association information from the tier II server to a tier I server; and

storing the association information on the tier I server.

11. The computerized method of claim 10, wherein the acts are performed in the order listed.

12. The computerized method of claim 10, further comprising notifying the client of a successful post to the tier III server.

13. The computerized method of claim 12, wherein notifying the client occurs prior to sending the second portion of the annotation to the tier II server.

14. The computerized method of claim 12, further comprising notifying the tier III server of a successful post to the tier II server.

15. The computerized method of claim 14, further comprising notifying the tier II server of a successful post to the tier I server.

16. The computerized method of claim 15, wherein sending the annotation post from the client to the tier III server comprises sending a URL for the tier I server, a URL for the tier II server, a URL for the tier III server, a context document identifier, type specific annotation properties, generic annotation properties, and an annotation body.

17. The computerized method of claim 16, wherein storing a portion of the annotation on the tier III server comprises storing the annotation body and the type specific annotation properties.

18. The computerized method of claim 17, further comprising generating a unique identifier for the annotation body and type specific annotation properties stored on the tier III server.

19. The computerized method of claim 18, wherein sending a second portion of the annotation to the tier II server comprises sending a URL for the tier I server, a URL for the tier II server, a URL for the tier III server, a context document identifier, generic annotation properties, and the unique identifier.

20. The computerized method of claim 19, wherein storing the second portion of the annotation on the tier II server comprises storing the generic annotation properties, the URL for the tier III server, and the unique identifier.