DIRECTORY SERVER VIEWS

• US 20070005636A1
• Filed: 06/30/2006
• Published: 01/04/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 01/16/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Meta Platforms, Inc. (f/k/a Facebook, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: AOL LLC (Apollo Global Management, Inc.)
• Inventors: ROWLEY, PETE
• Granted Patent: US 7,536,411 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/2246 Trees, e.g. B+trees
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/10 in which an application is distributed across nodes in the network software deployment G06F8/60; multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/46
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/956 Hierarchical
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99932 Access augmentation or optimizing
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99935 Query augmenting and refining, e.g. inexact access
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99938 Concurrency, e.g. lock management in shared database
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99943 Generating database or data structure, e.g. via user interface

Abstract

The invention provides directory views for a directory server to facilitate navigating entries hierarchically without requiring physical existence of the entry in any particular place. The entries are put into the directory views hierarchy using information about the entries. Given a set of views, a user can navigate using one of the views which is most appropriate to get to the entries that are required. Search of views in a directory server can be performed by a filter rewriting process.

Claims

1. In a directory server containing heterogeneous directory entries, a method of hierarchically navigating said entries comprising the steps of:

creating one or more directory views;

organizing said directory views into a hierarchy using information concerning said entries; and

using one of said directory views that is most appropriate for navigating to said entries.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein said entries do not need to be physically in any particular place.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein said directory server may have a flat directory information tree.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the existence of said directory views is transparent to a client of said directory server and said client is not required to have special knowledge of said directory views to use them.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein each of said directory views begins with an ordinary entry.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein each of said directory views belongs to a specific object class that contains a filter attribute, said filter attribute containing a filter that describes said views.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein said filter attribute is omitted from said views to facilitate a hierarchical directory structure.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein each of said directory views comprises sub-views which provide a subset of said views.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein said sub-views comprises different subject domains from said directory views.