SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR RESOLVING SYNCHRONIZATION CONFLICTS

• US 20140095734A1
• Filed: 09/30/2013
• Published: 04/03/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 10/02/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Razer (Asia-Pacific) Pte. Ltd. (Razer Incorporated)
• Original Assignee: Nextbit Systems, Inc. (Razer Incorporated)
• Inventors: Chan, Michael A., Tong, Linda
• Granted Patent: US 10,540,368 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/248
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/125 characterised by the use of retention policies retention policies for HSM systems G06F16/185
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/174 Redundancy elimination performed by the file system management of the data involved in backup or backup restore using de-duplication of the data G06F11/14
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/20 of structured data, e.g. relational data
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/27 Replication, distribution or synchronisation of data between databases or within a distributed database system; Distributed database system architectures therefor
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/273 Asynchronous replication or reconciliation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/275 Synchronous replication
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/278 Data partitioning, e.g. horizontal or vertical partitioning
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/93 Document management systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5038 considering the execution order of a plurality of tasks, e.g. taking priority or time dependency constraints into consideration scheduling strategies G06F9/4881 and subgroups
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 7/26 at least one of which is mobile
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/06 specially adapted for file transfer, e.g. file transfer protocol [FTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1095 Replication or mirroring of data, e.g. scheduling or transport for data synchronisation between network nodes
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1097 for distributed storage of data in networks, e.g. transport arrangements for network file system [NFS], storage area networks [SAN] or network attached storage [NAS]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/55 Push-based network services
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/568 Storing data temporarily at an intermediate stage, e.g. caching
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/72412 using two-way short-range wireless interfaces
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2250/10 including a GPS signal receiver
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2250/12 including a sensor for measuring a physical value, e.g. temperature or motion telephones including GPS signal receivers H04M2250/10
• CPC Class Codes: Y02D 10/00 Energy efficient computing, e.g. low power processors, power management or thermal management

Abstract

Technology is disclosed herein for resolving synchronization conflicts. According to at least one embodiment, multiple computing devices in a synchronization group can communicate with a cloud storage service for data synchronization. The cloud storage service determines a ranking list for the synchronization group based on a user input indicating the priority of a new computing device in a ranking list. When two conflicting updates to a data set are received from two computing devices, the cloud storage service determines a winning update from the two conflicting updates based on priorities of the first and second computing devices in a ranking list, and distributes the winning update to the computing devices to override the other conflicting update.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method comprising:

receiving, at a server from a new computing device, a signal indicating that a user adds the new computing device to a synchronization group including one or more computing devices for the user;

sending, from the server to the new computing device, an instruction to present a user interface to prompt the user to decide a priority of the new computing device in a ranking list for the synchronization group;

determining, at a server, the ranking list for the synchronization group based on user inputs in response to the user interface;

receiving, at the server from a first computing device of the synchronization group, a first update to a data set;

concurrently receiving, at the server from a second computing device of the synchronization group, a second update to the data set;

determining from the ranking list that the first computing device has a priority higher than a priority of the second computing device; and

automatically applying the first update to the data set without user intervention.

2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the step of sending an instruction comprises:

sending, from the server to a computing device of the synchronization group, an instruction to present a user interface to prompt the user to decide the ranking list, in response to a signal indicating that the synchronization group is created.

3. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising:

sending, from the server to the first computing device, a confirmation that the first update has been applied to the data set.

4. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising:

sending, from the server to the second computing device, an instruction including the first update to the data set to prompt the second computing device to override the second update with the first update applied to a local copy of the data set stored in the second computing device.

5. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the ranking list defines an order determining which computing device of the synchronization group of the computing devices wins in an event of data conflict.

6. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the synchronization group identifies the computing devices for the user that have the same view for the data set.

7. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving, at a server from a computing device of the synchronization group, a signal indicating that a user removes the computing device from the synchronization group; and

updating, at a server, the ranking list for the synchronization group to remove the computing device from the ranking list.

8. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 wherein the signal indicating that the user adds the new computing device to the synchronization group is generated in response to an event of the user logging on the new computing device.

9. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising:

ignoring the second update to the data set.

10. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the data set includes a file or a data structure of metadata.

11. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the ranking list defines priorities of the computing devices of the synchronization group for applying updates to the data set.

12. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the ranking list defines priorities of the computing devices of the synchronization group for applying updates to data of an application configured to run on one or more of the computing devices of the synchronization group.

13. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the ranking list defines priorities of the computing devices of the synchronization group for applying updates to data stored in the computing devices of the synchronization group.

14. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the first and second updates to the data set includes a change of data in the data set, a change of metadata of the data set, a deletion of the data set, or a creation of the data set.

15. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the concurrently receiving comprises:

receiving, at the server from a second computing device of the synchronization group, a second update to the data set before the first update is applied to the data set.

16. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the automatically applying comprises:

if the second update has been applied already to the data set, undoing the application of the second update to the data set and applying the first update to the data set.

17. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising:

removing a priority of a computing device from the ranking list after the computing device has not interacted with the server for a predetermined time period.

18. A computing device comprising:

a storage component configured to store a data set;

an output component configured to present a user interface to prompt a user to decide a priority of the computing device in a ranking list for a synchronization group, wherein the synchronization group includes one or more computing devices for the user;

a network component configured to send a message indicating the user'"'"'s decision to the server;

the network component further configured to send a first update of the data set to the server;

the network component further configured to receive from the server a second update of the data set, wherein the second update has been generated by a second computing device having a priority higher than the priority of other computing devices in the ranking list; and

a processor configured to apply the second update to the data set stored in the storage component.

19. The computing device of claim 18, wherein the output component is configured to present the user interface when the user logs into the computing device for the first time, or when the computing device installs a user account for the user.

20. The computing device of claim 18, wherein the data set are stored in the computing device and the second computing device, and the first update and the second updates of the data set are sent to the server concurrently.

21. The computing device of claim 18, wherein the second update is determined by the server as a winning update to the data set based on the priorities of the computing device and the second computing device in the ranking list.

22. The computing device of claim 18, wherein the processor is configured to override the first update with the second update and automatically apply the second update to the data set stored in the storage component without user intervention.

23. A system for resolving synchronization conflicts, comprising:

a network component configured to communicate with one or more computing devices belonging to a synchronization group;

a processor; and

a memory storing instructions which, when executed by the processor, cause the system to perform a process including;

determining a ranking list for the synchronization group based on a user input indicating a priority of a new computing device in the ranking list;

receiving two conflicting updates to a data set from a first computing device and a second computing device respectively, wherein the first computing device and the second computing device belong to the synchronization group;

determining a winning update from the two conflicting updates based on the priorities of the first and second computing devices in the ranking list; and

applying the winning update by sending the winning update to at least one of the computing devices of the synchronization group.

24. The system of claim 23, wherein the user input is collected from the new computing device when the new computing device joins the synchronization group.

25. The system of claim 23, wherein the new computing device joins the synchronization group when the user logs into the computing device for the first time, or when the computing device installs a user account for the user.