System and methods for asynchronous synchronization

• US 7,752,166 B2
• Filed: 11/15/2002
• Issued: 07/06/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 11/15/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Malikie Innovations Limited (Key Patent Innovations Limited)
• Original Assignee: Good Technology Corporation (Blackberry Limited)
• Inventors: Mendez, Daniel J., Ardulov, Yuri, Joshi, Rajiv, Quinlan, Sean
• Primary Examiner(s): Pannala; Sathyanarayan
• Application Number:
  US10/295,702
• Publication Number:
  US 20030130984A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,790 Days
• Field of Search: 707/204, 709/201, 705/59
• US Class Current: 707/613
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/273 Asynchronous replication or reconciliation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/52 Program synchronisation; Mutual exclusion, e.g. by means of semaphores
• 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: Y10S 707/99955 Archiving or backup

Abstract

Aspects of the invention provide for information to be synchronized in an asynchronous manner among two or more computing devices.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

receiving, by a first computing device, a first triggering event;

responding to the first triggering event, by the first computing device, by determining whether a modification has been made to first device data of the first computing device; and

transferring, to temporary storage in a routing system, a modification indicator identifying the modification to the first device data, when the modification is determined to have been made;

initializing a first queue for receiving first device modification indicators from the first computing device and transferring the first device modification indicators to the second device; and

initializing a second queue for receiving second device modification indicators from the second computing device and transferring the second device modification indicators to the first device,

wherein data relating to the modification indicator is received by a second computing device from the temporary storage and synchronized with second device data of the second computing device in response to an asynchronously triggering second device trigger, and the temporary storage comprises a storage device accessible by the first computing device and the second computing device.

2. A method according to claim 1, wherein at least one of the first computing device and the second computing device is selected from a group including a personal computer, a PDA, a PIM and a cell phone.

3. A method according to claim 1, wherein the first triggering event comprises a modification to the first device data.

4. A method according to claim 1, wherein the modification indicator comprises a synchronization message.

5. A method according to claim 4, wherein the synchronization message comprises modified data corresponding to the modification.

6. A method according to claim 4, wherein the synchronization message comprises at least one of a first version indicator indicating a first computing device version of the first device data and a second version indicator indicating a second computing device version of the second device data.

7. A method according to claim 1, wherein the routing system comprises a network server to which the first computing device and the second computing device are coupleable via a network.

8. A method according to claim 7, wherein the network comprises the Internet.

9. The method according to claim 1, wherein the modification indicator identifies only a subset of first device data corresponding to a modification session.

10. The method according to claim 5, wherein the synchronization message separately includes specific commands with respect to the modified data and modification indicator, a receiving device processing specific modifications of the modified data in accordance with the specific commands.

11. A synchronization system, comprising:

means for receiving, by a first computing device, a first triggering event;

means for responding to the first triggering event, by the first computing device, by determining whether a modification has been made to first device data of the first computing device; and

means for transferring, to temporary storage in a routing system, a modification indicator identifying the modification to the first device data, when the modification is determined to have been made;

means for initializing a first queue for receiving first device modification indicators from the first computing device and transferring the first device modification indicators to the second device; and

means for initializing a second queue for receiving second device modification indicators from the second computing device and transferring the second device modification indicators to the first device,

wherein data relating to the modification is capable of being received by a second computing device from the temporary storage and synchronized with second device data of the second device in response to an asynchronously triggering second device trigger, and the temporary storage comprises a storage device accessible by the first computing device and the second computing device.

12. The method according to claim 11, wherein the modification indicator identifies only a subset of first device data corresponding to a modification session.

13. A method, comprising:

receiving, by a first user device, a first triggering event;

responding to the first triggering event, by the first user device, by determining whether a modification has been made to a data element of the first user device;

transferring to temporary storage in a routing system a modification indicator identifying the modification to the data element of the first device data;

initializing a first queue for receiving first device modification indicators from the first computing device and transferring the first device modification indicators to the second device; and

initializing a second queue for receiving second device modification indicators from the second computing device and transferring the second device modification indicators to the first device;

receiving, by a second user device, a second triggering event, the second triggering event being time-independent of the first triggering event; and

responding to the second triggering event, by the second user device, by receiving the modification indicator from the temporary storage and synchronizing the modification with data stored on the second user device,

wherein the temporary storage comprises a storage device accessible by the first computing device and the second computing device.

14. The method according to claim 13, wherein the synchronization message separately includes specific commands with respect to the modified data and modification indicator, a receiving device processing specific modifications of the modified data in accordance with the specific commands.

15. A computer-readable storage medium storing computer-readable instructions thereon, the computer readable instructions when executed by a computer cause the computer to perform a method comprising:

receiving by a first computing device, a first triggering event;

responding to the first triggering event, by the first computing device, by determining whether a modification has been made to first device data of the first computing device; and

transferring, to temporary storage in a routing system, a modification indicator identifying to the data element of the first device data, when the modification is determined to have been made;

initializing a first queue for receiving first device modification indicators from the first computing device and transferring the first device modification indicators to the second device; and

initializing a second queue for receiving second device modification indicators from the second computing device and transferring the second device modification indicators to the first device,

wherein data relating to the modification is capable of being received by a second computing device from the temporary storage and synchronized with second service data of the second device in response to an asynchronously triggering second device trigger, and the temporary storage comprises a storage device accessible by the first computing device and the second computing device.