Contact management in a serverless peer-to-peer system

• US 7,814,214 B2
• Filed: 06/12/2009
• Issued: 10/12/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 04/22/2005
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Rao, Ravi T., Tao, Kevin R., Anirudh, Anirudh, Weisberg, Tomer, Thaler, David G., Parks, Upshur Warren III, Classen, Andre R., Gupta, Rohit
• Primary Examiner(s): Follansbee; John
• Assistant Examiner(s): Mejia; Anthony
• Application Number:
  US12/483,507
• Publication Number:
  US 20090248868A1
• Time in Patent Office: 487 Days
• Field of Search: 709/224, 709/218, 370/401
• US Class Current: 709/227
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/104 Peer-to-peer [P2P] networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/54 Presence management, e.g. monitoring or registration for receipt of user log-on information, or the connection status of the users

Abstract

Systems and methods are described that facilitate the management of contact information, at least some of the contact information related to entities in a serverless, peer-to-peer system. A contact store may store information regarding which other entities of a plurality of other entities are authorized to monitor presence of a user entity. Presence of an entity may generally indicate the willingness and/or ability of the entity to communicate and/or collaborate with other entities, for example. The contact store may also store information regarding which other entities of the plurality of other entities the presence of which should be monitored by the system. A user entity may be able to add contacts to and/or delete contacts from the contact store, for example. The user entity may also be able to modify the contact store to modify which other entities are authorized to monitor presence of the user entity and/or which other entities the presence information of which should be monitored by the system, for example.

Claims

1. A method for managing contact information for use in a peer-to-peer system, the method comprising, at one or more peer computing systems associated with a user entity:

determining one or more endpoints of each of a plurality of other entities;

storing, in a presence store on the one or more peer computing systems associated with the user entity, presence information associated with each of the plurality of other entities, the presence information including a human readable alias of the one or more endpoints and at least one of an address or a port number of the one or more endpoints;

providing a set of presence application program interfaces (APIs) to access the stored presence information, the set of presence application program interfaces including;

a get endpoint information API, a get name API, a set name API, a get addresses API, and a get presence information API;

storing, in a capabilities store on the one or more computing systems associated with the user entity, capabilities information associated with each of the plurality of other entities,

providing a set of capabilities APIs to access the stored capabilities information, the set of capabilities APIs including a get capabilities API;

storing, in an objects store on the one or more computing systems associated with the user entity, objects information associated with each of the plurality of other entities

providing a set of objects APIs to access the stored objects information, the set of objects APIs including a get objects API;

publishing at least a portion of the presence information, at least a portion of the capabilities information, and at least a portion of the objects information associated with at least one of the plurality of other entities; and

storing, in a contact store on the one or more computing systems associated with the user entity, contact information associated with each of the plurality of other entities, the contact information including;

a secure unique identifier for each of the plurality of other entities,

a human readable alias for each of the plurality of other entities, and

an indication of at least one property of each of the plurality of other entities,

including at least one of an indication of an authorization of the user entity to monitor the at least one property of each of the plurality of other entities or an indication of an authorization of each of the plurality of other entities to monitor at least one property of the user entity, the at least one property being selected from a presence property, a capabilities property, or an objects property; and

providing a set of contacts application program interfaces (APIs) to access the stored contact information, the set of contacts APIs including;

an add contact API, a delete contact API, an update contact API, a get contact API, an export contact API, and an enumerate contacts API.

2. The method according to claim 1, further comprising generating aggregated presence information for each of the plurality of other entities based on the presence information of all of the one or more endpoints associated with each of the plurality of other entities.

3. The method according to claim 2, wherein the aggregated presence information comprises presence information of an endpoint of each of the plurality of other entities that has a higher presence state than a presence state of any other endpoint of the each of the plurality of other entities.

4. The method according to claim 1, further comprising enabling the get presence information API to determine the presence information of a particular endpoint of each of the plurality of other entities.

5. The method according to claim 1, further comprising detecting a change to the presence information associated with one of the plurality of other entities and updating corresponding presence information in the presence store.

8. The method according to claim 1, further comprising at least one of:

modifying, via the add contact API, the contact store to add contact information for a new other entity;

modifying, via the delete contact API, the contact store to delete existing contact information corresponding to a first existing other entity in the plurality of other entities;

modifying, via the update contact API, the contact store to modify contact information corresponding to a second existing other entity in the plurality of other entities;

retrieving, via the get contact API, at least a portion of the contact information from the contact store corresponding to a third existing other entity in the plurality of other entities;

exporting, via the export contact API in an XML format, at least a portion of the contact information corresponding to a fourth existing other entity in the plurality of other entities;

or

retrieving, via the enumerate contacts API, an indication of all other entities for which contact information is stored in the contact store.

9. The method according to claim 8, further comprising generating an indication of a modification of the contact store in response to at least one of modifying the contact store to add the contact information for the new other entity, modifying the contact store to delete the existing contact information corresponding to the first existing other entity, or modifying the contact store to modify the contact information corresponding to the second existing other entity.

10. The method according to claim 9, further comprising presenting additional information corresponding to the modification of the contact store.

11. The method according to claim 8, wherein modifying the contact store to modify contact information comprises modifying the contact store to modify at least one of a particular human readable alias, a mailing address, an e-mail address, a telephone number, a categorization, or a particular secure unique identifier.

12. The method according to claim 1, further comprising:

receiving information associated with a new other entity in an extensible markup language;

parsing the information associated with the new other entity; and

storing the parsed information in the contact store.

13. The method according to claim 1, further comprising storing, in the contact store, contact information associated with the user entity.

14. The method according to claim 1, further comprising storing the contact information on at least two peer computing systems associated with the user entity.

15. The method according to claim 1, further comprising storing, in the contact store, contact information of at least one other entity corresponding to a computing device of a server-based network.

16. The method according to claim 1, further comprising permitting an application to use only a subset of the set of contacts APIs.

17. The method according to claim 1, wherein providing the set of contacts APIs comprises providing the set of contacts APIs via one or more dynamic link libraries (DLLs).

18. The method according to claim 1, wherein storing, in the contact store, the secure unique identifier comprises storing, in the contact store, a unique identifier secured by one of a third-party or a self-signed X.509 certificate.

19. The method according to claim 1, wherein storing, in the contact store, the contact information comprises storing, in the contact store, the contact information in a string variable in an XML format.

20. The method of claim 1, wherein:

the presence information further includes a presence state of the one or more endpoints corresponding to an ability of the one or more endpoints to communicate with another entity;

the capabilities information includes at least one of;

an indication of a capability of a configuration of a computing system of each of the plurality of other entities to execute a particular software application, an indication of a presence of a particular hardware component on the computing system of each of the plurality of other entities, or a real-time capability of each of the plurality of other entities with respect to a currently executing software application; and

the objects information includes at least one of;

a data object, a file, a structure, a picture, a sound, a description, a meta-data, a name-value pair, information specific to the currently executing software application, or real-time information.

6. A peer computing system comprising:

a presence system at a computing device corresponding to a user entity, wherein the presence system;

is enabled to monitor a presence, a capability and an object associated with one or more other entities;

is communicatively coupled to each of;

a presence store including presence information corresponding to the presence of the one or more other entities, a capabilities store including capabilities information corresponding to the capability associated with the one or more other entities, and an objects store including objects information corresponding to the object associated with the one or more other entities; and

includes;

a set of presence application program interfaces (APIs) to access the presence information, the set of presence APIs including;

a get endpoint information API, a get name API, a set name API, a get addresses API, and a get presence information API;

a set of capabilities APIs including capabilities information to access the capabilities information, the set of capabilities APIs including a get capabilities API; and

a set of objects APIs to access the objects information, the set of objects APIs including;

a get objects API, a publish objects API, and a delete objects API;

a contact manager communicatively coupled to the presence system and to a contact store, the contact store being enabled to store contact information for each of the one or more other entities, and the contact information including;

a secure unique identifier for each of the one or more other entities,

a human readable alias for each of the one or more other entities, an indication of at least one property of each of the one or more other entities, including at least one of an indication of an authorization of the user entity to monitor the at least one property of each of the one or more other entities or an indication of an authorization of each of the one or more other entities to monitor at least one property of the user entity, the at least one property being selected from a presence property, a capabilities property, or an objects property, and

a set of contact APIs for accessing the contact store, including an add contact API, a delete contact API, an update contact API, a get contact API, an export contact API, and an enumerate contacts API; and

a communications module that is communicatively coupled to each of the one or more other entities.

7. The peer computing system of claim 6, wherein:

the presence information of a first other entity of the one or more other entities includes a presence state of the first other entity corresponding to an ability of the first other entity to communicate with a second other entity;

the capability information of the first other entity includes at least one of;

an indication of a capability of a configuration of a computing system of the first other entity to execute a particular software application, an indication of a presence of a particular hardware component on the computing system of the first other entity, or a real-time capability of the first other entity with respect to a currently executing software application; and

the objects information of the first other entity includes at least one of;

a data object, a file, a structure, a picture, a sound, a description, a meta-data, a name-value pair, information specific to the currently executing software application, or real-time information.