Data access, replication or communication system comprising a distributed software application

• US 7,912,896 B2
• Filed: 04/19/2004
• Issued: 03/22/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 04/17/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Malikie Innovations Limited (Key Patent Innovations Limited)
• Original Assignee: Good Technology Corporation (Blackberry Limited)
• Inventors: Standen, Bob, Wolovitz, Lionel, Gretton, Mark
• Primary Examiner(s): Etienne; Ario
• Assistant Examiner(s): RUBIN, BLAKE J
• Application Number:
  US10/553,721
• Publication Number:
  US 20070130255A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,528 Days
• Field of Search: 709/203, 709/204
• US Class Current: 709/203
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/58 Message adaptation for wireless communication
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/0428 wherein the data content is protected, e.g. by encrypting or encapsulating the payload
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/01 Protocols
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/04 specially adapted for terminals or networks with limited capabilities; specially adapted for terminal portability
• 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: H04L 67/567 Integrating service provisioning from a plurality of service providers
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 12/033 of the user plane, e.g. user's traffic

Abstract

A data access, replication or communications system is distributed across a terminal-side executable running on a terminal and a server-side executable. Together the terminal-side executable and the server-side executable form a client to a larger server and collaborate by sending messages using a message queuing system over a network. The larger server can be, for example, a mail server. Splitting the client into a terminal-side executable and a server-side executable allows a terminal, such as mobile device with limited processing capacity, power, and connectivity, to enjoy the functionality of full-featured client access to a server environment using minimum resources on the mobile device by distributing some of the functionality normally associated with the client onto the server side executable, which is not so resource constrained.

Claims

1. A data access, replication or communications system comprising:

a terminal including an electronic memory storing a terminal-side packet-queuing executable and a processor provided to execute the terminal-side packet-queuing executable to enable communication therewith independent of a session-based transport layer protocol, the terminal-side packet-queuing executable dividing a message into a plurality of packets; and

a server including an electronic memory storing a server-side packet-queuing executable and a processor provided to execute the server-side packet-queuing executable to enable communication therewith independent of a transport layer session-based protocol, each said packet-queuing executable dividing a message into a plurality of packets,

wherein a sending one of the terminal-side packet-queuing executable and the server-side packet-queuing executable transmits a next packet of the message over a radio network using a session-independent transport layer protocol upon acknowledgement of receipt of a previously transmitted packet of the message at by a receiving one of the terminal-side packet-queuing executable and the server-side packet queuing executable,

the terminal-side packet queuing executable and the server-side packet queuing executable together constituting a software application that is distributed between the terminal and the server in a predetermined functional proportion and cooperatively functions as a client of a second server, the second server performing a data handling service related to the message.

2. The system of claim 1 wherein the message queuing software application is message oriented middleware.

3. The system of claim 1 wherein the terminal-side packet-queuing executable insulates a terminal program from being affected if a connection over the radio network is broken by queuing packets in readiness for the connection to be re-established, enabling the terminal program to proceed to another task.

4. The system of claim 1 wherein the server-side packet-queuing executable insulates a server program from being affected if a connection over the radio network is broken by queuing packets in readiness for the connection to be re-established, enabling the server program to proceed to another task.

5. The system of claim 1 wherein each message that is queued defines part or all of an event, the event describing a change to data stored at either the terminal or the second server in enough detail to enable data replication to take place without a need for a synchronization engine, data replication being achieved by sending events rather than a complete dataset of stored data for synchronization.

6. The system of claim 5 wherein the terminal-side packet-queuing executable can create and queue packets defining events, enabling the terminal to proceed to another task, even if a network connection over the radio network is broken.

7. The system of claim 5 wherein the server-side packet-queuing executable can create and queue packets defining events, enabling the second server to proceed to another task, even if a network connection over the radio network is broken, the packets being queued in one of the server-side packet-queuing executable and a message queuing system.

8. The system of claim 6 wherein the queued packets persist in non-volatile memory when the terminal is switched off.

9. The system of claim 7 wherein queued packets events persist in non-volatile memory when the server is switched off.

10. The system of claim 6 wherein packets queued on the terminal side include data indicative of references to data stored on the server.

11. The system of claim 1, wherein a terminal-side component of the message queuing software application insulates the terminal program from being affected if a connection over the radio network is re-established by automatically causing a next packet in a terminal-side queue to be sent.

12. The system of claim 4, wherein a server-side component of the message queuing application software insulates the server program from being affected if a connection over the radio network is re-established by automatically causing a next packet in a server-side queue to be sent.

13. The system of claim 1 wherein the terminal-side executable processes events from a terminal program, which is an e-mail or PIM program.

14. The system of claim 1 wherein the server-side packet-queuing executable processes events from a server program running on the second server, the server program including a mail server program.

15. The system of claim 1 wherein the terminal is a wireless terminal such as a mobile telephone or smartphone.

16. The system of claim 1 wherein the radio network is a wireless WAN network such as a GPRS or UMTS network.

17. The system of claim 1 wherein the server stores a logon password sent from the terminal and can use the logon password to access the server program running on the second server.

18. The system of claim 1 wherein the terminal monitors available memory on the terminal and automatically deletes data stored on the terminal that meets a pre-defined criteria of at least one of age, use and size without affecting a corresponding data stored on the second server.

19. The system of claim 18 wherein a user option to delete data stored on the terminal without affecting the corresponding data stored on the server is displayed at a same level in a menu hierarchy, displayed on the terminal, as an option to delete data stored on the terminal together with the corresponding data stored on the second server.

20. The system of claim 18 wherein the data is message data and the terminal retains data that allows the message data to be re-supplied from the second server if requested by a user.

21. The system of claim 18 wherein data is not released from memory if the data is marked as unread, open for user viewing or action, or there is a pending action related to the data requesting additional data from the second server.

22. The system of claim 1 wherein the terminal enables a user to select a release option to delete a message stored on the terminal without deleting a corresponding message stored on the second server and to select a delete option to delete a message stored on the terminal and the corresponding message on the second server, the release and delete options appearing at a same level in a menu hierarchy displayed on the terminal.