Data-driven synchronization

• US 8,185,494 B2
• Filed: 09/14/2007
• Issued: 05/22/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 09/14/2007
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Albemarle Netherlands BV (Albemarle Corporation), Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Davis, Darren R., Thomas, Myron C., Clark, Michael R.
• Primary Examiner(s): Quader, Fazlul
• Application Number:
  US11/855,864
• Publication Number:
  US 20090077138A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,712 Days
• Field of Search: 707/8, 707/610
• US Class Current: 707/610
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling

Abstract

Synchronization is bound to data and optionally a set of synchronization behaviors as opposed to a particular application and/or endpoint. As a result, synchronization amongst endpoints need not require creation of customized synchronization solutions or rely on vendor and/or application specific mechanisms. In one instance, standard data and/or synch schemas can be subscribed to and utilized to dynamically configure synchronization across endpoints.

Claims

1. A data synchronization system, comprising at least one processor coupled to at least one machine-readable storage medium storing instructions executable by the at least one processor to implement:

a conduit component configured to enable interaction between two or more data sets;

a synchronization component configured to facilitate data-driven synchronization of the data sets,

wherein

the synchronization component comprises a change detection component configured to describe a manner, among a plurality of possible manners based on respective capabilities of endpoints associated with the two or more data sets, in which changes in at least one of the two or more data sets are to be identified, and the synchronization component is further configured to, after the change detection component describes the manner, perform synchronization of the two or more data sets in accordance with the described manner, and

wherein the synchronization component is configured to be coupled, based on a corresponding selection, either directly to a data store of at least one of the endpoints, or to the data store via a proxy component.

2. The system of claim 1, further comprising a data schema component configured to define data set data structure for synchronization.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein the data schema component is configured to associate a change unit with a data object in the at least one of the two or more data sets, based at least partly on a frequency with which the data object changes.

4. The system of claim 3, wherein the data schema component is configured to specify content type.

5. The system of claim 1, further comprising a sync model component configured to describe a current state of the two or more data sets, a context-specific identifier for data constructs, a content-type independent format for exchanging version information for each of change units associated with the changes, a way to express additional schema items for participation in a synchronization relationship, a method for indicating a fidelity with which an item in an object schema can be maintained, and a manner for indicating a level of participation each of the endpoints associated with the two or more data sets is capable of in a synchronization operation define.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the manner in which changes are identified includes at least one of utilizing a full enumeration model, utilizing an anchor-based approach or utilizing a web service.

7. The system of claim 5, wherein the synchronization component is further configured to, based on a synchronization protocol negotiated between the endpoints, select a highest-level synchronization model supported by the endpoints.

8. The system of claim 3, further comprising:

a sync model component including

an identifier component configured to provide an identifier for each of the data object and at least one other data object, and

a version component configured to describe a format for exchanging version information about a version of the change unit associated with the data object and a version of a change unit associated with the at least one other data object;

wherein the synchronization component is further configured to locate the data object and the at least one other data object using their respective identifiers, and synchronize the two or more data sets based on the respective identifiers and version information of the data object and the at least one other data object.

9. The system of claim 8, wherein the synchronization component is further configured to determine that the data object and the at least one other data object are the same based on their respective identifiers.

10. The system of claim 1, wherein the data sets, or segments thereof, conform to an extensible content type schema.

11. A method, comprising:

determining content type and change units for a data set;

selecting, based on at least one of capabilities or preferences of an endpoint associated with the data set, a change identification method from among a plurality of predefined identification methods, the change identification method for describing a manner in which changes in the data set are to be identified; and

synchronizing the data set across two or more data stores as a function of the content type, change units and selected change identification method.

12. The method of claim 11, further comprising, based on a common format for version information of the two or more data stores, retrieving the format from at least one of the two or more data stores at a change unit granularity on a per object basis.

13. The method of claim 11, further comprising, based on the two or more data stores having different formats, performing a transformation of the different formats to a standardized format pursuant to the synchronizing.

14. The method of claim 11, further comprising, based on a comparative frequency of changes to items in the data set, designating a subset of the items as a change unit separate from another subset of the items.

15. The method of claim 11, further comprising synchronizing the data set utilizing context specific identifiers that identify identical data constructs.

16. The method of claim 11, further comprising synchronizing the data utilizing content agnostic versioning information associated with the change units.

17. The method of claim 11, further comprising acquiring the content type and change units from a public schema.

18. The method of claim 11, the synchronizing including selecting a highest-level synchronization model supported by the two or more data stores as a synchronization protocol.

19. A computer-readable storage medium storing instructions, the instructions to, if executed by a computing device, cause the computing device to perform operations comprising:

negotiating a synchronization protocol between two or more endpoints as a function of a synchronization model that defines how data is exchanged and a data schema that describes the data to be exchanged;

exchanging a change detection mode between the two or more endpoints as part of the negotiating; and

configuring synchronization in accordance with a negotiated synchronization protocol.

20. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 19, the operations further comprising, pursuant to the negotiating, exchanging information concerning an extension of the data schema.