Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.p.

Palm, Incorporated

Gurmeet Singh Kalra

Srikiran Prasad

Frank Judge

Rik Sagar

Yoon Kean Wong

Justin Evan Manus

Alexandre Roux

A system enables data synchronization for data files shared between or among multiple devices. When a shared data file is modified on one of the computing devices, metadata describing or otherwise enabling recreation of that modification are generated. To enable synchronization of the shared data file, the metadata&#x2014;rather than the modified shared data file&#x2014;are transmitted to other devices. These other systems can then use the metadata to recreate the modification of the shared data file and thus achieve data synchronization without requiring retransmission of the shared data file after each modification thereto.

Data synchronization by communication of modifications

To enable the peer-to-peer synchronization among multiple devices, each device in the peer network keeps track of the changes it makes to any shared data and also keeps track of its own knowledge of the changes made by other devices. When two or more peer devices communicate, they share with each other their information about any changes made to the shared data by them or by other devices. This allows the devices to synchronize with each other to the extent that each of the devices knows what changes have been made by it or by other devices in the peer network.

Peer-to-peer data synchronization architecture

Data is communicated between a first computing device and a second computing device over a transport employing a communication protocol in a multiplexed manner. The second computing device also includes wireless communication capabilities. Data is received from a first application and a second application through a first virtual port and a second virtual port, respectively, and packets are generated from the data. Tags corresponding to the first application or the second application are added to each packet. The packets are multiplexed and transmitted over the transport according to the communication protocol. The transmitted packets are de-multiplexed based upon the tags to reconstruct the data corresponding to the first or second application.

Multiplexed communication between host computer and smartphone used as wireless modem

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Newark, CA, United States of America

Gurmeet Singh Kalra