Groove Networks, Incorporated

Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Microsoft Corporation

Kenneth G Moore

Raymond Edward Ozzie

Ransom Lloyd Richardson

Brian M Lambert

Edward J Fischer

William D Tierney

Robert H Myhill

Ransom L Richardson

A storage manager represents XML-compliant documents as a collection of objects in memory, allowing the storage manager to manipulate the document, or parts of the document, with a consistent interface and to provide for features that are not available in conventional XML documents, such as element attributes with types other than text and documents that contain binary rather than text information. The XML-compliant document may be associated with a schema document which defines the arrangement of the document elements and attributes. The schema data associated with a document can contain a mapping between document elements and program code to be associated with each element. The storage manager further has methods for retrieving the code from the element tag. The retrieved code can then be invoked using attributes and content from the associated element and the element then acts like a conventional object.

Method and apparatus for efficient management of XML documents

A storage manager represents XML-compliant documents as a collection of objects, each associated with an element of the XML document. The objects are created with a hierarchy that conforms to the hierarchy of elements in the XML document. Access to the document is then through methods of the objects exposed to application programs through a programming interface. The methods provide a consistent interface to documents regardless of how the data associated with the documents is stored in memory. Consequently, the underlying content of XML documents can be stored using a distributed virtual object system that provides a mechanism for multiple processes to access each object. As an example of the benefits of such a storage manager, the storage manager may be used to maintain a telespace, such as may store information shared by multiple users participating in a collaboration session.

Users and devices in a peer-to-peer collaboration system can join a management domain in which members are administered as a group by a centralized management server operated by an enterprise. In response to a administrator request to join the management domain, the user downloads an injectible identity file containing a definition of the managed user/device into the user system. The user then joins the managed domain by associating the injected identity with their actual identity. Once a user or device is part of a management domain, that user or device receives license rights and policy restrictions that are associated with the domain. In return, the management server interacts with the individual peer-to-peer collaboration systems to enable the enterprise to monitor the usage of, and control the behavior of, that specific identity within the peer-to-peer collaboration system.

Method and apparatus for managing a peer-to-peer collaboration system

An in-memory storage manager represents XML-compliant documents as a collection of objects in memory. The storage manager allows real-time access to the objects by separate processes operating in different contexts. The data in the objects is stored in memory local to each process and the local memories are synchronized by means of a distributed memory system that stores the data in the same data region, but maps the data region to the address space of each process. Data corruption in the data region is prevented by a locking mechanism that prevents the processes from simultaneously modifying same data.

A communications manager provides communication services for an activity-based collaboration system, in which data change requests comprising deltas are communicated over a network between network-capable devices. The communications manager is operable on a local network capable device for sending locally-generated deltas over the network to at least one remote network-capable device and for receiving remotely-generated deltas over the network from the at least one remote network-capable device. The communications manager can send the deltas via unicasting, multicasting, or broadcasting techniques. The communications manager is responsive to network connection status information indicating that the remote network-capable device is connected to the network for sending the local deltas directly to an address for the remote network-capable device. A presence mechanism maintains and distributes, on request, the network connection status information, which it acquires from each of the network-capable devices. The communications manager is also responsive to the network connection status information indicating that the remote network-capable device is disconnected from the network for sending the local deltas to an address of a relay. The relay stores deltas until the relay is notified that the remote network-capable device has reconnected to the network, and then the relay sends the deltas to the reconnected remote network-capable device.

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Westford, MA, United States of America

Kenneth G Moore