Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Microsoft Corporation

Michael Ray Clark

Lev Novik

Moe Khosravy

Oliver C Lee

James Ernest Johnson

Jonathan M Cargille

John David Doty

Max A Feingold

Siva Muhunthan

Kapil Gupta

Ashish B Shah

William J Carley

Lukasz Gwozdz

Donald R Ryan

Michael Scott Beckerman

Thomas Pfenning

Stefan Solomon

Jörg-Thomas Pfenning

Aaron K Greene

Maheshwar Jayaraman

Douglas Brian Terry

Roy Peter D'Souza

Andrey Shur

David E Langworthy

Alazel Acheson

Darren Ray Davis

Irena Hudis

Tomas Talius

Pablo Castro

Mu Han

Yunxin Wu

Myron C Thomas

Irina Gorbach

Dana D Groff

Venkatesh Krishnan

Christian Kleinerman

Jagan M Peri

Dax H Hawkins

Andres Vega-Garcia

Lars Kuhtz

Mary Michelle Quinton

Michael Entin

Joe Dennis Long

Stephen Frederick Starck

Egidio Sburlino

Dmitry Denisov

Jorg-Thomas Pfenning

Rajeev Byrisetty

Neil Leonard Padgett

Andrei Maksimenka

Sumalatha Adabala

Gitika Aggarwal Saubhasik

Sean Michael Kelley

Gert Er Drapers

Systems and methods that enable removal of data from an endpoint, while not propagating such removal to other endpoints when synchronizing data sources associated therewith. A designation component can indicate items as forgotten items, wherein such items are being known to an endpoint and deleted therefrom&#x2014;yet, reintroduced therein and reappearing (e.g., as a create) upon re-synchronizing with the replica over again. Moreover, the forgotten items can employ additional metadata such as in from of an additional bit that indicates whether an item is a forgotten item.

Forgetting items with knowledge based synchronization

Embodiments are directed to securing data in the cloud, securely encrypting data that is to be stored in the cloud and to securely decrypting data accessed from the cloud. In one scenario, an instantiated trust service receives information indicating that a trust server is to be instantiated. The trust service instantiates the trust server, which is configured to store key references and encrypted keys. The trust service receives the public key portion of a digital certificate for each publisher and subscriber that is to have access to various specified portions of encrypted data. A data access policy is then defined that specifies which encrypted data portions can be accessed by which subscribers.

Trust services for securing data in the cloud

A Web service synchronization protocol is provided that sets forth the metadata and messaging by which endpoints roam, share and synchronize common information with one another in a multi-master networked computing ecosystem. A general SOAP-based protocol is defined for synchronizing data between two endpoints where one or more of the endpoints supports a Web service. Defining messaging for knowledge-based transfers using XML Web services, the protocol allows devices, services and applications to synchronize through firewalls, allows for flexibility by allowing any common set or subset of information across endpoints and allows for extensibility by not prescribing the schema of the actual data being synchronized at the endpoints.

Synchronization of web service endpoints in a multi-master synchronization environment

The claimed subject matter provides a system and/or a method that facilitates managing data consistency in connection with a plurality of devices. A collection of devices can be associated with a user. A web service can receive a portion of data from at least one device via an interface component, wherein the web service can host and relate the portion of data with an account for the user. A master sync component can leverage a computing resource from at least one device in order to maintain data consistency between at least one of the following: two or more devices within the collection of devices associated with the user; or the account hosted by the web service and two or more devices within the collection of devices associated with the user.

Minimal extensions required for multi-master offline and collaboration for devices and web services

An efficient way and general mechanism is provided to represent and exchange knowledge and/or partial knowledge across nodes when synchronizing between any two nodes including custom or move filters where set membership can change over time at a device as data items come in and out of filter scope. A first node sends a second node its knowledge and/or partial knowledge, including objects and versions of those objects. The second node compares its knowledge and/or partial knowledge with the knowledge and/or partial knowledge of the first node, and then sends the first node any latest versions of objects of which the first node is unaware. In addition, the second node sends its knowledge and/or partial knowledge to the first node. The first node then performs a similar object-by-object version comparison to determine any conflicts due to independent evolution of objects and any changes that can be sent to the second node in order to bring the objects of the second node up to date with the knowledge and/or partial knowledge of the first node. Replicas can track filters to efficiently support synchronizing with filtered replicas. Filter forgotten knowledge is also used to represent how recently a replica can guarantee to know which items have been in the filter. Ghosts can be used to represent items that have been in the filter recently but have currently moved out. Filter forgotten knowledge concept allows both new filters to be tracked when they are introduced into the community, as well as periodically cleaning up of tombstones and ghosts.

Synchronization of subsets of data including support for varying set membership

Providing synchronization to a local system. Embodiments may include downloading a batch of changes in a heterogeneous batch. The batch of changes is correlated to an anchor affiliated with a synchronization service. The anchor is a reference point indicating time or relative order. The batch of changes and the anchor are serialized to a non-volatile storage medium as a heterogeneous set. After serializing the batch of changes to a non-volatile storage medium as a heterogeneous set, entities in the batch of changes are parsed out into entities in in-memory representations. Similarly, embodiments may receive user input modifying a plurality of data entities, store on a non-volatile storage medium a serialized heterogeneous representation of the modified data entities, and upload the serialized heterogeneous representation to a synchronization service.

File-backed in-memory structured storage for service synchronization

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.

Data-driven synchronization

The subject disclosure relates to synchronizing among network nodes in a multi-master synchronization environment that extend a knowledge based synchronization framework to include notions of object quality. In one embodiment, additional dimension(s) are placed on a knowledge vector for a given version of an object that represent quality information for the object, which is accounted for during the synchronization process to allow nodes to decide what types of qualities of objects should be conveyed to them as part of the synchronization process. Other embodiments include tombstoning objects to avoid future synchronization with respect to same objects maintained by other nodes in the multi-master synchronization environment. Advantageously, according to the synchronization framework, endpoints can synchronize data in a way that allows a definition and consideration of quality of one or more objects of the synchronized data for purposes of a knowledge exchange.

Representation of qualitative object changes in a knowledge based framework for a multi-master synchronization environment

Systems and methods that disclose alternative patterns for exchange of synchronization data and/or metadata, e.g., 'knowledge', to enhance performance of synchronization processes are disclosed. Accordingly, the innovation discloses synchronization mechanisms that employ exchange of data and metadata to alleviate a requirement of a complete 'round-trip' when synchronizing data. &#x2018;Knowledge&#x2019; can be provided which informs a provider of data changes, modifications, additions or deletions. The &#x2018;knowledge&#x2019; can lower expense and/or increase efficiencies of the synchronization exchanges by enabling informed decision-making related to enumerating changes within the synchronization processes.

Exchange of syncronization data and metadata

An efficient way is provided to represent and exchange knowledge and/or partial knowledge across nodes when synchronizing between any two nodes. A first node sends a second node its knowledge and/or partial knowledge, including objects and versions of those objects. The second node compares its knowledge and/or partial knowledge with the knowledge and/or partial knowledge of the first node, and then sends the first node any latest versions of objects of which the first node is unaware. In addition, the second node sends its knowledge and/or partial knowledge to the first node. The first node then performs a similar object-by-object version comparison to determine any conflicts due to independent evolution of objects and any changes that should be sent to the second node in order to bring the objects of the second node up to date with the knowledge and/or partial knowledge of the first node.

Knowledge based synchronization of subsets of data with no move condition

A mechanism for negotiating a relatively transport agnostic communication protocol for use in accomplishing a distributed activity. The potential protocols subject to negotiation may be, for example, extensions to Web Services Coordination. In that case, when the initiator creates a transaction, the initiator also negotiates the desired protocol with its transaction manager. The transaction manager and any other participants in the transaction will then follow that negotiated protocol when communicating with the transaction manager. The protocol may be selected to improve performance and may be tailored to existing needs and capabilities.

Message exchange protocol extension negotiation

The present invention extends to methods, systems, data structures, and computer program products for maintaining correct transaction results when transaction management configurations change. An intermediate transaction manager is transparently interposed between one or more resource managers and a plurality of transaction managers. The intermediate transaction manager multiplexes and intercepts calls and notifications between the one or more resource managers and the plurality of transaction managers. The intermediate transaction manager is configured to wrap recovery cookies with transaction manager type information and identity information that identify transaction managers. The information can be used to re-attach to the transaction manager to recover the correct outcome of the transaction. The intermediate transaction manager can also intercept recovery-complete calls directed to a specific transaction manager and send the recovery-complete call to each of the plurality of transaction managers. Resource managers can receive, store, and send wrapped recovery cookies.

Maintaining correct transaction results when transaction management configurations change

Growing community of inventors

Redmond, WA, United States of America

Michael Ray Clark