Database synchronization and organization system and method

Abstract

The present invention provides a “data centric” approach to updating databases on computer systems of an intermittently connected database system. In this approach, the storage and processing complexity of the database server are de-coupled from the number of clients to be supported, thereby, improving the scalability of the server. Instead of focusing on the data required by individual clients, this method tracks changes to data subsets pertaining to groups of clients. Thus, the server need only track and record changes to these subsets of data, instead of tracking changes for individual clients. Clients download the subsets, which contain the data relevant to the group, and merges data or deletes superfluous data from the subsets. Since the server is tracking a limited set of data subsets related to groups of clients instead of the actual number of the clients, the overall scalability of the system is increased. In this system, client computer systems are synchronized with a server database by dividing data to be distributed from a server database into groups and assigning one or more of the groups to each client computer system. When a client computer system accesses the server, the client computer system sends changes made to its local database to the sever. The server updates its database with these changes. After making the updates to its database, the server determines which groups share in the changes made, and creates modification files for these groups. The clients download the modification files for the groups to which they are assigned.