Methods for shared data management in a pervasive computing environment

Abstract

A common access method is disclosed to enable disparate pervasive computing devices to interact with centralized data management systems. A modular, scalable data management system is envisioned to further expand the role of the pervasive devices as direct participants in the data management system. This data management system has a plurality of data managers and is provided with a plurality of data managers in one or more layers of a layered architecture. The system performs with a data manager and with a input from a user or pervasive computing device via an API a plurality of process on data residing in heterogeneous data repositories of computer system including promotion, check-in, check-out, locking, library searching, setting and viewing process results, tracking aggregations, and managing parts, releases and problem fix data under management control of a virtual control repository having one or more physical heterogeneous repositories. The system provides for storing, accessing, tracking data residing in said one or more data repositories managed by the virtual control repository. DMS applications executing directly within, on or behalf of, the pervasive computing device organize data using the PFVL paradigm. Configurable managers include a query control repository for existence of peer managers and provide logic switches to dynamically interact with peers. A control repository layer provides a common process interface across all managers. A command translator performs the appropriate mapping of generic control repository layer calls to the required function for the underlying storage engine.