Cloud-based file prefetching on electronic devices

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10311108-B2
Application number	US-201314043693-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Oct 1, 2013
Priority date	Oct 2, 2012
Publication date	Jun 4, 2019
Grant date	Jun 4, 2019

Abstract

Techniques introduced here enable cloud-based file prefetching on electronic devices. The electronic devices store certain files on a remote storage server and preload some of the files locally to include file access efficiency. File access patterns on the electronic devices are analyzed collectively and efficiently using a cloud service to detect global access patterns and help determine which files to preload on each of the electronic devices.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method performed by a processor on a server that is connectable to a plurality of client devices over a network, the method comprising:
receiving a usage profile from a first one of the client devices, wherein the usage profile includes access statistics of a plurality of applications or files at the first client device, wherein at least some of the plurality of applications or files are stored remotely from the first client device at a storage location over the network;
analyzing collectively a plurality of usage profiles received from the plurality of client devices, respectively, to determine a global access pattern based on the plurality of usage profiles;
generating a prefetching profile for the first client device based on the global access pattern, wherein the prefetching profile specifies at least a first application or file and a second application or file of the plurality of applications or files to prefetch from the storage location based at least partially on the first application or file and the second application or file being predicted to be accessed on the first client device and a sequence in which multiple applications or files of the plurality of applications or files were accessed on the first client device, wherein the prefetching profile specifies a first likelihood value of the first application or file being accessed within a first predetermined time period that starts from a present time and a second likelihood value of the second application or file being accessed within a second predetermined time period that starts from the present time, wherein the analyzing the usage profiles to generate the prefetching profile includes assigning a higher weight to more recent usage patterns determined across the plurality of client devices when generating the prefetching profile; and
sending the prefetching profile to the first client device, wherein files are prefetched from the storage location to the first client device based on the prefetching profile.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the server is further connected to a cloud-computing system, and wherein the analyzing comprises:
submitting the usage profile to the cloud-computing system for storage;
submitting a request to the cloud-computing system to collectively analyze the plurality of usage profiles received from the plurality of client devices; and
receiving the prefetching profile from the cloud-computing system.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein:
the plurality of applications or files includes a plurality of applications; and
the access statistics indicate a time at which individual applications of the plurality of applications were executed on the first client device.

4. The method of claim 3 , wherein:
the usage profile contains access statistics of files of the plurality of applications that have been accessed by the individual applications of the plurality of applications executed at the first client device.

5. The method of claim 3 , wherein:
the usage profile contains access statistics of a plurality of files that have been accessed by the individual applications of the plurality of applications executed at the first client device; and
the analysis is based on a time distribution at which one or more of the files are accessed by one or more of the individual applications executed at the plurality of client devices.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein:
the plurality of applications or files includes a plurality of applications; and
the access statistics indicate respective locations of the first client device when individual applications of the plurality of applications were executed at the first client device.

7. The method of claim 6 , wherein the analysis is based on relative locations of multiple ones of the client devices when the individual applications of the plurality of applications were executed at the plurality of client devices.

8. The method of claim 6 , wherein the analysis is based on a device location distribution of the respective locations at which the individual applications of the plurality of applications were executed at the plurality of client devices.

9. The method of claim 1 , wherein the analyzing includes assigning different weights to the usage profile received from the first client device and usage profiles received from other client devices, in generating the prefetching profile for the first client device.

10. The method of claim 1 , wherein:
the plurality of applications or files includes a plurality of applications and a plurality of files;
the usage profile contains access statistics of files of the plurality of files that have been accessed by respective applications of the plurality of applications or files at the first client device;
the prefetching profile specifies one or more files to prefetch from the storage location; and
the prefetching profile indicates, for each of the specified files, a likelihood that the file will be accessed by at least one application on the first client device within a predetermined timeframe.

11. The method of claim 1 , where the prefetching profile is sent in response to a request received from the first client device, wherein the request received from the first client device includes a request for at least one of a file or an application from the storage location.

12. The method of claim 1 , wherein the prefetching profile is sent according to a predetermined schedule.

13. A method performed by a processor on a first one of a plurality of client devices connectable to a server over one or more networks, the method comprising:
sending a usage profile to the server, wherein the usage profile contains access statistics of a plurality of applications or files at the first client device, wherein at least some of the plurality of applications or files are stored remotely from the first client device at a storage location over the network; and
receiving a prefetching profile from the server, wherein the prefetching profile is based on a global access pattern and specifies a first application or file and a second application or file, of the plurality of applications or files, to be preloaded from the storage location onto the first client device based on a likelihood of the first application or file and the second application or file being accessed at the first client device in the future and a sequence in which multiple applications or files of the plurality of applications or files were accessed on the first client device, wherein the prefetching profile specifies a first likelihood value of the first application or file being accessed within a first predetermined time period that starts from a present time and a second likelihood value of the second application or file being accessed within a second predetermined time period that starts from the present time, wherein the likelihood is based at least partially on a collective analysis of a plurality of usage profiles sent by the plurality of the client devices, respectively, to determine the global access pattern based on the plurality of usage profiles, wherein the collective analysis of the plurality of usage profiles includes assigning a higher weight to more recent usage patterns determined across the plurality of client devices when generating the prefetching profile based on the global access pattern; and
prefetching files from the storage location based on the prefetching profile.

14. The method of claim 13 , further comprising:
retrieving, from the storage location, the first application or file that is specified by the prefetching profile but not present in a first storage of the first

Assignees

• Razer Asia Pacific Pte Ltd

Inventors

• Chan Michael A
• Quan Justin
• Fleming Michael K

Classifications

• G06F16/273

  Asynchronous replication or reconciliation · CPC title

• H04M2250/10

  including a GPS signal receiver · CPC title

• H04L67/06

  specially adapted for file transfer, e.g. file transfer protocol [FTP] · CPC title

• G06F16/278

  Data partitioning, e.g. horizontal or vertical partitioning · CPC title

• G06F16/275

  Synchronous replication · CPC title