Hybrid search connector

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11080284-B2
Application number	US-201514854670-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Sep 15, 2015
Priority date	May 1, 2015
Publication date	Aug 3, 2021
Grant date	Aug 3, 2021

Abstract

Documents in a local computing system are parsed for indexing and sent to a cloud-based computing system. The cloud-based search service indexes documents that are parsed on the local computing system, as well as documents that reside in the cloud-based computing system. When a user launches a search, the search is executed against a single search index in the cloud-based computing system, which includes an index of content sources from both the local computing system and the cloud-based computing system.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A cloud computing system, comprising:
a network interface configured to communicate with a client computing system that is remote from the cloud computing system over a wide area network;
at least one processor; and
memory storing instructions executable by the at least one processor, wherein the instructions, when executed, configure the cloud computing system to provide:
a search index configured to store index entries indexing content;
an indexing component configured to:
receive, from the client computing system, first parsed content indicative of parsing performed by the client computing system on a set of client-side documents stored on the client computing system;
obtain client storage location information that identifies a storage location of the set of client-side documents on the client computing system; and
index the set of client-side documents in the search index based on the first parsed content and the client storage location information; and

a cloud content parsing component configured to:
parse a set of cloud-based documents that are associated with the client computing system and stored in a cloud data store, to generate second parsed content for the set of cloud-based documents,
wherein the indexing component is configured to index the set of cloud-based documents in the search index based on the second parsed content;

a query processing component configured to:
receive a search input; and
conduct a search against the search index to identify, based on the search input, search results that include at least one of the client-side documents and at least one of the cloud-based documents; and

a search result output component configured to:
generate a search result output that includes:
a first user actuatable link that represents the at least one client-side document and is actuatable to access the storage location of the at least one client-side document on the client computing system; and
a second user actuatable link that represents the at least one cloud-based document and is actuatable to access a storage location of the at least one cloud-based documents in the cloud data store.

2. The cloud computing system of claim 1 wherein the instructions configure the cloud computing system to provide:
a security mapping component configured to map security information associated with one or more users to content indexed in the search index.

3. The cloud computing system of claim 2 wherein the search index comprises a tenancy-based search index that indexes content for a given tenant in a multi-tenant system, and the security mapping component is configured to map the security information from groups in the given tenant to the content indexed in the tenancy-based search index.

4. The cloud computing system of claim 2 wherein the security mapping component is configured to:
receive, from the client computing system, the security information defining user access permissions to the set of client-side documents; and
map the security information to the set of client-side documents; and
the search result output component is configured to:
apply the user access permissions to the at least one client-side document; and
output the search result output based on the application of the user access permissions.

5. The cloud computing system of claim 1 , wherein the instructions configure the cloud computing system to provide:
a search result ranking component configured to rank the search results based on a relevancy of each search result,
wherein the search output component configured to output the search results in rank order, regardless of whether the search results correspond to a cloud-based document or a client-side document.

6. The cloud computing system of claim 5 , wherein the instructions configure the cloud computing system to provide:
a security component configured to apply security information to the search results before the search results are output by the search result output component.

7. The cloud computing system of claim 1 wherein the indexing component exposes a source-independent application programming interface (API) and receives the first parsed content through the source-independent API.

8. The cloud computing system of claim 7 wherein the indexing component is configured to receive the first parsed content through the source-independent API according to a source-independent schema.

9. A client computing system, comprising: at least one processor; and memory storing instructions executable by the at least one processor, wherein the instructions, when executed, configure the client computing system to provide:
a crawler component configured to intermittently access a client-side data store, on the client computing system, to identify a client-side document; a parsing component configured to: parse the identified client-side document;
and generate parsed content, indicative of information for indexing the identified client-side document;
and a cloud connection system configured to:
intermittently connect to a cloud-based search service in a cloud-based computing system, that is remote from the client computing system over a communication network, and call a source-independent application programming interface (API) to send, to the cloud-based search service: the parsed content, and client storage location information that identifies a storage location of the client-side document in the client-side data store;
a search system configured to:
receive a search user input;
send a search request, based on the search user input, through a search application programming interface (API) exposed by the cloud-based search service;
and receive from the cloud-based search service through the search API, a search result based on an index on the cloud-based search service that indexes the client-side document and at least one cloud-based document.

10. The client computing system of claim 9 , wherein the instructions configure the computing system to provide:
a security component configured to generate security information to control access to the client-side document.

11. The client computing system of claim 10 wherein the cloud connection system is configured to push the security information to the cloud-based computing system.

12. The client computing system of claim 9 , wherein the search results are integrated into a single ranked list of results, regardless of whether the results are indicative of client-side document or cloud-based document.

13. The client computing system of claim 9 wherein the parsing component is configured to generate the parsed content according to a source-independent schema, and wherein the search results include storage locations of the client-side document and cloud-based document.

14. A computer implemented method, comprising:
storing, in a search index in a cloud computing system, index entries that index content;
receiving, by the cloud computing system from a client device, first parsed content indicative of parsing performed by the client device on a client-side document to be indexed;
obtaining client storage location information that identifies a storage location of the client-side document on the client device;
indexing the client-side document in the search index based on the first parsed content and the client storage location information;
parsing a cloud-based document, in the cloud computing system, to generate second parsed content for the cloud-based document;
indexing the cloud-based document in the search index based on the second parsed content;
receiving, by the cloud computing system, a

Assignees

• Microsoft Technology Licensing Llc

Inventors

• Neagovici-Negoescu Mircea
• Cannerozzi Roberta
• Gvozdev Vladimir
• Hammervold Kathrine
• Bergstrand Kjetil Krogvig
• Lie Anund
• Zheng Liang
• Kirkholt Melhus Lars
• Løland Jørgen
• Rasch-Olsen Niels Petter

Classifications

• H04L67/1097

  for distributed storage of data in networks, e.g. transport arrangements for network file system [NFS], storage area networks [SAN] or network attached storage [NAS] · CPC title

• H04L67/02

  based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP] · CPC title

• G06F16/24578 Primary

  using ranking · CPC title

• G06F16/972 Primary

  Access to data in other repository systems, e.g. legacy data or dynamic Web page generation · CPC title

• H04L67/01

  Protocols · CPC title