Idle state triggered constrained synchronization of shared content items

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9442997-B2
Application number	US-201514856246-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Sep 16, 2015
Priority date	Jan 30, 2015
Publication date	Sep 13, 2016
Grant date	Sep 13, 2016

Abstract

A content management system synchronizes content items across client computing systems connected by a network. Each client device has a storage allocation for synchronized shared content items. If the storage allocation for shared content items on a client device is exceeded by the request to add or edit a content item such that it is enlarged, a client application or the host of content management system selects content items to remove from residence on the client device but keep remotely on content management system. Upon removal of the selected content items, the client application creates shadow items, representing the content item but only containing the metadata of the content item. This creates sufficient space for the initial request to be completed while maintaining user access to all synchronized shared content items. The processes of replacing content items with shadow items may be completed while the client device is idle.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A computer-implemented method of synchronizing content items between an online content management system and a remotely located client device, the method comprising:
receiving, at the content management system, from a client device, a measure of processor activity of the client device, the client device having a shared content storage directory containing a plurality of synchronized content items with the content management system, each content item having both content data and metadata;
determining, by the content management system, whether the client device is in an idle state based on the measure of processor activity;
responsive to determining, by the content management system, that the client device is in the idle state:
identifying, by the content management system, a number of the synchronized content items on the client device that exceed a storage limit for the shared content storage directory; and
requesting, by the content management system, that the client device replace, in the shared content storage directory, each identified content item with a corresponding shadow item representing the content item and containing only the metadata of the content item without containing the content data of the content item, to reduce a total storage amount used by the synchronized content items on the client device to an amount below the storage limit of the shared content directory.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein receiving, from the client device, a measure of processor activity, is in response to the content management system periodically requesting from the client device a status of the client device.

3. The method of claim 2 , wherein content management system periodically requests the status of the client device based upon user access patterns to content items on the client device.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein receiving, from the client device, a measure of processor activity, is responsive to the content management system requesting from the client device a status of the client device where the content management system determines that a total storage space occupied by content items stored in the shared content storage directory reaches a predetermined storage threshold less than the storage limit of the shared content storage directory.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein identifying a number of synchronized content items on the client device that exceed a storage limit for the shared content storage directory further comprises:
computing by the content management system an excess storage amount based on a difference between the total storage amount used by the shared content storage directory on the client device and the maximum storage amount allowed; and
identifying one or more content items stored in the shared content storage directory on the client device such that a total size of the identified content items is greater than or equal to the excess storage amount.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein identifying a number of the synchronized content items on the client device that exceed a storage limit for the shared content storage directory further comprises identifying content items having at least one of:
a difference between a latest access time of the content item and a current time greater than a maximum difference between a latest access time of a content item and the current time;
a content item size greater than a maximum content item size; or
a content item size less than a minimum content item size.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein identifying a number of the synchronized content items on the client device that exceed a storage limit for the shared content storage directory comprises excluding all content items marked to remain resident on the client device.

8. A computer-implemented method of synchronizing content items between an online content management system and a remotely located client device, the method comprising:
receiving at the content management system, from a client device, a measure of processor activity of the client device, the client device having a shared content storage directory containing a plurality of synchronized content items with the content management system, each content item having both content data and metadata;
determining, by the content management system, whether the client device is in an idle state based on the measure of processor activity;
responsive to determining, by the content management system, that the client device is in the idle state:
identifying, by the content management system, a number of shadow items in the shared content storage directory, each shadow item representing a corresponding synchronized content item stored on the content management system and containing only the metadata of the corresponding content item without containing the content data of the corresponding content item; and
requesting, by the content management system, that the client device replace in the shared content storage directory each identified shadow item with the corresponding content item containing content data and metadata such that the additional content data does not exceed a storage limit for the shared content storage directory.

9. The method of claim 8 , wherein receiving, from the client device, a measure of processor activity, is in response to the content management system periodically requesting from the client device a status of the client device.

10. The method of claim 9 , wherein content management system periodically requests the status of the client device based upon user access patterns to content items on the client device.

11. The method of claim 8 , wherein receiving, from the client device, a measure of processor activity, is responsive to the content management system requesting from the client device a status of the client device where the content management system determines that a total storage space occupied by content items stored in the shared content storage directory is below a predetermined storage threshold.

12. The method of claim 8 , wherein identifying a number of shadow items further comprises:
computing by the content management system a remaining storage amount based on a difference between a total storage amount used by the shared content storage directory on the client device and the maximum storage amount allowed; and
identifying one or more shadow items stored in the shared content storage directory on the client device such that a total size of the content items corresponding to the identified shadow items is less than the remaining storage amount.

13. The method of claim 8 , wherein identifying a number of shadow items further comprises identifying shadow items with corresponding synchronized content items having at least one of:
a difference between a latest access time of the content item and a current time less than a maximum difference between a latest access time of a content item and the current time;
a content item size less than a maximum content item size; or
a content item size greater than a minimum content item size.

14. The method of claim 8 , wherein identifying a number of shadow items further comprises excluding all shadow items marked to remain as shadow items on the client device.

15. A computer system for synchronizing content items between an online content management system and a remotely located client device, the method comprising:
a processor; and
a memory storing instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to:
receive at the content management system, from a client device, a measure of processor activity of the client

Assignees

• Dropbox Inc

Inventors

• Newhouse Benjamin Zeis

Classifications

• G06F16/27 Primary

  Replication, distribution or synchronisation of data between databases or within a distributed database system; Distributed database system architectures therefor · CPC title

• G06F16/273 Primary

  Asynchronous replication or reconciliation · CPC title

• H04L67/1095 Primary

  Replication or mirroring of data, e.g. scheduling or transport for data synchronisation between network nodes · CPC title

• G06F17/30138

  Physics · mapped topic

• G06F17/30575 Primary

  Physics · mapped topic