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US 8,078,958 B2Granted
Scalable computing system for managing annotations
AssigneeHewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P.
InventorsScott C Cottrille, Yoram Yaacovi, Antony Halim
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A scalable computing system for managing annotations is capable of handling requests for annotations to millions of documents a day. The computing system consists of multiple tiers of servers. A tier I server indicates whether there are annotations associated with a content source. A tier II server indexes the annotations. A tier III server stores the body of the annotation.
Claims16
A computing system for scalably managing annotations, the computing system comprising:
- a tier III server storing data for the annotations;
- a tier II server separate and distinct from the tier III server, said tier II server maintaining a tier II index of the data for the annotations stored on the tier III server;
- and
- a tier I server separate and distinct from the tier II and tier III servers, said tier I server maintaining content information indicating if a content source has data indexed by the tier II server;
- wherein data for the annotations is not stored on any of the tier I server and the tier II server;
- wherein the content source is not stored on any of the tier I server, the tier II server and the tier III server;
- wherein the tier I server, based on the content information maintained by the tier I server, responds to one or more client requests for annotations associated with the content source with index information that permits the client to retrieve a tier II index associated with the content source;
- wherein said tier II index includes a plurality of generic properties for the annotations and wherein the tier III server further stores one or more type specific properties for the annotations;
- and
- wherein the tier III server further stores client software to allow a user to view a type of annotation and the annotation properties including the generic properties and the type specific properties, said tier III server transmitting the client software to the client when a viewer needed for the annotation type is not present on the client.
7 more elements
A scalable computerized method of posting an annotation, the method comprising:
- sending an annotation message from a content source to a tier III server, wherein said annotation message comprises a URL for a tier I server, a URL for a tier II server, a URL for a tier III server, a context document identifier, type specific annotation properties, generic annotation properties, and an annotation body;
- storing at least a portion of the annotation message on the tier III server, said stored portion of the annotation message including the type specific annotation properties;
- sending a second indexable portion of less than the stored portion of the annotation message from the tier III server to the tier II server, said tier II server separate and distinct from the tier III server, said second indexable portion including the generic annotation properties;
- storing the second indexable portion of the annotation message on the tier II server;
- sending content information from the tier II server to the tier I server, said content information indicating if the content source has an annotation indexed by the tier II server, said tier I server separate and distinct from the tier II and tier III servers, wherein the content source is not stored on any of the tier I server, the tier II server and the tier III server;
- storing the content information on the tier I server;
- and
- notifying the content source of a successful posting of the annotation to the tier III server.
5 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.