Cloud Virtual File System Metadata Management for Distributed Data Control
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Solution Overview
Problem
The integration of Internet-enabled devices in the workplace poses challenges such as data accessibility, control, security, and communication costs, as well as the lack of interoperability between devices and home computers, leading to inefficiencies in data management and usage.
Innovation Solution
A cloud-based operating system that maintains metadata structures for managing state information across multiple user assets, allowing applications to run across devices and enabling remote control and data transfer, while utilizing a virtual distributed file system for efficient data management and synchronization.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If data is distributed across multiple mobile devices and cloud services, then data accessibility and sharing improve, but data control and security management become more difficult
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a master device as an intermediary that centralizes control over distributed data assets. The master device maintains a metadata data structure that tracks the location and state of data across multiple slave devices and cloud services, enabling centralized management without requiring data to be physically centralized. This resolves the contradiction by providing data accessibility through distributed storage while maintaining control through a central coordinating entity.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent segments data management into two distinct components: data storage remains distributed across multiple devices and cloud services for accessibility, while data control and metadata management are centralized in the master device. This segmentation allows each component to optimize for its specific function—distributed storage for accessibility and centralized metadata management for control—thereby resolving the technical contradiction.
2Adaptability or versatility
If applications are run across multiple devices using cloud-based operating system, then interoperability and data sharing improve, but system complexity and coordination overhead increase
Solution Approach 1:
The master device serves multiple functions simultaneously: it acts as a control center for data management, a coordination hub for application execution across devices, and a metadata repository. This multi-functionality reduces the need for separate specialized systems, thereby improving interoperability while managing complexity through a single universal coordinating entity rather than multiple specialized components.
3Adaptability or versatility
If massive data transfers are performed over cellular networks for cloud synchronization, then data accessibility improves, but communication costs increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent enables direct peer-to-peer data transfers between slave devices when they are locally connected via Wi-Fi or other low-cost networks, rather than routing all data through expensive cellular networks to the cloud. The system intelligently selects the optimal transmission path based on available connections, using local networks when possible and cellular networks only when necessary. This resolves the contradiction by maintaining data accessibility while significantly reducing communication costs through selective use of network paths.
Data Source
AI summary
A method for managing a virtual distributed file system includes maintaining by a master device located in a cloud computing environment, a metadata data structure that stores metadata about locations of most updated versions of multiple file portions and security levels of the file portions, at least one file portion being stored at a user device coupled to the cloud computing environment, and maintaining by the master device, transaction of file portions to user entities, at least one user entity being hosted by the user device, based on at least metadata stored in the metadata data structure about the file portions.