Collaboration Synchronization Context Extraction
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current collaboration tools face challenges in synchronizing heavy application data, particularly in medical imaging applications, leading to increased load and difficulty in maintaining efficient collaboration sessions across multiple users.
Innovation Solution
A system that employs a context management server and application servers to manage synchronization of usage context information and application data, distributing collaboration session context and data synchronization management, allowing for efficient synchronization of heavy data without sharing the application data with the context management server, thus reducing traffic and load.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If application data is shared and synchronized between all participants in collaboration sessions, then collaboration functionality is enabled, but network traffic and server load increase significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts heavy application data (such as medical images) from the synchronization process. Instead of sharing and synchronizing the actual image data between all participants, the system extracts only the necessary usage context information (metadata, viewing parameters, annotations) and shares that lightweight information. This allows collaboration functionality to be maintained while dramatically reducing network traffic and server load.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent creates a simplified copy of the data model for synchronization purposes. Rather than synchronizing the full application data objects, the system creates a reduced representation that contains only the essential usage context information needed for collaboration. This copy approach enables synchronization to proceed with minimal data transfer while preserving the necessary collaborative functionality.
2Productivity
If heavy application data is synchronized in real-time, then collaboration efficiency is improved, but synchronization complexity and difficulty increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts and separates usage context information from heavy application data. By taking out only the essential metadata and viewing parameters for synchronization, the system maintains real-time collaboration efficiency while avoiding the complexity of synchronizing large binary data objects. This extraction simplifies the synchronization mechanism significantly.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent segments the data into two distinct categories: heavy application data (images, videos) that remains local to each participant, and usage context information (metadata, parameters, annotations) that is shared and synchronized. This segmentation allows the system to maintain collaboration efficiency through real-time synchronization of lightweight context data while avoiding the complexity of synchronizing heavy data.
3Adaptability or versatility
If all application data is shared between participants, then complete collaboration is achieved, but data processing load on servers increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts only the necessary usage context information from the full application data for server processing. Instead of processing and sharing complete application data objects, the system extracts lightweight metadata and viewing parameters that convey the essential collaboration context. This maintains collaboration completeness while dramatically reducing server processing load.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent creates a simplified data model that copies only the essential features needed for collaboration. This reduced data representation preserves the necessary collaboration information while requiring minimal server processing power, effectively decoupling collaboration completeness from server resource consumption.
Data Source
AI summary
Techniques are described for improving the efficiency of collaboration session synchronization between applications, particularly applications that consume heavy application data. In an embodiment, a computer-implemented method comprises employing, by an application server operatively coupled to a processor, a context management server to manage synchronization of usage context information between a first client device and one or more second client devices related to simultaneous usage of an application provided by the application server during a collaboration session established between the first client device and the one or more second client devices. The method further comprises managing, by the application server, synchronization and exchange of application data between the first client device and the one or more second client devices during the collaboration session without sharing the application data with the context management server.