Contact List Status Notification Filtering for Network Load Reduction
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Solution Overview
Problem
As collaboration software contact lists grow, the increased number of status notifications overwhelms the awareness server, leading to a higher load, which can be mitigated only by limiting the contact list size, thereby reducing collaboration utility.
Innovation Solution
Implementing a contact list manager that categorizes contacts into active and archive sublists based on communication history, forwarding notifications only for active contacts and withholding them for disabled contacts, with the option for subscribers to reclassify contacts and manage notification states.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If notifications are sent for all contact list members, then complete awareness information is provided, but server load increases and network traffic increases
Solution Approach 1:
The contact list is segmented into active sublist and archive sublist based on communication history. The system divides notifications into two categories: those sent to active contacts and those withheld for archived contacts. This segmentation allows the system to maintain complete awareness information for active contacts while reducing overall notification volume to alleviate server load.
Solution Approach 2:
The system applies partial action by selectively sending notifications only to active contacts rather than all contacts. By using communication history to determine which contacts receive notifications, the system performs the notification function partially (for active contacts only) rather than excessively (for all contacts), thereby reducing server load while maintaining necessary awareness information.
2Productivity
If contact list size is limited, then server load is reduced, but collaboration utility is reduced
Solution Approach 1:
Instead of limiting the overall contact list size, the system segments the contact list into active and archive sublists. This allows the contact list to grow without limit while the notification subsystem selectively processes only active contacts. The segmentation enables the system to maintain high collaboration utility by preserving all contacts while reducing server load by notifying only active contacts.
Solution Approach 2:
The system applies partial action by withholding notifications for archived contacts rather than limiting the contact list itself. This approach maintains the full contact list for collaboration purposes while selectively applying the notification function only to active contacts, thereby preserving collaboration utility while reducing server load.
3Loss of energy
If notifications are withheld for archived contacts, then network traffic is reduced, but contact information may be lost
Solution Approach 1:
The system segments contacts into active and archive sublists based on communication history timestamps. By segmenting rather than deleting, the system reduces network traffic by withholding notifications for archived contacts while preserving their contact information in the archive sublist for future collaboration needs.
Solution Approach 2:
The system discards notifications for archived contacts to reduce network traffic, but recovers contact information by maintaining archived contacts in the database. Users can reclassify archived contacts back to active status when needed, ensuring contact information is preserved and can be recovered when collaboration is needed again.
Data Source
AI summary
An awareness notification management system including a contact list manager managing an awareness service subscriber contact list including an active sublist for active contacts and an archive sublist for disabled contacts, and an awareness manager for monitoring the status contact list members, where the awareness manager is configured to access a history including at least one timestamp of a last communication exchange between the awareness service subscriber and any of the members of the contact list, and query the history for any of the timestamps and classify any of the contacts as a disabled contact on the archive sublist if the timestamp for the contact is older than a predefined age, and where the awareness manager is configured to forward to the awareness service subscriber awareness notifications regarding the status of the active contacts and withhold from the awareness service subscriber awareness notifications regarding the status of the disabled contacts.