Patent ID: 8959242
Filing Date: 2015-02-17
Classification: H04L

Abstract:
1. A method of reducing bandwidth required for sharing a selected network-stored folder with a set of target computers so as to cause, on each target computer, storage locally of a mirrored folder that corresponds to the selected folder, each of the target computers coupled to a wide area network, wherein the selected folder is stored in a server-based storage system accessible over the wide area network, the server-based storage system coupled to a server, the method comprising: causing, by the server, each target computer to run a synchronization program that has a synchronization protocol, the protocol configured in a given one of the target computers (i) to provide, over the wide area network, to the server, folder-change data when a mirrored folder stored locally on the given target computer has experienced a change by virtue of adding, removing, modifying, or moving a file therein and (ii) to interact with the server to cause updating of the selected network-stored folder to reflect the change; in response to receipt by the server of the folder-change data from the given one of the target computers, transmitting, by the server, to the synchronization program running on the given one of the target computers, metadata from the server of the server-based storage system characterizing at least one destination IP address of the other target computers to be used for folder synchronization; wherein the protocol is further configured to cause the given target computer to use the at least one destination IP address to cause its mirrored folder to be synchronized with the at least one of the other target computers by file transfer therewith over the wide area network on a peer-to-peer basis; so that any need for transfer by the server of data files from the server-based storage system over the wide area network to the target computers in order to maintain synchronization of the selected folder is reduced.