Patent ID: 7216133

Claim:
In a computer network comprised of a plurality of different types of platforms for storing replicas of the same data, and wherein the limitations or features of a particular platform may require the data of a replica to be stored in a different physical arrangement at the data store layer of the particular platform, and wherein when synchronizing the replicas the data for each replica must be mapped from the different physical arrangement at each platform into a logical view table of a synchronization layer of the particular platform that has a similar layout to the logical view table at each of the other different types of platforms, a method for mapping of the physical layout of items in a data store layer of a platform to a logical view in a synchronization layer of the platform, the method comprising: an act of compiling at the computer system of a particular platform a logical schema into a catalog that can be used to define a logical view that has a similar layout to the logical view for each platform, and that includes a logical grouping of data items by defining the data items in terms of, a change unit that defines the granularity of a group of data items in the sense that if any part of the group of data items is modified, the entire group of data items will be synchronized when synchronizing other replicas; and a consistency unit, defining the minimum group of data items that must be reported during synchronization if any item of the group is changed; an act of utilizing the catalog to map items from a physical layout to the logical view that has a similar layout to the logical view at different platforms of one or more other computer systems; and an act of storing a synchronization tracker in the logical view table at the synchronization level for each platform, the synchronization tracker maintaining: a version change enumeration corresponding to a synchronized version of a data item in the logical view of the computer system; and a source identifier identifying a particular replica upon which the synchronized version of the data item is based.