Patent ID: 7363325

Claim:
A method of minimizing network traffic during the process of synchronizing a local transaction database with a remote transaction database, comprising: receiving from the remote transaction database a single summary hash computed for database records lying in an interval in the remote transaction database; comparing the single summary hash to a local single summary hash computed for database records lying in a same interval in the local transaction database; and when the single summary hash does not match the local summary hash, partitioning the interval into at least a first and a second sub-interval and requesting from the remote transaction database a first sub-interval summary hash and a second sub-interval summary hash, the first sub-interval summary hash computed for database records lying in the first sub-interval in the remote transaction database and the second sub-interval summary hash computed for database records lying in the second sub-interval in the remote transaction database, whereby the database can avoid updating database records in a sub-interval at the occurrence of a match between a local sub-interval summary hash and a sub-interval summary hash received from the remote transaction database.