Device-independent on demand synchronization in the Unico file system

• Main Author: Schroeder, Jonatan
• Language: English
• Published: University of British Columbia 2016
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/58746

As people increasingly use a wide variety of devices throughout their day, it becomes important to give users consistent and efficient access to their data in all their devices, while at the same time take into consideration the resource limitations in each device. This dissertation presents a storage platform that presents users with a single view of all their data, independently of the device they are using. Each of the user’s devices has full and up-to-date information about the entire data structure and metadata, and is able to retrieve any file transparently as needed. File content, including history, is efficiently distributed among the user’s own devices according to where it is used, with no need for centralized storage and no data stored in devices that are not owned by the user. Peers communicate with each other directly to maintain a consistent state. Users also have no need to know where the data is stored, or to remember in which device the latest update to a file has been performed. The user is able to adapt the platform to devices with different storage and network characteristics. While the latency to access content is affected, and some data may not be available at all times if some devices are disconnected, applications have access to tools that allow them to adapt to data availability. === Science, Faculty of === Computer Science, Department of === Graduate