An Opinion blog

Is there any progress in transforming a system from one computer to another in Longhorn? I know there are some utilities in market now but I think if Longhorn has such a feature it will be very very convenient to users like me. :)

SpiderMan

when you say "replicate a set of items", can that set even tie into the magic that is WinFS and say "everything related to x" whether (darn that word - the oft-used wrong spelling has a funny meaning) it's an email, a photo or a word doc? (I'm guessing "yes" and already thinking - "cooooool")

Julie Lerman

This seems like a beautiful place for a web service. I would like to have my data backed up to a remote store, probably nightly. I would prefer it to be a service that Microsoft provided. I would assume the cost of a 400 GB disk plus a monthly fee for servicing the store.
This brings me to my other wish list for WinFS: A SourceSafe like file system that keeps versions, and stores them as deltas - something that would make backing up 200 GBs a heck of a lot easier. Just some random thoughts. I hope they are not already well covered and I have just missed them.

theCoach

SpiderMan, I know we are continuing invest in this area... just don't know the details myself.

Julie, yes you'll be able to identify the set of items to replicate using a query.

theCoach, I think there will be lots of oppertunity to add value to the Longhorn platform. :-)

Mike Deem

The file synchronization sounds very promising. I can't wait to get another Longhorn machine set up to see how well it works in the current implementation.

I previously wrote a WebService to remotely sync certain smaller files (my OPML for example) between a number of machines. The WebService model worked well, considering these machines were never directly connected to each other.

The service took in an attachment, and would delegate the sync logic to the provider for that file type. This allowed me to extend the system to support many different file types (although I only got as far as XML files :).

This seems like a natural model for WinFS synchronization, with Indigo as the transport mechanism. This would provide a standard model for synchronizing files - whether locally or remotely, and regardless of file type.

And, of course, it should include a PST provider out of the box... :)

(I originally planned on posting this on my weblog, but unfortunately I'm having problems logging in right now)

Tim Marman

This reminds me of an idea I had recently. Apps that have DB only data like PST or MSDE Data ought to have their data backed up, but it's hard to communicate how to do that to the average user. I was thinking previously about having some sort of Windows Installer tie in so that an application could register data that "should be backed up". However with WinFS it would be much eaiser to just add a "should be backed up" attribute in the metadata.

Kenneth Brubaker

Kenneth - COOOL idea. This is why I intuitively love WinFS the most of all the pillars.

Julie Lerman

Andrej Budja on Longhorn

Additionally, this would be a great way to keep a laptop and desktop in sync. Today I sometimes take my laptop on a trip and then when I get home I need to do some synchonization. It would be nice if they just synced back up.

Shawn Smith

Kenneth : I guess one way to accomplish this is to enforce that application's files and user's data are completely sealed from one another especially by having a consistent way of storing user's data (Outlook comes to mind...).

Daniel

There is a HUGE unanswered question that MS needs to address very soon.

What happens when I WinFS my NetApp filer which has 20Tb of data on it? What is the likely storage overhead going to be in terms of space? In terms of local processing? Network traffic?

Microsoft cannot continue to keep doing the "winFS = Longhorn = desktop" dance much longer before corporates start asking the awkward questions :-)

Jon
Contributing Editor, PCPro

jon honeyball

What level will that synchronizer operate at? Is it triggered by a write or is there some manual/scheduled process later? The former would be more transparent but if you're doing it over wireless or the internet it'd get ugly.

Does it send only the differences or simply copy the entire file? A blocked-transfer could be really efficient with filesystem assistance (basically reinventing the same transaction wheel all the database vendors solved a decade or two ago to provide snapshots and live backups) but it's not clear that it could rely on that support which suggests some sort of "this will be dramatically less efficient" indicator would be necessary. Some of my users like to work with 10-100GB files where very little data changes at a time so this would be nice even on our LAN and almost a necessity for the dubious-sanity types doing this over slow international connections.

A more advanced implementation with detached mode support would be extremely handy for road-warrior types who might not want their laptop trying to suck down massive changes over a slow remote connection - configurable priorities ("only use otherwise wasted network capacity" - BITS?) and some sort of importance scale for files / folders: "always sync this/sync first so I'll probably get it even if I cancel halfway through", "only sync when I have a fast connection", etc.

Chris Adams

Sorry for my poor English.

About the system transfer I said, what I want to say is if I have one computer which has the Longhorn installed for some time, so I will have many personal settings and files like emails and documents and etc in this system. Now I plan to buy a new pc which runs the Longhorn faster. If I want to keep everything in the new pc same with my old one, how can I do that in Longhorn?

SpiderMan

Vinod Kumar's Blog

I need to clarify the comment I made about using a query to determine the set of items to replicate using WinFS sync. You'll be able to do things like construct a query (using the shell or the API) to identify a set of items, then setup replication for the items in that set. Sync itself won't issue the query and maintain a dynamic set.

Mike Deem

WinFS Sync is an API for application developers. An application must be aware of what 2 data sources it wants to synchronize. Some Sync Controlling Applications (SCAs) will be built right into Longhorn, see Castle. For each backend data source you need a Sync Adapter, LH will ship with a WinFS to WinFS adapter. It will probably ship with an Exchange adapter so you can keep contacts on the Exchange server synchronized with WinFS.

There is work underway with the Roaming User Profile (RUP) group to synchronize user profile data. Too early to talk about.

The WinFS Backup feature is not something I am familar with, eventually we will be testing the restore of winfs backups and then re-sync with all data sources and make sure all endpoint achieve synchronization without any data loss.

Willie Reed
WinFS Sync Test Lead

Willie Reed

hgh

hgh spray