US 11,709,845 B2
Federation of data during query time in computing systems
Helge Grenager Solheim, Oslo (NO); Åge Andre Kvalnes, Fetsund (NO); Runar Bergheim Olsen, Oslo (NO); Christian Thuv, Tønsberg (NO); Jan-Ove Almli Karlberg, Tromsø (NO); Tor Kreutzer, Tromsø (NO); Kai-Marius Sæther Pedersen, Tromsø (NO); Bjørn Erik Olsrød, Stabekk (NO); Bård Kvalheim, Oslo (NO); and Jeffrey Lawrence Wight, Kirkland, WA (US)
Assigned to Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC, Redmond, WA (US)
Filed by Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC, Redmond, WA (US)
Filed on Dec. 16, 2021, as Appl. No. 17/553,164.
Claims priority of provisional application 63/281,795, filed on Nov. 22, 2021.
Prior Publication US 2023/0161776 A1, May 25, 2023
Int. Cl. G06F 16/2457 (2019.01); G06F 16/25 (2019.01); G06F 16/23 (2019.01)
CPC G06F 16/24575 (2019.01) [G06F 16/2358 (2019.01); G06F 16/256 (2019.01)] 20 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
14. A computing device in a distributed computing system configured to provide computing resources of the distributed computing system as computing services to users via a computer network, the computing device being in a first geographic region and comprising:
a processor; and
a memory operatively coupled to the processor, the memory containing instructions executable by the processor to cause the computing device to:
upon receiving data representing an indication of interaction of a file by a user of a tenant; and
determine whether automatic replication of the file to a user shard corresponding to the user is permitted according to a company policy or a legal requirement, the user shard being in a second geographic region; and
in response to determining that automatic replication of the file to the user shard in the second geographic region is not permitted,
store the file in a tenant shard corresponding to the tenant in a network storage in the first geographic region; and
instead of replicating the file to the user shard in the second geographic region, create, in the user shard in the second geographic region, a file reference that is a pointer to the file stored in the tenant shard in the network storage in the first geographic region, the pointer containing data suitable to retrieve a copy of the file stored in the tenant shard in the first geographic region when the user queries for the stored file.