STREAMING CONTENT AND PLACEHOLDERS

摘要

Aspects of the subject matter described herein relate to file system placeholders. In aspects, placeholders may be used by a client to represent remote file system objects. The placeholders may include metadata and may also include none, some, or all of the content of the represented remote file system objects. In response to a request to access content of a file system object represented by a placeholder, a client may obtain needed data from a remote storage system and stream or not stream the data to the requesting application based on whether the requesting application is capable of streaming the data.

主权项

1. A method implemented by a computer, the method comprising:
receiving an indication of a file system object of a local file system of a client, the file system object comprising a placeholder representing the file system object on the local file system, a remote file at a remote storage system, and portions of content, the placeholder being stored on the local file system, the client structured to obtain metadata of the file system object from the placeholder, the client structured to synchronize the local file system with the remote storage system, including duplicating portions of the content between the remote file and the local file system, the metadata sufficient to allow the client, while offline with respect to the remote storage system, to obtain namespace information about the file system object from the placeholder, the placeholder including data that identifies the remote storage system from which data of the file system object is obtainable; receiving a request to access at least a portion of the content of the file system object; determining, based on the placeholder, whether the portion of the content resides on the local file system; providing first code that is configured to be executed responsive to determining that the portion of the content resides on the local file system, the first logic able to determine whether the portion of the content is up-to-date and, if so, provide the portion of the content from the local file system; providing second code that is configured to be executed responsive to determining that the portion of the content does not reside on the local file system, the second logic configured to determine whether or not an application to which the portion of the content is to be provided is structured to access the file system object via streaming; and providing third code that is configured to be executed responsive to determining that the application to which the portion of the content is to be provided is structured to access the file system object via streaming, the third code configured to perform actions comprising:
obtaining the portion of the content of the file system object from the remote storage system, andstreaming the content to the application.