cross-platform data synchronization

Cross-Platform Data Synchronization

Dan GroverWonder Warp Software LLC

1Friday, October 16, 2009

Good morning. I’m going to talk today about how you can write your own cross-plaform data synchronization as part of your iPhone apps.

Outline

1 Why Syncing Is Important

2 Syncing Through The Agesand why you still might want to write your own

3 Algorithms & Architecture

4 Implementing Sync in Obj-C


Here’s what we’re going to talk about today.- First, I want to persuade you why data synchronization is important, and why you might want to add it to your app.- Next, I’ll explain the ways data syncing has been solved by apps before, the advantages and disadvantages of various approaches, and explain why you may want to write your own.- Then we’re going to go over different algorithms that you can use to write your data synchronization code. I’m going to be very abstract and handwavy because it’s hard to talk about this kind of stuff when you’re also talking about implementation details.- Finally, we’ll dig in and talk about how to actually implement this stuff in Objective-C using the Cocoa APIs available to you.

Who I Am

• Former Northeastern student

• Independent software developer


How I Learned AboutSyncing


ShoveBox for Mac


I write an app called ShoveBox for the Mac. (describe)


Last November, I get an email from a friend of mine involved in the local Mobile Monday group here in Boston. They were going to do a fancy event at the Omni Parker House on “up and coming” mobile companies. Unfortunately, they couldn’t find enough up and coming mobile companies, so they asked me to present instead.

“So do you have anything you would like to present?”

At that time, I was mostly focused on Mac software -- I had a game out, but nothing much.So I said “Oh, of course, I can demo the new iPhone version of ShoveBox”

Unfortunately, there was no iPhone version of ShoveBox. I didn’t really want to do one. It was kind of beyond the scope of the app. And syncing was HAAARRRD.

So I made up a functional prototype of the iPhone app. I added a pretend dialog to the Mac app to show it syncing. I had a script that I used to convert the example data over so it looked the same.

?7Friday, October 16, 2009

I actually *did* want to make the iPhone version for real, though. But I had no idea how it was going to work. I played around with a few half-way solutions -- storing the new entries and just propagating those on sync. But I realized that real, honest-to-god two-way syncing was doable if I just sat down and thought about it for a while. I studied all the ways that people are doing syncing and realized it wouldn’t be too hard to write my own from scratch. Sounds crazy.


A few months later, I finally ship the iPhone version. Sales quadruple, it gets two reviews in Macworld. Still some bugs with syncing, but eventually those get ironed out.

Quick Demo


Outline

1 Why Syncing Is Important

2 Syncing Through The Agesand why you still might want to write your own

3 Algorithms & Architecture

4 Implementing Sync in Obj-C


Why Syncing isImportant

1


I’m going to get on my soapbox for a moment and explain briefly why I think this is an important topic, and how it’s applicable to more apps than you’d think.


Syncing has been something people have been trying to solve for a long time.If you follow the current hype, we don’t have to worry about it because...

the

CLOUD


...you put everything on the cloud! The cloud will solve all our problems!The popular conception of the trend of “cloud computing” is a little wrong. People think of it as a monolithic thing.


But the reality is that the huge benefit of cloud computing is that you can outsource the right things to the right people. I use one company for sending my email newsletters, because they have the best infrastructure and software for that. I use another for my regular web hosting, and yet another to host downloads. And I use a help desk app called Zendesk. So it’s not really on “the cloud” -- it’s on a lot of clouds!

So we’re back to the same problem -- data is going to be in a ton of different places, and you have to build systems that can deal with that. Sync plays a big part.

A

CLOUD A

CLOUD

A

CLOUDA

CLOUD


So the future’s more complicated than it seems. It’s not “the cloud”, but lots of clouds and client apps and platforms and apparently goats. And they all have to be share data but operate independently.

Does your app pass the Green Line Test?


And if you don’t think data synchronization applies to your app, I’d like you all to try this while you’re in the city. I call it the Green Line Test.


I used to live near Lechmere in East Cambridge, and I’d commute in to classes at Northeastern using the Green Line. The Green Line touches a lot of areas of Boston and goes above ground and below. Some of the stations underground are dead, some have reception. Inevitably, the ones that the train stops inexplicably for 20 minutes in will be those that don’t. You see, they’ve upgraded all the trains and haven’t quite got all the kinks worked out.

If your app is one of those “thin” or “hybrid” apps that needs to make an HTTP request to do anything, you should try running your app for the entirety of a Green Line ride. How does it handle it when you lose connectivity for a minute? Pop up an error? Or stall indefinitely? How good an experience is it? Do you cache things well, or does it always need a connection?

If you find that it’s not very good in this situation, you should consider making more of your application operate on the device itself, and then sync its state back to the cloud. It will be more responsive and usable more of the time. You’ve probably avoided something like this because, well, syncing is a pain. But what I’m going to talk about in this presentation will help.

Syncing Through The Agesand

Why You Still Might Want ToWrite Your Own

2



I thought this tweet from Steven Frank was funny. It’s true. It never works.I think that’s because there’s not a lot of knowledge about syncing out there. There are a lot of companies that have written (bad) syncing, and a few academic papers on it. But not a lot of talk about syncing as a subject. If more people didn’t have to waste all this time learning the basics for themselves, we could have better syncing as more people work out the kinks and integrate it in more systems.

Set-Reconciliation Problem


Academics call syncing the “set reconciliation problem”. You’ve got two sets, and you want to reconcile their differences. The literature on it is pretty limited though.

rsync


Subversion


Subversion is a kind of syncing a lot of us probably use every day. Like most version control systems, the idea is that your whole team can have the most current copy of the code.

Data ≠ Files


But it’s important to note that there’s a big difference between syncing *data* and syncing *files*. Syncing data is a LOT harder!

DropBox


Dropbox is a consumer file syncing solution. But it actually ends up working a lot more like Subversion than you’d think. It keeps revisions and actually handles conflicts in a neat way.

HotSync


Palm was one of the first companies to try to make a comprehensive syncing solution for consumers.

The way HotSync works is that, once you’ve done the first sync, the Palm would set these status flags on any piece of data that you changed. That would make it really fast to sync back up with your PC, because the PC had an old copy of the data that both devices had the last time you synced.

Sync ServicesMac OS X


Sync Services is Apple’s syncing framework. It’s pretty neat, and if you were like me and trying to write a Mac app that synced with an iPhone app, it would *almost* work.

Your App Truth Database

Macs

Sync Services


Sync Services has this concept of a “Truth Database” -- where you replicate all your data so that it can sync it elsewhere. It gives you lots of goodies to sync your app to the Truth database -- pushing and pulling changes. They give you tools to define the schema you want the Truth to keep for your data.

But then it gets magically put on MobileMe and synced to other Macs. You don’t have any control over that.

The iPhone supports MobileMe, but only for syncing contacts, appointments, and notes. It doesn’t read in the truth database from Sync Services, it’s totally separate. There is no Sync Services for the iPhone.

So that’s kind of a bummer.

Two Approaches:

History-BasedEx-Post-Facto


History-Based Ex-Post-Facto

CONS

- Easy to bolt onto an existing system- Hot swappable: arbitrary configurations of devices in any state can be synced

- Syncing can be slower- Requires accurate date/time info

- Efficient and accurate

- All client software must maintain status flags/history- Does not scale as well- Complicated

CONS

PROSPROS


History-Based Ex-Post-Facto

SubversionDropboxHotSync (Fast)

RsyncSync ServicesHotSync (Slow)


When To Write Your Own• When your schema demands custom handling

• Dependencies• Ordering

• When data needs to be specially converted and prepared for different clients/devices

• iTunes and iPod Shuffles

• When it’s a core function


Algorithmsand

Architecture

3


A BA ∩ B


So in these algorithms, we’re going to be a little abstract and think of this as two sets of data.- A is all the data that’s on your first device, B is all the data that’s on the second device.- Here’s all the data that’s *only on A*. That needs to be put on B if it was added, deleted from A if not.- Here’s all the data that’s *only on B*. That needs to be put on A if it was added, deleted from B if not.- Here’s the data that’s on both. This is the trickiest part. We need to sift through this data and figure out if any of it has been modified since the last sync. We need to merge modifications when we can, and otherwise, ask the user to resolve the conflict.

Goal of a Sync Algorithm

Make Two Sets The Same (duh!)

... in a way consistent with user expectations

... as quickly as possible


So what is the goal of any sync algorithm? To make both sets of data the same.Well, that part is pretty easy. I could just erase what’s on your server account and erase what’s on your iPhone. Done!Turns out it’s more complicated. There are a lot of *correct* ways to make this happen, but only some of them are what the user is expecting to see.The sync also has to be fast. This usually means a minimum of data being transferred.

Three Algorithms

Copy Sync Merge


But there are a few ways to skin a cat. Let’s look at each of these. They all meet the definition we discussed, but go about it differently.

Good Will Hunting

The Departed

21

Spenser: For Hire

The Boondock Saints

With Honors

A BCopy

Good Will Hunting


Good Will Hunting

The Departed

21

A BCopy

Good Will Hunting

The Departed

21


Good Will Hunting

The Departed

21

Spenser: For Hire

The Boondock Saints

With Honors

A BMerge

Good Will Hunting


Good Will Hunting

The Departed

21

Spenser: For Hire

The Boondock Saints

With Honors

A BMerge

Good Will Hunting

The Departed

21

Spenser: For Hire

The Boondock Saints

With Honors


A BSync

last sync = 12PM

The Departed created:modified:

2PM2PM

21 created:modified:

11AM11AM

Good Will… created:modified:

11AM11AM

Boondock… created:modified:

1PM1PM

With Honors created:modified:

2PM2PM

now = 3PM

created:modified:

2PM2PM Good Will… created:

modified:11AM11AM


A BSync

last sync = 12PM


2PM2PM

Good Will… created:modified:

11AM11AM


1PM1PM


2PM2PM

now = 3PM

created:modified:

2PM2PM Good Will… created:

modified:11AM11AM


2PM2PM


1PM1PM


2PM2PM


Three Algorithms

Copy Sync Merge


So let’s go back here and talk about when to use each of these algorithms:SYNC: This is what you’re going to want to do 95% of the time.The other two algorithms are for when you’re first setting two devices up to sync.COPY: Some people doing sync like to offer you a choice of data on either device to become the “one true” set of data.MERGE: What I do with ShoveBox is just do a merge the first time -- because there might be data on both devices they want to keep. It avoids any confusion over the choice, and nobody’s going to be pissed with the initial result.

Needed for Sync

•On each device, each object needs:

•Creation Date

•Modification Date

•UDID


Sync: In Depth

PREPARE

SYNC OBJECTS IN ONLY A

SYNC OBJECTS IN ONLY B

SYNC INTERSECTION

CLEAN UP45Friday, October 16, 2009