Glossary

attendee resolution

The process of determining information about a given attendee associated with a calendar meeting in the system where the meeting resides. This resolution is required because user identifiers are not guaranteed to be the same across the systems.

BPEL

Business Process Execution Language. An XML-based markup language for composing a set of discrete web services into an end-to-end process flow.

connector

A component within the BDSS architecture that sends data to, and retrieves data from, the PIM servers.

connector name

The name for a set of configurations for a connector that serve a specific set of PIM server instances.

connector instance

A representation of a specific installation of a connector. The instance can be a single connector, or it can represent a group of connectors that are accessed from the same load-balanced URI (Universal Resource Identifier).

connector user

A representation of an actual user of a PIM server.

Dispatcher

A Hub component that sends batches of users to the Engine.

domain

A class of records, such as a calendar, business contacts, personal contacts, or tasks.

echo

A record extracted record from a PIM server whose last update was done by a BDSS- initiated change from a prior Synchronization Session (as opposed to a change made by an end user).

Engine

A Hub component that synchronizes the user lists received from the Dispatcher with records extracted by from the PIM Servers by a connector.

federated PIM

For the purposes of this document, a federated PIM is a PIM that stores a single copy of a record and provides one or more users visibility and access to the record. For example, Siebel can be considered a federated PIM because Siebel allows multiple users to share a single Contact, Task or Calendar record. For example, if a calendar meeting (MeetingA) is organized by Siebel UserA with an attendee Siebel UserB, then both UserA and UserB have visibility and access to a single instance of the calendar record. See also non-federated PIM.

Hub

Orchestrates the synchronization of data for the system, includes the Engine and the Dispatcher.

Hub domain

An abstract representation of a domain. Each PIM connector has a set of connector domains that are mapped to a central set of HUB domains.

Hub record

Each Hub record represents a mapping between the PIM records for a user.

Hub user

A mapping of PIM server users to other PIM server users. The Hub user does not represent an actual user; it is a key value that represents a collection of PIM server users. There is a one-to-one relationship such that any PIM server can only associate one user to a Hub user; however, an arbitrary number of PIM servers or PIM users can be mapped into the collection. See also Hub User ID.

Hub User ID

An identifier used by the Hub that uniquely identifies a Hub user. A Hub User ID is mapped to a PIM User ID.

master record

A calendar record containing properties that describe the records' recurrence pattern.

natural map

Indicates a conceptual mapping of ICAL and PIM fields that have the same semantics, but may have different names. ICalendar (ICAL) RFC 2445 defines a fairly complete and generic set of fields. Because each PIM also has a set of fields defined for a calendar record, its fields may not have the same name as their ICAL counterparts. For example, while the ICAL LOCATION field maps to the non-indexed Exchange field called Location, the ICAL DTSTART field would map to the Microsoft Exchange calendar StartDate field.

non-federated PIM

For the purposes of this document, a non-federated PIM is a PIM that stores individual copies of related records. For example, Microsoft Exchange is a non-federated PIM because each user has their own copy of Contact, Task and Calendar records. If a calendar meeting (Meeting A) is organized by Exchange User A with an attendee Exchange User B, then both User A and User B get a separate, but related, copy of the calendar record. Exchange relates the two copies by ensuring both have the same meeting identifier (in terms of ICalendar, it is the UID). See also federated PIM.

occurrence

An occurrence is a single instance of a recurrence series.

PIM Server Endpoint

A connector-defined value used with configuration metadata to route the synchronization of a given user to a particular cluster of connectors.

PIM User ID

An identifier used by a connector for uniquely identifying a PIM user on the PIM server with which the connector communicates. The PIM User ID can be anything that the connector requires, but it is typically a user account name such as SBROWN or a SMTP e-mail address such as sharon.brown@example.com.

recurrence exception

A calendar occurrence that has undergone a change that applies only to the occurrence and not the entire recurrence series.

reflective synchronization

Used in development scenarios, reflective synchronization refers to a scenario in which a single PIM server is configured to have 2 connector entries in the BDSS system, so that data can be synchronized from one account in the PIM Server to another account in the server.

Scheduler

An external component that triggers the Dispatcher at set time intervals.

synchronization session

A session in which the Hub synchronizes the data for a Hub user for one or more Hub domains between one or more PIM stores.

synchronization state

Connector-provided data used by the Engine to track a user's domain records that have been exported successfully from a PIM server.

upsert record

A Hub record extracted from, or pushed to, a PIM server.