On-demand mailbox synchronization and migration system

Abstract

A system for managing physical and logical resources to provide on-demand synchronization or migration of mailboxes and their corresponding content. Physical resources are managed by automatically assigning mailbox processing tasks to either reserved computing resources, or computing resources dynamically obtained from cloud computing services. Authentication resources are managed by automatically requesting credentials from users, accepting submitted credentials, and initiating mailbox processing tasks.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . A method, comprising:
 receiving, with a migration system, configuration information about a source and a destination messaging system, including identification of a plurality of mailboxes associated with the source messaging system;   migrating mailbox content associated with the plurality of mailboxes from the source to the destination messaging system, wherein said migrating includes dynamically allocating computing resources including a plurality of instances to provide sufficient processing capacity for migration of the mailbox content associated with the plurality of mailboxes from the source messaging system to the destination messaging system;   assigning each task of a plurality of tasks involved in said migrating to an instance of the plurality of instances based on a workload of each instance of the plurality of instances; and   providing a web service or web site configured to display status information regarding the migrating.   
     
     
         2 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising prioritizing the computing resources assigned based on at least one of cost, geographic location, bandwidth, availability, security, type, or speed. 
     
     
         3 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the configuration information includes a messaging protocol employed by the source messaging system, the destination messaging system, or both. 
     
     
         4 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising:
 receiving at least one of administrative credentials for accessing each mailbox of the plurality of mailboxes, user credentials for accessing a mailbox of the plurality of mailboxes, or a combination thereof.   
     
     
         5 . The method of  claim 4 , further comprising:
 prompting one or more users for the user credentials.   
     
     
         6 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein assigning each task of a plurality of tasks to an instance of the plurality of instances based on workload of each instance of the plurality of instances comprises:
 assigning each task of a plurality of tasks to an instance of the plurality of instances based on a workload to capacity ratio of each instance of the plurality of instances.   
     
     
         7 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the plurality of instances includes on-demand instances obtained from one or more cloud service providers. 
     
     
         8 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein migrating mailbox content associated with the plurality of mailboxes from the source to the destination messaging system includes migrating at least one of an e-mail, a task, a contact, an instant message, a text, a chat, a calendar, a folder, or a document. 
     
     
         9 . An apparatus, comprising:
 a memory component; and   a processing component that is arranged to operate on data to enable actions, the actions comprising:   receiving, with a migration system, configuration information about a source and a destination messaging system, including identification of a plurality of mailboxes associated with the source messaging system;   migrating mailbox content associated with the plurality of mailboxes from the source to the destination messaging system, wherein said migrating includes dynamically allocating computing resources including a plurality of instances to provide sufficient processing capacity for migration of the mailbox content associated with the plurality of mailboxes from the source messaging system to the destination messaging system;   assigning each task of a plurality of tasks involved in said migrating to an instance of the plurality of instances based on a workload of each instance of the plurality of instances; and   providing a web service or web site configured to display status information regarding the migrating.   
     
     
         10 . The apparatus of  claim 9 , wherein the actions further comprise prioritizing the computing resources assigned based on at least one of cost, geographic location, bandwidth, availability, security, type, or speed. 
     
     
         11 . The apparatus of  claim 9 , wherein the configuration information includes a messaging protocol employed by the source messaging system, the destination messaging system, or both. 
     
     
         12 . The apparatus of  claim 9 . wherein dynamically allocating computing resources including a plurality of instances to provide sufficient processing capacity for migration of the mailbox content associated with the plurality of mailboxes from the source messaging system to the destination messaging system comprises:
 dynamically allocating computing resources responsive to determining that the computing resources have insufficient processing capacity to execute each task of the plurality of tasks.   
     
     
         13 . The apparatus of  claim 9 , wherein assigning each task of a plurality of tasks to an instance of the plurality of instances based on workload of each instance of the plurality of instances comprises:
 assigning each task of a plurality of tasks to an instance of the plurality of instances based on a workload to capacity ratio of each instance of the plurality of instances.   
     
     
         14 . The apparatus of  claim 9 , wherein dynamically allocating computing resources including a plurality of instances to provide sufficient processing capacity for migration of the mailbox content associated with the plurality of mailboxes from the source messaging system to the destination messaging system comprises:
 determining the size of each mailbox of the plurality of mailboxes; and   determining the sufficient processing capacity based on the size of each mailbox of the plurality of mailboxes.   
     
     
         15 . The apparatus of  claim 9 , wherein each mailbox of the plurality of mailboxes are mailboxes of a first type and wherein at least one task of the plurality of tasks includes translating a mailbox of the plurality of mailboxes to a mailbox of a second type. 
     
     
         16 . The method of  claim 9 , wherein migrating mailbox content associated with the plurality of mailboxes from the source to the destination messaging system includes migrating at least one of an e-mail, a task, a contact, an instant message, a text, a chat, a calendar, a folder, or a document. 
     
     
         17 . A method comprising:
 enumerating a plurality of instances obtained from one or more cloud service providers, each of the plurality of instances configured to execute one or more computing tasks associated with migration of mailbox content from a source messaging system to a destination messaging system;   terminating a first instance of the plurality of instances;   assigning a task of the one or more computing tasks to a second instance of the plurality of instances; and   requesting new instances.   
     
     
         18 . The method of  claim 17 , wherein enumerating a plurality of instances obtained from one or more cloud service providers comprises:
 enumerating the plurality of instances and states of the plurality of instances;   identifying unfilled instances of the plurality of instances;   identifying pending instances of the plurality of instances; and   identifying registered and unregistered instances of the plurality of instances.   
     
     
         19 . The method of  claim 17 , wherein terminating a first instance of the plurality of instances comprises:
 identifying instances of the plurality of instances that are unfulfilled for a time period exceeding a first threshold;   identifying instances of the plurality of instances that are pending for a time period exceeding a second threshold; and   identifying instances of the plurality of instances that have no assigned task.   
     
     
         20 . The method of  claim 17 , wherein assigning a task of the one or more computing tasks to a second instance of the plurality of instances comprises:
 determining a workload of each instance of the plurality of instances; and   assigning the task of the one or more computing tasks to the second instance of the plurality of instances based on the workload of each instance of the plurality of instances.