Groove Infrastructure

The Groove messaging protocol and infrastructure servers manage user accounts and synchronize workspaces. Shown here is a simplified view of a workspace with three users—two in the same organization and one in a different organization.

Any change in a workspace is propagated to all other workspace users in messages sent by Groove’s proprietary protocol. Instant messages, chat messages, and user presence information also travel over the protocol. All Groove data are encrypted on disk and also in transit across the network.

Groove messages go directly from one client to another if allowed by the firewalls between users, as shown at left. Where the Groove protocol is blocked, Groove clients communicate by sending Groove messages over unblocked protocols (such as Hypertext Transfer Protocol) to an intermediate relay server. Relay servers also support offline users: when a user is offline, Groove messages queue at the relay server and are delivered when the user comes back online. Finally, relay servers can reduce the load on a client by managing transmission of data to other workspace members; for example, if one user posts a large file to a workspace, the relay server can transmit the file to the other users, rather than requiring the posting user’s computer to send the file to all the others.