Managing delivery of code and dependent data using application containers

• US 10,268,531 B2
• Filed: 01/13/2017
• Issued: 04/23/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 01/15/2016
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Google LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Google LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Inventors: Kirkpatrick, Ficus, Varadarajan, Vachaspati, Ganapathy, Subramaniam, Baumann, Patrick, Evans, Jesse
• Primary Examiner(s): Wang, Philip
• Application Number:
  US15/406,511
• Publication Number:
  US 20170206073A1
• Time in Patent Office: 830 Days
• Field of Search: None
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/61 Installation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/65 Updates security arrangements therefor G06F21/57
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/445 Program loading or initiating bootstrapping G06F9/4401; security arrangements for program loading or initiating G06F21/57
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/44505 Configuring for program initiating, e.g. using registry, configuration files
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/44521 Dynamic linking or loading; Link editing at or after load time, e.g. Java class loading
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/546 Message passing systems or structures, e.g. queues
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/02 Standardisation; Integration
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/142 Managing session states for stateless protocols; Signalling session states; State transitions; Keeping-state mechanisms
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/146 Markers for unambiguous identification of a particular session, e.g. session cookie or URL-encoding
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/148 Migration or transfer of sessions
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/34 involving the movement of software or configuration parameters network booting or remote initial program loading [RIPL] G06F9/4416

Abstract

In some examples, a method includes receiving, by a supervisor component executing at a computing device, a request to execute an application; responsive to determining that an application container for maintaining installable sub-packages of the application is allocated in memory of the computing device, determining, by a container runtime of the application container, one or more dependencies of the application; retrieving, by the container runtime, the one or more dependencies; and responsive to retrieving the one or more dependencies, executing, by the application container, the application.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

receiving, by a supervisor component executing at a computing device, a request to execute an application;

determining, by the supervisor component, whether an application container for maintaining installable sub-packages of the application is allocated in memory of the computing device;

responsive to determining that the application container is allocated in the memory of the computing device, determining, by a container runtime of the application container, one or more dependencies of the application, wherein the one or more dependencies include one or more required dependencies and one or more optional dependencies;

initiating, by the container runtime, retrieval of the one or more required dependencies;

initiating, by the container runtime, retrieval of the one or more optional dependencies; and

responsive to receiving all of the one or more required dependencies and while at least one of optional dependencies has not yet been received by the container runtime, executing, by the computing device, the application.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein executing the application comprises:

outputting, by the computing device, for display, a graphical user interface of the application including a placeholder graphical element for the at least one of the one or more optional dependencies not yet received by the container runtime; and

responsive to receiving the at least one of the one or more optional dependencies, outputting, by the computing device, for display, information associated with the at least one optional dependency in place of the placeholder element.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining, by the computing device and based on data included in the one or more optional dependencies, one or more installable sub-packages of the application configured to use the data included in the one or more optional dependencies; and

prefetching, by the application container, at least one of the one or more installable sub-packages of the application configured to use the data.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein determining the one or more dependencies of the application comprises retrieving, from a remote server, dependency information derived from heuristic analysis of the application.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein determining the one or more dependencies of the application comprises parsing, by the container runtime, metadata of the application.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the container runtime retrieves the one or more required dependencies from a first data source and the one or more optional dependencies from a second data source different form the first data source.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more required dependencies include one or more of a set of the installable sub-packages of the application or location data, and wherein the one or more optional dependencies include one or more of application data, image data, user data, location data, or third-party data.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the supervisor component is distinct from an operating system executing at the computing device, and wherein the application container includes a set of common functionality for a plurality of different applications.

9. A computing device comprising:

one or more storage components that store a supervisor component; and

one or more processors that execute the supervisor component to receive a request to execute an application;

wherein, responsive to the supervisor component determining that the application container is allocated in the memory of the computing device, a container runtime of the application container is executable by the one or more processors to;

determine one or more dependencies of the application, wherein the one or more dependencies include one or more required dependencies and one or more optional dependencies;

initiate retrieval of the one or more required dependencies;

initiate retrieval of the one or more optional dependencies; and

responsive to receiving all of the one or more required dependencies and while at least one of optional dependencies has not yet been received by the container runtime, execute the application.

10. The computing device of claim 9, wherein the container runtime is further executable by the one or more processors to:

output, for display, a graphical user interface of the application including a placeholder graphical element for the at least one of the one or more optional dependencies not yet received by the container runtime; and

responsive to receiving the at least one of the one or more optional dependencies, output, for display, information associated with the at least one optional dependency in place of the placeholder element.

11. The computing device of claim 9, wherein the application container is executable by the one or more processors to:

determine, based on data included in the one or more optional dependencies, one or more installable sub-packages of the application configured to use the data included in the one or more optional dependencies; and

prefetch at least one of the one or more installable sub-packages of the application configured to use the data.

12. The computing device of claim 9, wherein the container runtime is executable by the one or more processor to determine the one or more optional dependencies by at least being executable to parse metadata of the application.

13. The computing device of claim 9, wherein the container runtime is executable by the one or more processor to determine the one or more optional dependencies by at least being executable to retrieve, from a remote server, dependency information derived from heuristic analysis of the application.

14. The computing device of claim 9, wherein the container runtime is executable by the one or more processor to retrieve the one or more required dependencies from a first data source and the one or more optional dependencies from a second data source different form the first data source.

15. The computing device of claim 9, wherein the one or more required dependencies include one or more of a set of the installable sub-packages of the application or location data, and wherein the one or more optional dependencies include one or more of application data, image data, user data, location data, or third-party data.

16. The computing device of claim 9, wherein:

the one or more storage components further store an operating system;

the supervisor component is distinct from the operating system; and

the application container includes a set of common functionality for a plurality of different applications.

17. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium encoded with instructions that, when executed by one or more processors of a computing device, cause the one or more processors to:

receive a request to execute an application;

determine whether an application container for maintaining installable sub-packages of the application is allocated in a memory of the computing device;

responsive to determining that the application container is allocated in the memory of the computing device, determine one or more dependencies of the application, wherein the one or more dependencies include one or more required dependencies and one or more optional dependencies;

initiate retrieval of the one or more required dependencies;

initiate retrieval of the one or more optional dependencies; and

responsive to receiving all of the one or more required dependencies and while at least one of optional dependencies has not yet been received by the container runtime, execute the application.

18. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 17, wherein the instructions cause the one or more processors to determine the one or more dependencies by at least causing the one or more processors to retrieve, from a remote server, dependency information derived from heuristic analysis of the application or parse metadata of the application.

19. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 17, wherein the instructions cause the one or more processors to:

output, for display, a graphical user interface of the application including a placeholder graphical element for the at least one of the one or more optional dependencies not yet received; and

responsive to receiving the at least one of the one or more optional dependencies, output, for display, information associated with the at least one optional dependency in place of the placeholder element.

20. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 17, wherein the instructions cause the one or more processors to:

determine, based on data included in the one or more optional dependencies, one or more installable sub-packages of the application configured to use the data included in the one or more optional dependencies; and

prefetch at least one of the one or more installable sub-packages of the application configured to use the data.