Program release packages including program updates

• US 10,353,696 B2
• Filed: 04/13/2017
• Issued: 07/16/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 04/13/2017
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Blackberry Limited
• Original Assignee: Blackberry Limited
• Inventors: Willis, Edward Snow, Travers, Christopher Scott, Liu, Yuhui, Ren, Ning Erin, Qaderi, Hashim Mohammad, Velakur Sambamoorthy, Karthik, Ahmed, Parvez, Yeung, Eric, Markine, Evgueni Eugene, Hutchens, Scott, Seaman, Conrad Delbert
• Primary Examiner(s): Zhen, Wei Y
• Assistant Examiner(s): Wu, Junchun
• Application Number:
  US15/486,979
• Publication Number:
  US 20180300123A1
• Time in Patent Office: 824 Days
• Field of Search: 717169
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/61 Installation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/658 Incremental updates; Differential updates
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/71 Version control security arrangements therefor G06F21/57; Configuration management
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 5/008 communicating information to a remotely located station transmission systems for measured values G08C
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/12 specially adapted for proprietary or special-purpose networking environments, e.g. medical networks, sensor networks, networks in vehicles or remote metering networks
• 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 system receives information of vehicles, the information comprising information of programs executable in the vehicles. The system selects, based on the received information of the vehicles, program updates to include in a program release package, the program updates comprising a patch to update programs in the vehicles, the selecting based on determining how many vehicles are able to apply the program updates of the program release package.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

receiving, by a system comprising a processor, information of vehicles, the information comprising information of programs executable in the vehicles;

selecting, by the system based on the received information of the vehicles, program updates to include in a program release package, the program updates comprising a patch to update a program in the vehicles, the selecting based on satisfying a goal of increasing a number of the vehicles that are able to apply the program release package, and a goal of reducing usage of network bandwidth when the vehicles download the program release package;

as part of the selecting, providing feedback to an entity defining the program release package on how many vehicles will not be able to apply the program updates of the program release package, and how many vehicles are expected to download a full updated program rather than the patch; and

downloading, by the system, the program release package over a network to the vehicles to cause the vehicles to update the programs in the vehicles using the program release package.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein providing the feedback further comprises providing an indication of a size of the full updated program.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein providing the feedback comprises providing suggested program updates to include in the program release package.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein providing the suggested program updates to include in the program release package comprises identifying specific patches to include.

5. The method of claim 3, wherein providing the suggested program updates to include in the program release package comprises identifying specific full updated programs to include.

6. The method of claim 3, wherein providing the feedback further comprises providing information of a last communication with a given vehicle to provide an indication of a reliability of information relating to program versions currently installed in the given vehicle.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the received information of the vehicles comprises information of versions of the programs in the vehicles, and wherein the selecting of the program updates to include in the program release package is based on using the information of the versions of the programs in the vehicles to satisfy the goal of increasing the number of the vehicles that are able to apply the program release package, and the goal of reducing the usage of the network bandwidth when the vehicles download the program release package.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the selecting of the program updates to include in the program release package uses, by the system, the information of the versions of programs in the vehicles to decide between including, in the program release package, a full updated program for a given program or a patch for the given program.

9. The method of claim 7, further comprising:

identifying, by the system based on information of versions of a given program in the vehicles, patches useable to update to a new version of the given program from the versions of the given program in the vehicles;

determining, by the system, an aggregate size of the patches useable to update the versions of the given program in the vehicles to the new version of the given program;

determining, by the system, a size of a full updated program for the given program,

wherein the selecting of the program updates to include in the program release package uses the aggregate size of the patches and the size of the full updated program.

10. A system comprising:

a processor; and

a non-transitory storage medium storing instructions executable on the processor to;

present, in a graphical user interface (GUI), information associated with program updates of a program release package for deployment to vehicles, the program updates comprising a patch to update a program in the vehicles from a first version to a second version of the program;

identify, based on received information regarding programs installed in the vehicles, additional program updates to add to the program release package, the identifying based on satisfying a goal of increasing a number of the vehicles that are able to apply the program release package, and a goal of reducing usage of network bandwidth when the vehicles download the program release package;

as part of the identifying, provide feedback to an entity defining the program release package on how many vehicles will not be able to apply the program updates of the program release package, and how many vehicles are expected to download a full updated program rather than the patch;

present, in the GUI, the identified additional program updates; and

download, over a wireless network, the program release package to the vehicles to cause the vehicles to update the programs in the vehicles using the program release package.

11. The system of claim 10, wherein the identified additional program updates comprise additional patches to add to the program release package to increase the number of the vehicles that are able to apply the program release package and to reduce a cost of usage of the network bandwidth of the wireless network.

12. The system of claim 10, wherein the identified additional program updates comprise a full updated program to add to the program release package to increase the number of the vehicles that are able to apply the program release package.

13. The system of claim 12, wherein the GUI includes an indication that a full updated program is not included for a particular electronic component of at least some of the vehicles.

14. The system of claim 10, wherein the vehicles are part of a target group of vehicles, and the instructions are executable on the processor to present, in the GUI, information regarding a time of last communication with a vehicle in the target group.

15. The system of claim 10, wherein the received information comprises information of versions of the programs in the vehicles, and wherein the identifying of the additional program updates to add to the program release package is based on using the information of the versions of the programs in the vehicles to satisfy the goal of increasing the number of the vehicles that are able to apply the program release package, and the goal of reducing the usage of the network bandwidth when the vehicles download the program release package.

16. The system of claim 15, wherein the identifying of the additional program updates to add to the program release package uses the information of the versions of the programs in the vehicles to decide between including, in the program release package, a full updated program for a given program or a patch for the given program.

17. A non-transitory machine-readable storage medium storing instructions that upon execution cause a system to:

receive information of vehicles, the information comprising information of programs executable in the vehicles;

select, based on the received information of the vehicles, program updates to include in a program release package, the program updates comprising a patch to update a program in the vehicles, the selecting based on satisfying a goal of increasing a number of the vehicles that are able to apply the program release package, and a goal of reducing usage of network bandwidth when the vehicles download the program release package;

as part of the selecting, provide feedback to an entity defining the program release package on how many vehicles will not be able to apply the program updates of the program release package, and how many vehicles are expected to download a full updated program rather than the patch; and

download, over a wireless network, the program release package to the vehicles to cause the vehicles to update the programs in the vehicles using the program release package.

18. The non-transitory machine-readable storage medium of claim 17, wherein the selecting comprises selecting a full updated program to include in the program release package to increase the number of the vehicles that are able to apply the program release package.

19. The non-transitory machine-readable storage medium of claim 17, wherein the program updates are to update programs of electronic components in the vehicles.