Dynamic computing environment using remotely allocable resources

• US 20020049803A1
• Filed: 05/17/2001
• Published: 04/25/2002
• Est. Priority Date: 08/24/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Clouding Corporation (Marathon Patent Group, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Symantec Operating Corporation (NortonLifeLock Inc.)
• Inventors: Nanja, Sekaran, Miyamoto, Carleton, Bandhole, Jagadish, Blume, William
• Granted Patent: US 7,278,142 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 718/104
• 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 9/40 Network security protocols

Abstract

A system and a method of providing a dynamic computing environment to a user, in which the dynamic computing environment is configured to communicate and to operate under the control of the user. The dynamic computing environment has one or more virtual resources including at least one virtual computing device and one or more computer programs associated with the at least one virtual computing device. According to the present invention, the user has access, for example, to interact with, to modify, and to use the dynamic computing environment including the at least one virtual resource and the at least one physical resource.

Claims

1. A system using a computer system to provide a dynamic computing environment to a user, where the dynamic computing environment is configured to communicate with the user, the dynamic computing environment having at least one virtual resource including one or more computer programs associated with the at least one virtual resource, the system comprising:

a session manager configured to accept user inputs;

an assets manager electrically coupled to the session manager, where the assets manager generates an association relating the at least one virtual resource to at least one physical resource;

a configuration manager electrically coupled to the session manager, where the configuration manager maintains an association of at least one virtual network with the at least one virtual resource; and

a device manager electrically coupled to the device services manager, where the device manager manages the association between the at least one virtual resource and the at least one physical resource;

wherein the user has access to interact with the dynamic computing environment including the at least one virtual resource and the at least one physical resource.

2. The system of claim 1, further comprising a device services manager electrically coupled to the session manager, wherein the device services manager is configured to provide an interface between the at least one virtual resource and the at least one physical resource.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein the interface is coupled to a manager of the physical resource to coordinate a function to be performed by the virtual resource, wherein the interface is under control of an interface computer program.

4. The system of claim 3, wherein the manager of the physical resource is a sub-net manager.

5. The system of claim 3, wherein the manager of the physical resource is the device manager.

6. The system of claim 3, wherein the manager of the physical resource is a storage manager.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the physical resource is a physical computing device.

8. The system of claim 7, further comprising a boot manager electrically coupled to the device services manager, the boot manager configured to initialize the physical computing device.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein the association relating the at least one virtual resource with at least one physical resource remains for a period of time.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein the user determines the period of time.

11. The system of claim 1, further comprising a sub-net manager electrically coupled to the device services manager, the sub-net manager configured to manage a virtual sub-network associated with the virtual network, wherein the virtual sub-network includes a virtual resource associated with a physical resource.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the sub-net manager is configured to manage two or more virtual sub-networks.

13. The system of claim 1, further comprising a storage manager electrically coupled to the device services manager, where the storage manager is configured to manage one or more physical storage devices, wherein the storage manager provides a virtual storage to store data from the virtual resource.

14. The system of claim 1, wherein the dynamic computing environment comprises:

a first virtual resource configured as a client, wherein the first virtual resource is a first virtual computing device;

a second virtual resource configured as a server, wherein the second virtual resource is a second virtual computing device, the second virtual computing device coupled to exchange information with the first virtual computing device; and

a virtual sub-network including the first and the second virtual computing device;

wherein the user has access to the client, the server, and the information exchanged.

15. The system of claim 14, wherein the user has access to both the client and the server to verify proper execution of a computer program.

16. The system of claim 1, wherein the dynamic computing environment comprises:

a first virtual resource configured as a first virtual computing device, where the first virtual computing device is associated with at least one physical computing device;

a first virtual sub-network including the first virtual computing device;

a second virtual resource configured as a second virtual computing device, where the second virtual computing device is associated with at least at least one physical computing device; and

a second virtual sub-network including the second virtual computing device, where the first virtual sub-network and the second virtual sub-network are configured to exchange information between the first virtual computing device and the second virtual computing device,

wherein the user has access to both the first and second virtual computing devices within the first and second sub-network, respectively.

17. The system of claim 1, further comprising an account manager electrically coupled to the session manager, where the account manager is configured to manage data representing a user account, where the user account is associated with the user.

18. The system of claim 1, further comprising a license manager electrically coupled to the session manager, where the license manager is configured to manage data representing the use of at least one license associated with the one or more computer programs.

19. The system of claim 1, further comprising an administrative database configured to exchange information with each of the managers, where the administrative database is configured to store information exchanged with at least one of the managers.

20. The system of claim 1, wherein the configuration manager maintains a description of the one or more virtual resources.

21. The system of claim 1, wherein the virtual resource is a virtual computing device.

22. The system of claim 1, wherein the virtual resource is a virtual computing peripheral.

23. The system of claim 1, wherein the physical resource is a physical computing peripheral.

24. The system of claim 1, wherein the virtual resource is associated with two or more physical resources.

25. The system of claim 1, wherein two or more virtual resources are associated with the physical resource.

26. The system of claim 1, further comprising a web server coupled to the session manager, wherein the web server accepts user requests and forwards the requests to the session manager.

27. The system of claim 1, wherein at least one of the computer programs associated with virtual computing devices in the dynamic computing environment includes an operating system computer program.

28. The system of claim 1, wherein at least one of the computer programs associated with virtual computing devices in the dynamic computing environment includes an application computer program.

29. The system of claim 1, further comprising a network coupled between the user and the system.

30. The system of claim 29, wherein the network is the Internet.

31. An apparatus for providing a dynamic computing environment to a user, where the dynamic computing environment is configured to communicate with the user, the dynamic computing environment having one or more virtual computing devices and one or more computer programs associated with each of the one or more virtual computing devices, the apparatus configured to perform the following method:

accepting one or more user inputs;

configuring one or more physical computing devices as at least one virtual computing device in response to at least one user input;

associating at least one virtual network with the at least one virtual computing device in response to at least one user input;

managing the configuration of the one or more physical computing devices and the at least one virtual computing device;

wherein the user has access to the at least one virtual computing device, where the at least one virtual computing device resides in the at least one virtual network.

32. The apparatus of claim 31, further comprising interfacing the one or more physical computing devices with the at least one virtual computing device.

33. The apparatus of claim 31, wherein the one or more computer programs associated with each of the one or more virtual computing devices in the dynamic computing environment comprises one or more operating systems.

34. The apparatus of claim 32, wherein interfacing includes using a manager of the physical computing device.

35. The apparatus of claim 31, wherein the apparatus is a computer system

36. The apparatus of claim 31, wherein configuring one or more physical computing devices as the at least one virtual computing device comprises:

associating each of the one or more physical computing devices with a corresponding physical identifier (ID); and

associating the corresponding physical ID with the at least one virtual computing device.

37. The apparatus of claim 31, wherein associating at least one virtual network with the at least one virtual computing device comprises:

associating the at least one virtual network with a corresponding virtual identifier (ID); and

associating the corresponding virtual ID with the at least one virtual computing device.

38. The apparatus of claim 31, wherein managing the configuration of the one or more physical computing devices and the at least one virtual computing device comprises:

detecting whether any of the one or more physical computing devices is inoperable;

associating an next corresponding physical ID with a next virtual computing device, upon receiving a command from the user to add the next virtual computing device; and

disassociating the corresponding physical ID from the at least one virtual computing device, upon receiving a command from the user to delete the at least one virtual computing device.

39. The apparatus of claim 38, further comprising installing an operating system computer program on the one or more physical computing devices.

40. A method for providing a dynamic computing environment to a user, where the dynamic computing environment is responsive to an input from the user, the dynamic computing environment having one or more virtual computing devices and one or more computer programs associated with each of the one or more virtual computing devices, the method performing on a user computer system including a processor coupled to a memory, a user input device and a display, wherein the user computer system is configured to communicate with the dynamic computing environment, the method comprising:

accepting one or more user inputs;

creating a first virtual computing device base upon a first subset of the accepted user inputs;

configuring at least one of the physical computing devices to operate as the first virtual computing device;

associating the one or more computer programs with the first virtual computing device based upon a second subset of the accepted user inputs, wherein the computer programs are operably disposed within at least one of the configured physical computing devices;

generating a virtual network based upon a third set of user inputs; and

configuring the first virtual computing device to reside in the virtual network based upon a fourth set of user inputs;

wherein the virtual network provides the user with access to at least one of the one or more computer programs executed and to the first virtual computing device.

41. The method of claim 40, further comprising:

creating a second virtual computing device based upon a fifth subset of the accepted user inputs;

configuring another physical computing device to operate as the second virtual computing devices; and

associating another one or more computer programs with the second virtual computing device based upon a sixth subset of the accepted user inputs, wherein the another computer programs are operably disposed within at least one of the another configured physical computing devices;

generating a second virtual network based upon a seventh set of user inputs; and

configuring the second virtual computing device to reside in the virtual network based upon a eighth set of user inputs;

wherein the second virtual network provides the user with access to each of the another computer programs executed and the second virtual computing device.

42. The method of claim 40, wherein the first and the second virtual network are the same virtual network.

43. A computer data signal embodied in a carrier wave, wherein the computer data signal is used to remotely control a dynamic computing environment, the dynamic computing environment being configured to communicate with at least one user computing system, the computer data signal comprising:

program code to accept one or more user inputs;

program code responsive to the one or more user inputs to configure one or more physical computing devices as at least one virtual computing device;

program code responsive to the one or more user inputs to associate at least one virtual network with the at least one virtual computing device; and

program code to manage the configuration of the one or more physical computing devices and the at least one virtual computing device,

wherein the user has access to modify the dynamic computing environment including the at least one virtual computing device and the one or more physical computing devices.