Techniques for providing services and establishing processing environments

• US 20060031845A1
• Filed: 06/29/2004
• Published: 02/09/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 06/29/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Original Assignee: Novell Incorporated (Open Text Corporation)
• Inventors: Ackerman, Mark D., Carter, Stephen R.
• Granted Patent: US 8,069,443 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 718/106
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/4843 by program, e.g. task dispatcher, supervisor, operating system
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5027 the resource being a machine, e.g. CPUs, Servers, Terminals

Abstract

Techniques are provided for the delivery of client services and for the establishment of client processing environments. A client receives services within a processing environment which is defined by a processing container. The processing container includes one or more processing groups, and each processing group has a particular context that supports one or more applications or services which are processing within that context. The processing groups communicate with one another via connector interfaces included within the processing container. Services and processing containers can be dynamically added or removed from the processing container.

Claims

1. A method for establishing a processing environment, comprising:

configuring a processing container on one or more processing devices;

configuring one or more processing groups within the processing container, each processing group having a unique context;

loading one or more applications within each processing group'"'"'s context; and

establishing a processing environment having the one or more applications processing within their respective processing group'"'"'s context and within the container.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising, interfacing two or more of the processing groups using connector interfaces included within the processor container.

3. The method of claim 1 further comprising, dynamically adding one or more new processing groups having one or more new contexts within the processing container, wherein one or more new applications are dynamically loaded within the one or more new contexts.

4. The method of claim 1 further comprising, dynamically removing one or more or the processing groups from the container.

5. The method of claim 1 further comprising, authenticating at least one of the processing container, the one or more processing groups, and the one or more applications before configuring and loading them on the one or more processing devices.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein configuring the one or more processing groups further includes configuring at least one composite processing group that includes multiple ones of the processing groups.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein configuring the one or more processing groups further includes identifying each of the groups as a separate set of related services.

8. A method for providing a service to client, comprising:

receiving a request to add a service from a client;

identifying a connector interface for the service, that interfaces the service to other connector interfaces within a processing container, wherein the other connector interfaces are associated with other services available within the processing container;

loading the service and its connector interface into the processing container; and

providing the service to the client.

9. The method of claim 8 further comprising, authenticating the service after receiving the request, and wherein the service is loaded if the service is authenticated.

10. The method of claim 8, wherein receiving further includes identifying the service as a composite service having two or more embedded services.

11. The method of claim 8, wherein receiving further includes identifying the service as a component within a processing group of the processing container.

12. The method of claim 8, wherein providing the service further includes processing the service on a processing device that is local to the client.

13. The method of claim 8, wherein providing the service further includes processing the service over a network from one or more processing devices that are remote to the client.

14. The method of claim 8 further comprising, acquiring a definition for the connector interface from configuration data associated with the processing container.

15. The method of claim 14 further comprising, representing the configuration data in a formal language.

16. A processing system, comprising:

a processing container;

one or more processing groups, each processing group having one or more services; and

one or more connector interfaces, wherein each connector interface provides for interaction between the one or more processing groups.

17. The processing system of claim 16 further comprising, configuration data that defines the processing container, the one or more processing groups, and the one or more connector interfaces.

18. The processing system of claim 16, wherein the processing system spans multiple processing devices over a network.

19. The processing system of claim 18, wherein a least a portion of the processing system exists on a client or server processing device.

20. The processing system of claim 16, wherein the processing system exists on a single processing device.

21. The processing system of claim 16, wherein each processing group represents a context for a subset of the one or more services.

22. The processing system of claim 21, wherein a number of the processing groups are composite processing groups having two or more of the processing groups.

23. The processing system of claim 21, wherein a number of the processing groups are inactive and not available from within the processing container until dynamically activated.

24. The processing system of claim 16, wherein the processing container performs authentication on at least one of the one or more processing groups and the one or more services.

25. The processing system of claim 16, wherein the one or more processing groups perform authentication on the one or more services.

26. The processing system of claim 16, wherein the processing container activates and deactivates a number of the one or more processing groups.

27. The processing system of claim 16, wherein the one or more processing groups activate or deactivate a number of their one or more services.

28. Configuration information residing in a machine readable medium, for defining a processing environment, comprising:

a processing container definition;

processing group definitions; and

connector interface definitions, wherein the processing container definition provides a configuration for a processing environment of a processing container, the processing container having a plurality of processing groups and each processing group'"'"'s context defined by one of the processing group definitions, and wherein each processing group includes one or more connector interfaces defined by the connector interface definitions, and wherein the connector interfaces permit communications between different ones of the processing groups.

29. The configuration information of claim 28, wherein the connector interface definitions are represented in extensible markup language (XML) or Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP).

30. The configuration information of claim 28, wherein a number of the processing group definitions define composite processing groups, wherein each composite processing group has two or more of the processing groups.

31. The configuration information of claim 28, wherein applications process within the contexts of the processing groups.

32. The configuration information of claim 31, wherein a first application of a first processing group context communicates with a second application of a second processing context using one or more of the connector interfaces defined by the connector interface definitions.