Multi-user display proxy server

• US 20070124474A1
• Filed: 11/30/2005
• Published: 05/31/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 11/30/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Digital Display Innovations, LLC
• Inventors: Margulis, Neal
• Granted Patent: US 8,112,513 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/226
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/14 Digital output to display device ; Cooperation and interconnection of the display device with other functional units
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 5/003 Details of a display terminal, the details relating to the control arrangement of the display terminal and to the interfaces thereto specific for a CRT G09G1/165; for a flat panel G09G3/2092
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/10 in which an application is distributed across nodes in the network software deployment G06F8/60; multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/46

Abstract

A multi-user host computer system comprises processor blades combined with terminal services blades to provide acceleration and proxy server functions for supporting a variety of remote terminals. For each remote terminal, the terminal services blade and proxy server functions may improve the video and graphics performance. This allows the multi-user host computer system to more efficiently support multiple users. The terminal services blade may include a graphics processor that manages a virtual display for each remote terminal and provides selective updates of sub frame data. Where appropriate, the sub frame data is encoded and transmitted over the network to the remote terminals. The terminal services processor also offloads and optimizes video data streams for the intended remote terminals and their respective network connections. Processor blades may include a baseboard management controller that utilizes advanced features for supporting remote KVM administration.

Claims

1. A display proxy server system capable of supporting multiple remote terminals, comprising:

a graphics and display subsystem having a display memory which can store display frames for multiple terminals;

one or more drawing engines for generating display frames which may each correspond to a display frame at a remote terminal; and

means for tracking modified sub frames of display frames and for performing selective updates from the display memory based on this tracking;

means for connecting said display proxy server system to one or more host CPUs; and

means for managing the selective updates from the display memory so that only the selective updates will be transferred via a network subsystem to corresponding ones of said remote terminals.

2. The system of claim 1 wherein said remote terminals execute an Internet browser and request web updates via said display proxy server system which performs a proxy function to request and receive the web updates from a web server and translate said web updates into encoded partial frame updates and provide said encoded partial frame updates to the Internet browser.

3. The system of claim 1 wherein said remote terminals execute an Internet browser and perform content based frame requests to said display proxy server system and said display proxy server system composites, encodes and supplies partial frame updates based on what portions of the frame have changed using data already cached at said display proxy server system.

4. The system of claim 1 wherein said display proxy server system is implemented in a blade system and said means for connecting to one or more host CPUs is provided over a system backplane.

5. The system of claim 1 wherein said display proxy server system is implemented as an appliance and is attached by both a network connection and a display output path to a server system.

6. The system of claim 1 wherein said display proxy server system

communicates with a host CPU running an application,

responds to the application as if it were a client, and then

performs selective display updates to the remote terminal.

7. The system of claim 1 wherein said display proxy server system provides a DNS lookup function for said multiple remote terminals when performing web accesses.

8. The system of claim 1 wherein said display proxy server system communicates with one or more host CPUs running one or more virtual machines each requesting graphics operations as if there were a graphics controller dedicated to that virtual machine, and wherein said display proxy server system locally manages the multiple virtual machine graphics requests.

9. The system of claim 8 wherein said display proxy server utilizes said locally managed virtual machine graphics requests to produce virtual displays for the requesting virtual machines and then transmits encoded updates of said virtual displays over a network to corresponding ones of said remote terminals.

10. A baseboard management control system capable of supporting one or more remote terminals, comprising:

a graphics controller and display subsystem having

means to perform graphics processor operations, in a display memory at the request of a host CPU, to generate display frame data;

means for tracking modified sub frames of display frames and for performing selective updates based on this tracking;

means for encoding said selective updates; and

means for managing the selective updates from said display memory so that only the selective updates will be transferred via a network subsystem to corresponding ones of said remote terminals.

11. The system of claim 10 wherein said selective updates are based on subframes of fixed tile sizes.

12. The system of claim 10 wherein said display management system uses an S-Buffer to manage selective updates.

13. The system of claim 10 wherein said system communicates with said host CPU in an operating system virtual machine mode to perform operating system functions of said graphics processing operations.

14. The system of claim 13 wherein said system communicates with said host CPU running in a protected management virtual machine mode which is isolated from said operating system virtual machine mode, and wherein said management virtual machine mode manages some of the update functions for the remote terminals.

15. A blade based multi-user system capable of supporting multiple remote terminals, comprising:

one or more processor blades connected to a backplane;

one or more terminal services accelerator blades including a graphics and display subsystem having

a display memory which can store display frames for multiple terminals;

one or more drawing engines for generating display frames which may each correspond to a display frame at a remote terminal; and

means for tracking modified sub frames of display frames and for performing selective updates from the display memory based on this tracking;

means for connecting said processor blades to one or more terminal services accelerator blades; and

means for managing the selective updates from the display memory so that only the selective updates will be transferred via a network subsystem to corresponding ones of said remote terminals.

16. The system of claim 15 wherein said one or more terminal services accelerator blade

communicates with a host CPU which is running application software and which utilizes a multi-user remote client protocol that virtualizes the graphics and display subsystem;

performs virtual graphics functions as the remote user client; and

then

performs the selective display updates from the virtual display subsystem to the remote terminal.

17. The system of claim 15 wherein said terminal services blade communicates with one or more CPUs running one or more virtual machines each of which requests graphics operations as if the terminal services blade included a respective graphics controller dedicated to each virtual machine.

18. The system of claim 15 wherein said terminal services blade utilizes said graphics and display subsystem to locally manage virtual machine graphics requests from multiple independent virtual machine mode CPUs to produce virtual displays for virtual machines and then transmits encoded updates of said virtual displays over a network to remote terminals, and said multiple independent virtual machine mode CPUs are not aware of each other.

19. The system of claim 15 wherein said processor blades operate as a web server.

20. The system of claim 15 wherein said blade based multi-user system provides an Internet services management functions to multiple remote terminals which access multiple web servers.