Integrated network and application session establishment

• US 20070299914A1
• Filed: 06/26/2006
• Published: 12/27/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 06/26/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Jones, David, Manion, Todd R., Sidhu, Gursharan, Flannery, Eliot J.
• Granted Patent: US 8,244,808 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/205
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management

Abstract

A session manager recognizes the creation of a new collaboration session and creates a new network connection to host the collaboration session using information about the new collaboration session. More specifically, an identifier for the new host network connection is based on the name given to the collaboration session. In this way, other computing devices can discover existing collaboration sessions by scanning the identifiers of existing network connections without actually having to connect to the available networks first.

Claims

1. A computer-readable medium having computer-executable instructions for initiating a collaboration session, comprising:

receiving a request to initiate the collaboration session, the collaboration session being operative to enable a plurality of computing devices to simultaneously access resources;

prompting for information about the collaboration session, the information including a name for the collaboration session, the name being operative to distinguish the collaboration session from other collaboration sessions;

determining if a network connection has been established to support the collaboration session; and

if no network connection has been established, creating an ad hoc network connection having a network connection identifier based on the name of the collaboration session.

2. The computer-readable medium recited in claim 1, wherein initiating the collaboration session comprises creating a new collaboration session.

3. The computer-readable medium recited in claim 1, wherein initiating the collaboration session comprises joining an existing collaboration session.

4. The computer-readable medium recited in claim 1, wherein the information about the collaboration session further comprises a password for the collaboration session, and wherein creating the ad hoc network connection further comprises deriving a security code for the ad hoc network connection from the password.

5. The computer-readable medium recited in claim 1, wherein the instructions further comprise:

scanning for available network connections that include an identifier indicating that the available network connections host an existing collaboration session;

presenting the available network connections for selection of a desired collaboration session; and

in response to a selection of the desired collaboration session, joining the available network connection hosting the desired collaboration session.

6. The computer-readable medium recited in claim 1, wherein the resources include a shared desktop.

7. The computer-readable medium recited in claim 6, wherein the resources further include shared files.

8. The computer-readable medium recited in claim 1, wherein the ad hoc network connection comprises a wireless ad hoc network connection.

9. The computer-readable medium recited in claim 1, wherein creating the ad hoc network connection further comprises removing a host computer from an existing network connection.

20. The computer-readable medium recited in claim 19, wherein the indication comprises a special character in identifiers associated with the available network connections.

10. A computer-readable medium encoded with computer-executable instructions for joining an existing collaboration session, comprising:

receiving a request to join the existing collaboration session, the collaboration session being operative to enable a plurality of computing devices to simultaneously access resources;

scanning for available network connections that include an identifier indicating that the available network connections host a collaboration session;

presenting the available network connections for selection of a desired collaboration session;

in response to the selection of the desired collaboration session, prompting for information about the collaboration session, the information including a password for the collaboration session, the password being operative to secure the collaboration session; and

creating an ad hoc network connection having a network connection security key derived from the password for the collaboration session.

11. The computer-readable medium recited in claim 10, wherein the selection of the desired collaboration session comprises the selection of one of the available network connections having an identifier that is related to the name of the desired collaboration session.

12. The computer-readable medium recited in claim 10, wherein the ad hoc network connection comprises a wireless network connection.

13. The computer-readable medium recited in claim 10, wherein the security key comprises an encryption key.

14. The computer-readable medium recited in claim 10, wherein the resources accessed using the collaboration session include a shared desktop.

15. The computer-readable medium recited in claim 14, wherein the resources accessed using the collaboration session further include shared files.

16. A computer-readable medium encoded with computer-executable components for initiating a network connection, comprising:

a collaboration application operative to support a distributed collaboration session among a plurality of computing devices, the collaboration session being operative to provide simultaneous access to resources to the plurality of computing devices, the collaboration application being further operative to receive information about the collaboration session in connection with initiating the collaboration session; and

a session manager in operative communication with the collaboration application and with network resources, the session manager being configured to detect the initiation of the collaboration session and to establish a host network connection for the collaboration session based on the information about the collaboration session.

17. The computer-readable medium recited in claim 16, wherein the information about the collaboration session comprises a name of the collaboration session, and wherein the host network connection is established with an identifier based on the name of the collaboration session.

18. The computer-readable medium recited in claim 16, wherein the information about the collaboration session comprises a password for the collaboration session, and wherein the host network connection is established with a security key based on the password.

19. The computer-readable medium recited in claim 16, wherein the session manager is further configured to cause available network connections to be scanned for an indication that the available network connections are host to an existing collaboration session.