Concurrent web based multi-task support for control management system

• US 20080177821A1
• Filed: 03/27/2008
• Published: 07/24/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 08/06/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: STT WebOS, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Sheng Tai Tsao
• Inventors: Tsao, Sheng Tai (Ted)
• Granted Patent: US 8,566,463 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/201
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/95 Retrieval from the web
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/45595 Network integration; Enabling network access in virtual machine instances
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2209/541 Client-server
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45558 Hypervisor-specific management and integration aspects
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/4843 by program, e.g. task dispatcher, supervisor, operating system
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5016 the resource being the memory
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/526 Mutual exclusion algorithms
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/54 Interprogram communication
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0806 for initial configuration or provisioning, e.g. plug-and-play
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/783 Distributed allocation of resources, e.g. bandwidth brokers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/02 based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/06 specially adapted for file transfer, e.g. file transfer protocol [FTP]
• 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
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/18 Multiprotocol handlers, e.g. single devices capable of handling multiple protocols

Abstract

Supporting multiple users concurrent login and providing each user to be able to perform multiple concurrent tasks in his/her computer work environment are very critical to modern computer user working environment, which is running on top of modern operating system, due to it greatly improved machine efficiency and user'"'"'s productivities. Therefore, supporting multiple users concurrent login CCDSVM through each user'"'"'s web-browser and providing each user to be able to perform multiple concurrent tasks in his/her single login web-browser over resources of CCDSVM will qualify the conventional web-browser to be a new means of a computer user working environment at the Internet era.

To support one or multiple users to perform multiple concurrent tasks within a single web-browser for system like CCDSVM, the software modules on systems of CCDSVM require to work and communicate together to collect resource information of CCDSVM, and to display them in each user'"'"'s web-browser, and further to allow each user selecting the resource, initiating and submitting the tasks from said single web-browser; the software of CCDSVM needs to store each received task information into a user space task list and further to distribute each task to the target system for executing. In addition, software of CCDSVM needs to obtain associated conventional or non-conventional locks for each task and properly release these acquired locks one at a time in the order during each tasks executing up to the point when the tasks are finished.

Claims

1. A web-based larger scale central controlled distributed scalable virtual machine (“

CCDSMV”

) comprising;

systems of CCDSVM, wherein said systems of CCDSVM include at least a Control System may connect and control one or multiple System Units through network and to be accessed by each end user from each web browser through said network;

wherein said web browser can be on said Control System, on Console System or Client System;

software modules of said Control System coupled to service software of said System Unit and said web-browser to provide users through web-browser to control, operate, and manage said systems of CCDSVM via said network; and

a user administration scheme to allow privileged user from a web-browser to create and setup other users'"'"' security profiles with two level security authentication for said CCDSVM environment; and

a scheme of providing each login end user from their login web-browser to obtain resource information of said systems of CCDSVM;

wherein each end user may login concurrently; and

a method of supporting running multiple simultaneous concurrent tasks within a single web-browser of each user for Control systems of CCDSVM; and

a method of organizing said systems of CCDSVM to form a larger scale multi-layered system nodes structure, wherein the nodes of middle layer System Unit configured with both said software modules of control station and said service software of System Unit and further to have dual capability of control management station and system unit.

2. A method of creating web-based larger scale central controlled distributed scalable virtual machine (“

CCDSMV”

) comprising;

providing systems of CCDSVM, wherein said systems of CCDSVM include at least a Control System may connect and control one or multiple System Units through network and to be accessed by each end user from each web browser through said network;

wherein said web browser can be on said Control System, on Console System or Client System;

providing software modules of said Control System coupled to service software of said System Unit and said web-browser to provide users through web-browser to control, operate, and manage said systems of CCDSVM via said network; and

providing a user administration scheme to allow privileged user from a web-browser to create and setup other users'"'"' security profiles with two level security authentication for said CCDSVM environment; and

providing a scheme of authenticating each login user from their login web-browser to obtain resource information of said systems of CCDSVM;

wherein each end user may login concurrently; and

providing a method of supporting running multiple simultaneous concurrent tasks within a single web-browser of each user for Control systems of CCDSVM; and

providing a method of organizing said systems of CCDSVM to form a larger scale multi-layered system nodes, wherein the nodes of middle layer System Unit configured with both said software modules of control station and said service software of System Unit and further to have dual capability of control management station and system unit.

3. The claim of 2 wherein further includes

said network are communication infrastructure of LAN, Intranet or Internet;

wherein said communication infrastructure could be connected by using communication media such as cable (Ethernet, Fiber, SCSI, and other), wireless media, or bus;

said communication link also may include network equipment such switch/routers/adapter and so forth with various protocol;

wherein said communication protocol could be various IP-based or non-IP-based protocols; and

said control system (control management station), system unit, console system, and client system could be a server system, a desktop system, a laptop system or various hand-held communication device such as PDA or cell phone; and

said systems of CCDSVM are configured and run with operating system such as Linux, various Unix, MS Window, MAC OS, real-time OS, and so forth without limit.

4. The claim 2, wherein said software modules of said Control System coupled to service software of said System Unit and said web-browser to provide users through web-browser to control, operate, and manage said systems of CCDSVM via said network further includes:

said software modules of Control System include web browser, web server software and console support software, wherein console support software include web-interface software modules and control management software modules;

wherein

said console support software of Control System collect resource information of System Units by communicating to said service software of System Units; and

send said resource information of System Units and Control System to said web-browser for displaying; and

said communicating uses IP based or non-IP based communication protocols;

said resource information is encoded into web page with any suitable programming languages and said software of CCDSVM can be implemented with any suitable programming languages such as C, C++, Java, and so forth, and any markup language for web such as HTML, XML, and so forth.

5. The claim 2 wherein said a user administration scheme further includes:

said two level security authentication consisting a first level of security authentication that imposed on said Control System, wherein a second level of security authentication that imposed on said System Units;

wherein said first level of security authentication includes the login authentication having user account and password checking, the authentication of specific users to perform specific tasks on the control management station, and allocating a portion of computing resource to said user; and

wherein said second level of authentication includes the authentication of specific users to access specific number of system units, and the authentication of specific users to perform specific tasks on permitted system units in CCDSVM environment; and

wherein said second level of authentication also includes the authentication of specific services of the specific system unit, which provides services to specific clients.

6. The claim 2 wherein said a method of organizing said systems of CCDSVM to form a larger scale multi-layered system nodes structure further includes:

the nodes of top layer systems configured with software modules of Control System, and wherein the nodes of bottom layer system configured with service software of System Unit; and

said middle layer System Units controls and manages the systems below it; and

top layer Control Systems controls and manages all said system of CCDSVM bellow it.

7. The claim 2, wherein said a method of supporting running multiple simultaneous concurrent tasks within a single web-browser of each user for Control systems of CCDSVM further includes:

said software modules of Control System provide said user to initiate and submit one or multiple simultaneous concurrent tasks for target systems from a single web-browser based on obtained resource information;

said target systems could be Control System or any one or multiple System Units; and

for each said submitted task

software modules of Control System performs of receiving each task, obtaining associated locks, and storing said submitted tasks into a valid slot of user space task list, and may provide status response independent to the task result back to each corresponding web browser; and

said software modules of Control System allocates said each task to be executed in background on said target system until each task is finished and releasing associated locks and said valid slot of user space task list for said task along with task execution; and

said software module of Control System provide a response to each requested user space task at any appropriate time independent to the end result of said task, wherein said response could be the status of a task execution or could be the result of said task, wherein said status could be success or fail and so forth; and

wherein if target system is System Units, software modules of Control System transmit task information to service software of said System Units and said task to be executed on System Unit, otherwise, said task to be executed on Control System; and

wherein, software modules of Control System and service software of System Unit may determine to create multiple threads to execute said task until said task is finished;

wherein, upon said task finished.

8. The claim 2, wherein said a method of supporting running multiple simultaneous concurrent tasks within a single web-browser of each user for Control systems of CCDSVM further includes:

wherein said tasks could be any of the following;

moving (accessing) or transmitting data such as a multiple Gig-bytes data file between any two locations on a target system or crossing two target systems;

wherein said target systems can either be said a System or said one or multiple System Units;

configuring entire resources of said Control system;

configuring, partitioning, and assigning the entire storage system of said Control system;

setting up authentication of a specific user from a specific web browser with certain privileges for Control system;

setting up authentication for a client to obtain services of said a System;

monitoring and displaying network, storage, CPU, processes and thread activities and status for Control system; and

creating and mounting a file system, file and directory structures, and

performing all related data file operations on target system; and

performing tasks that are compatible to tasks in a regular native computer user work environment, which is either command line based or native window based user interactive work environment.

9. A method and a system of creating a web-browser based computer user work environment (“

WCUWE”

) for a Control system comprising;

providing web-browser on a Control system or on one or multiple Console Systems over network such that from said web-browser end user can access and perform tasks over said Control system;

providing said a Control system configured with server software of web browser, web server software, and console supporting software, wherein said console supporting software comprises of web server interface software modules and control management software modules;

wherein Control system may be a standalone system or connect to and control for one or multiple System Units;

instructing said server software of Control system provides one or multiple said web browsers a web based computer user work environment such that each user from a web browser can initiate and submit one or multiple concurrent permitted tasks within a same web browser for Control system and/or may be for one or multiple System Units based on displayed obtained resource information;

instructing said server software to obtain associated locks, receive, store each said submitted task into a valid slot on user space task list; and

instructing said server software of Control system to distribute said task to be run in background either on said Control system and/or may be on said one or multiple System Units until task is finished and release associated locks and said valid slot of user space task list along with said task executing; and

instructing said server software of Control system provides response back to said web browser at any appropriate time independent to end task result along with said task executing, wherein said response could be a status of task executing or a result of said task executing.

10. The claim 9, wherein said instructing said server software of Control system provides one or multiple said web browsers an web based computer user work environment such that each user from a web browser can initiate and submit one or multiple concurrent permitted tasks within a same web browser for Control system and/or may be for or one or multiple System Units based on displayed obtained resource information further includes:

said permitted tasks are based on each user'"'"'s authentication and security profile, wherein said user security authentication and security profile are setup by privileged user, and said user security and authentication also include providing one or multiple end users login to said Control system from each of own web browser with user account and password checking;

wherein said one or multiple users may login to said Control system concurrently;

wherein

said user security profile may specify an end user from where to access said a Control system; and

what resources on what system can be accessed, and what type of tasks can be performed on what systems, wherein said what system which could be said Control system and/or may could be said one or multiple System Units.

11. The claim 9, wherein said instructing said server software of Control system provides one or multiple said web browsers an web based computer user work environment such that each user from a web browser can initiate and submit one or multiple concurrent permitted tasks within a same web browser for Control system and/or may be for one or multiple System Units based on displayed obtained resource information further includes:

said displayed obtained resource information are either on said Control system and/or may be on one or multiple System Units, wherein said server software of Control system may communicate to services software modules of each said System Unit to collect resource information on System unit;

wherein said resource information include information for storage, network, one or more CPU, memory, file system and file folder and files, user security profile, connected system on the network, and so forth; and

wherein

said communicating is through IP based or non-IP based protocols over said network;

wherein said resources of said System Unit is transmitted by said service software modules of System Unit to said software modules of said a System;

wherein

said displayed resource information can be coded with any suitable programming languages such as C, C++, Java, and so forth, and any markup language for web such as HTML, XML, and so forth.

12. The claim 9, wherein said instructing said server software of Control system provides one or multiple said web browsers an web based computer user work environment such that each user from a web browser can initiate and submit one or multiple concurrent permitted tasks within a same web browser for Control system or one or multiple System Units based on displayed obtained resource information further includes:

said obtained resource information are transmitted from said Control system by said server software on said Control system to each web browser and further to be displayed in said web browser such that user can select said resource and submit said task.

13. The claim 9, wherein said instructing said server software of Control system provides one or multiple said web browsers an web based computer user work environment such that each user from a web browser can initiate and submit one or multiple concurrent permitted tasks within a same web browser for Control system and may be for or one or multiple System Units based on displayed obtained resource information further includes:

said tasks could be any of the following;

moving (accessing) or transmitting data such as a multiple Gig-bytes data file between any two locations on a target system or crossing two target systems;

wherein said target systems can either be said Control system or one or multiple System Units;

configuring entire resources on said a target system;

configuring, partitioning, and assigning the entire storage system on said a target;

setting up authentication of a specific user from a specific web browser with certain privileges for said target system;

setting up authentication for a client to obtain services of said a target system;

monitoring and displaying network, storage, CPU, processes and thread activities and status for said a target system; and

creating and mounting a file system, file and directory structures, and performing all related data file operations on said a target system; and

performing tasks that are compatible to tasks that can run in a regular native computer user work environment, which is either command line based or native window based user interactive work environment.

14. The claim 9 wherein said instructing said server software of Control system to distribute said task to be run either on said Control system or on said one or multiple System Units until task is finished;

and instructing said server software of Control system provides response back to said web browser at any appropriate time independent to end task result along with said task executing further includes;

if task to be run on one or multiple System Units, server software of said Control system transmit task information to service software of said one or multiple System Units and said task to be executed on said System Units and Control system will obtain task status or result from one or more System Units;

otherwise, said task to be executed on said Control system; and

wherein, server software of said Control system and service software of System Unit may determine to create one or multiple threads to execute said task; and

wherein said response could be the status of a task execution or could be the result of said task;

wherein said response may coded with any suitable programming languages such as HTML, XML, C, C++, Java, and so forth.

15. The claim 9 further includes:

said a System, Console System, and System Units could be a server system such as a web server or a NAS or a video server and so forth, a desktop or a laptop system, or various hand-held communication devices such as PDA or cell phone;

all system are configured with respected CPU, memory, storage devices, networking devices, and various different devices; and

all systems are configured and run with operating system such as Linux, various Unix, MS Window, MAC OS, real-time OS, and so forth without limit; and

said network are communication infrastructure of LAN, Intranet or Internet;

wherein said communication infrastructure could be connected by using communication media such as cable (Ethernet, Fiber, SCSI, and other), wireless media, or bus;

said communication link also may include network equipment such switch/routers/adapter and so forth with various protocol;

wherein said communication protocol could be various IP-based or non-IP-based protocols.

16. The claim 9 further includes:

said web browser is a conventional communication software either available on the market or a proprietary software with capability to communicating through web protocol such as HTTP or any other appropriate protocols;

said web browser can be implemented with any suitable programming languages such as C, C++, Java, and so forth, and any markup language for web such as HTML, XML, and so forth; and

said server software of said Control system and services software module of System Unit can be implemented with any suitable programming languages such as C, C++, Java, and so forth, and any markup language for web such as HTML, XML and so forth.