APPARATUS AND METHODS FOR INTEGRATION OF THIRD PARTY VIRTUAL PRIVATE NETWORK SOLUTIONS

• US 20090234953A1
• Filed: 03/11/2008
• Published: 09/17/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 03/11/2008
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. (HP Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Palm, Inc. (TCL Technology Group Corp.)
• Inventors: Braslavsky, Igor
• Application Number:
  US12/045,772
• Publication Number:
  US 20090234953A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/227
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/4641 Virtual LANs, VLANs, e.g. virtual private networks [VPN] LAN interconnection over a bridge based backbone H04L12/462; encapsulation techniques H04L12/4633; routing of packets H04L45/00; packet switches H04L49/00; virtual private networks for security H04L63/0272
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/14 Session management for real-time applications in data packet communications networks H04L65/1066
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/141 Setup of application sessions admission control or resource allocation in data switching networks H04L47/70

Abstract

Various embodiments for integration of virtual private network solutions are described. In one embodiment, a mobile computing device may comprise a virtual private network client configured to establish a virtual private network connection over one or more transports and a connection manager. The connection manager may comprise a virtual private network plug-in module associated with the virtual private network client. The connection manager may load the virtual private network plug-in module in response to a request to establish a virtual private network connection using the virtual private network client over a selected transport. The connection manager may instruct the virtual private network plug-in module to send a setup command to the virtual private network client for establishing the virtual private network connection over the selected transport. Other embodiments are described and claimed.

Claims

1. A mobile computing device comprising:

a virtual private network client configured to establish a virtual private network connection over one or more transports; and

a connection manager comprising a virtual private network plug-in module associated with the virtual private network client, the connection manager to load the virtual private network plug-in module in response to a request to establish a virtual private network connection using the virtual private network client over a selected transport, the connection manager to instruct the virtual private network plug-in module to send a setup command to the virtual private network client for establishing the virtual private network connection over the selected transport.

2. The mobile computing device of claim 1, wherein the virtual private network client and the virtual private network plug-in module are provided by a third party developer with respect to the mobile computing device.

3. The mobile computing device of claim 1, wherein the connection manager comprises a daemon having a pluggable framework.

4. The mobile computing device of claim 1, wherein the virtual private network plug-in module comprises a plug-in library.

5. The mobile computing device of claim 1, the virtual private network plug-in module comprising an abstraction layer to configure the virtual private network client.

6. The mobile computing device of claim 1, further comprising multiple virtual private network clients and multiple virtual private network plug-in modules.

7. The mobile computing device of claim 1, wherein the multiple virtual private network clients run simultaneously over different transports.

8. The mobile computing device of claim 1, wherein the virtual private network client is configured to establish a virtual private network connection over multiple transports.

9. The mobile computing device of claim 1, wherein the request to establish a virtual private network connection is received from virtual private network panel.

10. The mobile computing device of claim 1, wherein the request to establish a virtual network connection is received from a data networking application.

11. The mobile computing device of claim 10, wherein the virtual private network client comprises an open source operating system based application and the data networking application comprises a proprietary operating system based application.

12. The mobile computing device of claim 1, the connection manger to detect and initialize compatible virtual private network plug-in modules.

13. The mobile computing device of claim 1, the virtual private network client to communicate virtual private network connection status to the connection manager.

14. The mobile computing device of claim 1, wherein the connection manager comprises one or more transport plug-in modules associated with the one or more transports.

15. A method comprising:

installing a virtual private network client and a virtual private network plug-in module associated with the virtual private network client on a mobile computing device;

receiving a request to establish a virtual private network connection using the virtual private network client over a selected transport;

loading the virtual private network plug-in module in response to the request; and

instructing the virtual private network plug-in module to send a setup command to the virtual private network client for establishing the virtual private network connection over the selected transport.

16. The method of claim 15, further comprising launching the virtual private network plug-in module to configure the virtual private connection client.

17. The method of claim 15, further comprising running multiple virtual private network clients simultaneously over different transports.

18. A computer-readable storage medium comprising executable computer program instructions that when executed enable a computing system to:

run a virtual private network client on a mobile computing device;

store a virtual private network plug-in module associated with the virtual private network client on the mobile computing device;

receive a request to establish a virtual private network connection using the virtual private network client over a selected transport;

load the virtual private network plug-in module in response to the request; and

instruct the virtual private network plug-in module to send a setup command to the virtual private network client for establishing the virtual private network connection over the selected transport.

19. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 18, further comprising executable computer program instructions that when executed enable a computing system to launch the virtual private network plug-in module to configure the virtual private connection client.

20. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 18, further comprising executable computer program instructions that when executed enable a computing system to run multiple virtual private network clients simultaneously over different transports.