COMPUTING ENVIRONMENT CONFIGURATION

• US 20090240935A1
• Filed: 03/20/2008
• Published: 09/24/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 03/20/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Shukla, Dharma
• Granted Patent: US 8,572,033 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 713/100
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/44505 Configuring for program initiating, e.g. using registry, configuration files
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/02 based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]
• 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

Within a computing environment, an application may run in a variety of contexts, e.g., as a natively executable application, as a client-side interpretable application embedded in a web browser, or as a server-side application that communicates with the user through a web interface presented on a device. The application may also access resources of the computing environment stored on multiple devices. The configuration of the application to operate equivalently in these diverse environments may be facilitated by representing the application within an object hierarchy representing the computing environment. The application may be configured to operate on the objects of the object hierarchy regardless of the location of the stored objects, to execute on any device, and to execute upon a standard set of application programming interfaces. The configuration of the application in this manner promotes the versatility of the application in operating equivalently in different programming contexts.

Claims

1. A method of configuring an application to operate within a computing environment, the method comprising:

configuring the application to access objects of an object hierarchy representing the computing environment, and

inserting the application into the object hierarchy.

2. The method of claim 1, the configuring comprising:

configuring the application to access the objects of a locally stored object hierarchy available at a local address.

3. The method of claim 1, the configuring comprising:

configuring the application to access the objects of a remotely stored object hierarchy available at a remote address.

4. The method of claim 1:

the object hierarchy stored on a first device, and

the configuring comprising;

configuring the application to execute on a second device, and to access the objects of the object hierarchy on the first device.

5. The method of claim 1, the configuring comprising:

configuring the application to execute on a computing environment host configured to store the object hierarchy.

6. The method of claim 1:

the object hierarchy having a base address;

respective objects of the object hierarchy available at an object address relative to the base address; and

the configuring comprising;

configuring the application to access the objects of the object hierarchy according to the object address relative to the base address.

7. The method of claim 1, the configuring comprising:

configuring the application to access objects of the object hierarchy through object-level operators.

8. The method of claim 7, the object-level operators comprising stateless object-level operators.

9. The method of claim 8:

the object hierarchy accessed through a representational state transfer interface;

respective objects of the object hierarch addressed according a URI relative to a base address of the object hierarchy; and

the object-level operators comprising HTTP verbs comprising at least one of;

POST, GET, PUT, and DELETE.

10. The method of claim 1, the application comprising at least one resource represented according to a recursable base representation format.

11. The method of claim 1, comprising:

deploying at least a portion of the object hierarchy containing the application to at least one device represented in the object hierarchy according to a data interchange format.

12. The method of claim 1, the application comprising at least one of:

a wholly compiled executable binary, a partially compiled executable binary, a compilable source code, and an interpretable script.

13. The method of claim 1, the configuring comprising:

configuring the application to execute upon an application runtime configured to access the objects of the object hierarchy.

14. A system for executing an application represented in an object hierarchy representing a computing environment, the system comprising:

a computing environment host configured to store the object hierarchy, and

an application runtime configured to access objects of the object hierarchy on behalf of the application.

15. The system of claim 14:

the computing environment host comprising a device having a locally stored object hierarchy and represented in the locally stored object hierarchy, and

the application runtime configured to access objects of the locally stored object hierarchy available at a local address.

16. The system of claim 14:

the computing environment host comprising a remote server having a remotely stored object hierarchy, and

the application runtime configured to access objects of the remotely stored object hierarchy available at a remote address.

17. The system of claim 14:

the computing environment host comprising a first device, and

the application runtime configured;

to execute the application on a second device, and

to access the objects of the object hierarchy on the first device.

18. The system of claim 14, the application runtime configured to execute the application on the computing environment host.

19. The system of claim 14:

the object hierarchy having a base address;

respective objects of the object hierarchy available at an object address relative to the base address; and

the application runtime configured to access objects of the object hierarchy according to the object address relative to the base address.

20. A computer-readable medium comprising processor-executable instructions configured to perform a method of configuring an application to operate within a computing environment, the method comprising:

configuring the application to access objects of an object hierarchy representing the computing environment, and

inserting the application into the object hierarchy.