VIRTUAL MOBILE INFRASTRUCTURE AND ITS BASE PLATFORM

• US 20100146504A1
• Filed: 01/15/2009
• Published: 06/10/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 12/10/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Transoft (shanghai), Inc. (I-Net Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Transoft (shanghai), Inc. (I-Net Corporation)
• Inventors: Tang, Chang Bin
• Granted Patent: US 9,081,601 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 718/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45537 Provision of facilities of other operating environments, e.g. WINE I/O emulation G06F13/105

Abstract

The invention published here covers a virtual mobile infrastructure (VMI) and its base platform. The base platform comprises several hosts. On a host OS, a QEMU process is used to virtualize at least one guest cell phone operating system. A data center manages these cell phone OSes generated by this base platform, allocates the OSes to users, and allows communication between cell phone client and server via mobile terminal protocol similar to RDP. A virtual machine (VM) switch contains a method to use the VMI of this published invention, and to acquire adapted cell phone screen and inexpensive cell phone VM. In one embodiment, a VMI product is able to encapsulate the third-party VDI products (such as Citrix XenDesktop, LeoStream, etc.), henceforth to acquire screens from PC VM as well. Moreover, a VM manager allows administrators of enterprises or telcos to manage thousands of VMs.

Claims

1. A method for building a virtual mobile infrastructure, comprising:

a base Platform containing several hosts, wherein every host runs a QEMU process on top of the host operating system, to virtualize at least one guest operating system and its memory, as a cell phone virtual machine;

a data management center, managing the said cell phone virtual machine generated by the base platform, and allocating the said cell phone virtual machine to users;

a VM switch, connecting the said base platform, the said data management center and the said VM switch according to the requests from user, such that a user is able to select cell phone VMs, and the applications running on these VMs;

a cell phone client, running on user'"'"'s cell phone, to send request for cell phone VMs and cell phone applications, and

a server based on the mobile terminal protocol, to interact with cell phone client.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the base platform further contains:

a method to share memory for the QEMU process and guest OS kernel.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the base platform further contains:

a performance agent to acquire the performance statistics of the host and/or its child processes.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the base platform further contains:

a method to improve QEMU'"'"'s soft MMU, where the system uses a page lookup to find the physical address of the virtual address of the guest OS memory region, and further takes this physical address as an offset to mask out the address in an assembly instruction.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the base platform further contains:

a preprocessor to debug virtualized I/O device drivers, based on the openness of the source code of guest OS and its platform building tool. For complete openness, a re-build of source code can run directly on x86 platform;

if the platform building tool is acquired, then I/O driver can be debugged with the tool;

otherwise, the development hardware board and BSP must be used to help the reverse engineering work.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the MTP server is running on top of the host Operating System of the base platform.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the MTP server further contains:

a method to adapt the screen proportionally to the cell phone screen size by shrinking, expanding, rotating, and compressing the screen image before it is sent to the said client;

a method to detect image change, recognize text, and deliver text and changed square region only, before the image is sent to the said client.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the cell phone client further contains:

a method to deliver GPS longitude and latitude data through data channel to the said MTP server, support echo cancelling, and negotiate the optimal method from multiple audio codecs, based on the wireless bandwidth and cell phone hardware capability.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the data management center, further contains:

a VM allocator, to build session, acquire optimal VM from a VM pool, and allocate VM to cell phone clients;

a VM pool manager, to select optimal VM in the pool, return VM to the pool, check VM state, and use a background worker to continuously check pool status in order to match the rules from a rule engine;

a VM server manager, to manage multiple hosts and use platform API to interact with the said base platform; and

a management console, to unify the management of the composition of the following resources;

human organization, template, virtual machine, application, package, and platform server.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the said rule engine contains the control rules to generate, destroy, start and stop VMs,wherein the said rules can be created, edited, loaded, saved, and deleted by administrators with high-level computer language.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the said VM switch further contains:

a connection broker, to provide access for cell phone client, and deliver OS screen and application screen to the client.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein the client accessing through the said connection broker further contains:

unified authentication and authorization to complete the Kerberos security protocol and single sign-on.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein the said VM switch further contains:

personnel and organization databases, application and package databases, as well as VM server and template management databases.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein the said VM switch contains a method to manage template. The template is used to bind one or more of the following configuration items:

VM, memory, CPU, application, host, and cell phone OS.

15. The method of claim 1, wherein the said VM switch encapsulates a third-party VDI product via a VDI socket, so that a user is able to select PC VM and PC application running on an external VDI product.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein the said VDI socket further contains:

a PC connection broker, to inform external VDI product that after user login, which application will be run on the selected VM, and to inform cell phone client to get ready to receive application screen via MTP after a PC application agent activates the said application;

the said PC application agent, installed on the VM of external VDI product before the said VM starts;

when the VM starts, the application agent itself is activated, and then activates the requested PC application;

the application agent then informs PC connection broker the failure or success of the activation;

if successful, the application screen is delivered to the cell phone client;

when cell phone client disconnects, PC application agent shuts down the application.

17. A virtual mobile base platform, including:

Several hosts, each including;

at least one QEMU emulator running on the host OS, to virtualize at least one guest operating system;

a method that allows the QEMU process and kernel of the guest OS share host memory;

a performance agent that acquires performance statistics of child processes and/or host itself;

an MTP server, to interact with the said cell phone client.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein the said virtual mobile base platform further contains:

a method to improve QEMU soft MMU, where the system uses a page lookup to find the physical address of the virtual address of the guest OS memory region, and further takes this physical address as an offset to mask out the address in an assembly instruction.

19. The method of claim 17, wherein the said virtual mobile base platform further includes:

a preprocessor to debug virtualized I/O device drivers, based on the openness of the source code of guest OS and its platform building tool. For complete openness, a re-build of source code can run directly on x86 platform;

if the platform building tool is acquired, then I/O driver can be debugged with the tool;

otherwise, the development hardware board and BSP must be used to facilitate the reverse engineering work.