LOCALIZED DEVICE COORDINATOR

• US 20180150318A1
• Filed: 11/28/2016
• Published: 05/31/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 11/28/2016
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc. (Amazon.com, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc. (Amazon.com, Inc.)
• Inventors: Kuo, Calvin Yue-Ren, Amin, Rudresh, Chen, Yen-Lin, Turow, Jonathan I., Pan, Cheng, Taran, Dmytro, Aitha, Naveen Kumar, Tandon, Ambuj, Choi, Kyunghwan, Brooker, Marc John, Sorenson, III, James Christopher, McClenahan, Weili Zhong, Rafn, Mark Edward
• Granted Patent: US 10,372,486 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5027 the resource being a machine, e.g. CPUs, Servers, Terminals

Abstract

Systems and methods are described for configuring a coordinator within a coordinated environment, which environment includes set of coordinated devices managed by the coordinator. The coordinated devices may include devices configured to be managed remotely, such as thin devices, devices with alternative primary functions (e.g., appliances, household objects, etc.), or devices with limited localized user interfaces. To manage the set of coordinated devices, the coordinator can execute tasks, each task corresponding to a set of portable code executable by the coordinator to implement a desired functionality. A user may generate one or more tasks, and submit them to a service provider environment for deployment to the coordinator. The service provider environment can utilize a device shadow to notify the coordinator of the obtained tasks, and thereafter deliver the tasks to the coordinator, thus modifying a configuration of the coordinator.

Claims

1. A coordinator computing device configured to manage one or more coordinated devices within a coordinated environment, the coordinator computing device comprising:

a non-transitory data store including;

one or more tasks to manage operation of the one or more coordinated devices, wherein individual tasks correspond to code executable by the coordinator computing device; and

event flow information designating an action to be taken by the coordinator computing device in response to input by a first coordinated device of the one or more coordinated devices; and

a processor in communication with the non-transitory data store, the processor configured with computer-executable instructions to;

obtain a configuration package for the coordinator computing device, the configuration package identifying the one or more coordinated devices and the one or more tasks;

retrieve the one or more tasks, as identified in the configuration package, from a network-accessible data store;

store the one or more tasks in the non-transitory data store;

obtain the input first coordinated device;

identify, based at least in part on the event flow information, a first task of the one or more tasks to be executed in response to the input;

generate an execution environment corresponding to the first task; and

execute the first task in the execution environment.

2. The coordinator computing device of claim 1, wherein the processor is further configured with computer-executable instructions to:

obtain an output of an execution of the first task;

identify, based at least in part on the event flow information, a coordinated device of the one or more coordinated devices, to which to transmit the output; and

transmit the output to the coordinated device.

3. The coordinator computing device of claim 2, wherein the output is transmitted as an MQTT notification.

4. The coordinator computing device of claim 1, wherein the one or more coordinated devices comprise at least one of a general purpose computing device, a thin device, or an embedded device associated with an alternative primary function.

5. Non-transitory computer readable media comprising instructions to manage one or more coordinated devices within a coordinated environment that, when executed by a coordinator computing device associated with the coordinated environment, cause the coordinator computing device to:

obtain a configuration package for the coordinator computing device, the configuration package identifying the one or more coordinated devices, one or more tasks to manage operation of the one or more coordinated devices, wherein individual tasks correspond to code executable by the coordinator computing device, and event flow information designating an action to be taken by the coordinator computing device in response to input by a first coordinated device of the one or more coordinated devices;

retrieve the one or more tasks, as identified in the configuration package, from a network-accessible data store;

obtain the input first coordinated device;

identify, from at least the event flow information, a first task of the one or more tasks to be executed in response to the input;

generate an execution environment corresponding to the first task; and

execute the first task in the execution environment.

6. The non-transitory computer readable media of claim 5, wherein the instructions, when executed, cause the coordinator computing device to:

obtain an output message from the first task;

reference the event flow information to identify at least one of a second task or a second coordinated device to which to transmit the output message; and

transmit the output message to at least one of the second task or second coordinated device.

7. The non-transitory computer readable media of claim 6, wherein the instructions, when executed, cause the coordinator computing device to pass the output message to a router task executed on the coordinator computing device, and wherein the router task is executable to reference the event flow information to identify the at least one second task or second coordinated device.

8. The non-transitory computer readable media of claim 5, wherein the instructions, when executed, cause the coordinator computing device to generate the execution environment as a container isolated from execution environments of other tasks on the coordinator computing device.

9. The non-transitory computer readable media of claim 8, wherein the instructions, when executed, cause the coordinator computing device to provision the execution environment with access to a data resource required for execution of the first task.

10. The non-transitory computer readable media of claim 5, wherein the instructions, when executed, cause the coordinator computing device to:

subscribe to a device shadow service indicating a desired state of the coordinator computing device; and

obtain a notification that the desired state has been modified at the device shadow service;

wherein the instructions, when executed, cause the coordinator computing device to obtain the configuration package in response to the notification that the desired state has been modified.

11. The non-transitory computer readable media of claim 5, wherein the instructions, when executed, cause the coordinator computing device to:

enqueue a call to the first task in a work item queue; and

apply a scheduling algorithm to the work item queue to select the first task for dequeuing from the work item queue.

12. The non-transitory computer readable media of claim 5, wherein the first task is a shadow service task executable to cause the coordinator computing device to:

determine a desired state of the first coordinated device;

modify a device shadow of the first coordinated device to indicate the desired state; and

transmit a notification to the first coordinated device of the desired state.

13. The non-transitory computer readable media of claim 5, wherein the notification to the first coordinated device is transmitted in response to a subscription by the first coordinated device to a topic corresponding to the device shadow.

14. A computer-implemented method implemented by a coordinator computing device to manage one or more coordinated devices within a coordinated environment, the computer-implemented method comprising:

obtaining a configuration package for the coordinator computing device, the configuration package identifying the one or more coordinated devices, one or more tasks to manage operation of the one or more coordinated devices, wherein individual tasks correspond to code executable by the coordinator computing device, and event flow information designating an action to be taken by the coordinator computing device in response to input by a first coordinated device of the one or more coordinated devices;

retrieving the one or more tasks, as identified in the configuration package, from a network-accessible data store;

obtaining the input first coordinated device;

identifying, from at least the event flow information, a first task of the one or more tasks to be executed in response to the input;

generating an execution environment corresponding to the first task; and

executing the first task in the execution environment.

15. The computer-implemented method of claim 14 further comprising:

obtaining an output message from the first task;

referencing the event flow information to identify at least one of a second task or a second coordinated device to which to transmit the output message; and

transmitting the output message to at least one of the second task or second coordinated device.

16. The computer-implemented method of claim 15, wherein referencing the event flow information to identify at least one of the second task or the second coordinated device to which to transmit the output comprises passing the output message to a router task executed on the coordinator computing device, and wherein the router task is executable to reference the event flow table to identify the at least one second task or second coordinated device.

17. The computer-implemented method of claim 14, wherein generating the execution environment corresponding to the first task comprises generating a container isolated from execution environments of other tasks on the coordinator computing device.

18. The computer-implemented method of claim 14 further comprising provisioning the execution environment with access to a data resource required for execution of the first task.

19. The computer-implemented method of claim 14 further comprising:

subscribing to a device shadow service indicating a desired state of the coordinator computing device; and

obtaining a notification that the desired state has been modified at the device shadow service;

wherein obtaining a configuration package occurs based at least in part on the notification.

20. The computer-implemented method of claim 14 further comprising:

determining a desired state of the first coordinated device;

modifying a device shadow of the first coordinated device to indicate the desired state; and

transmitting a notification to the first coordinated device of the desired state.