Method and apparatus for representing and encapsulating active computing environments

• US 6,944,860 B2
• Filed: 01/16/2001
• Issued: 09/13/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 01/16/2001
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Sun Microsystems Incorporated (Oracle Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Sun Microsystems Incorporated (Oracle Corporation)
• Inventors: Schmidt, Brian Keith
• Primary Examiner(s): Banankhah, Majid
• Assistant Examiner(s): Ali, Syed J
• Application Number:
  US09/764,771
• Publication Number:
  US 20020133529A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,701 Days
• Field of Search: 718/100, 718/102, 718/105, 709/201, 709/203, 717100-101
• US Class Current: 718/100
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/4862 the task being a mobile agent, i.e. specifically designed to migrate

Abstract

The present invention provides a representation and encapsulation of active computing environments. In accordance with one or more embodiments of the present invention a “compute capsule” is implemented. Each compute capsule serves to represent and encapsulate an active computing environment. An active computing environment comprises one or more active processes and their associated state information. The associated state information is information in a form that can be understood by any computer and tells the computer exactly what the processes in the capsule are doing at any given time. In this way, the compute capsule is a host-independent encapsulation that can be suspended on one computer, moved to a new computer, and re-started on the new computer where the new computer is binary compatible.

Claims

1. A method for managing an active computing environment comprising:

encapsulating a plurality of active processes into a compute capsule; and

encapsulating system environment information relating to said processes into said compute capsule, said system environment information including host-specific data;

the method further comprising adding all of a user'"'"'s processes and system environment to said compute capsule;

repartitioning a file system state and moving some of said file system state into said compute capsule;

repartitioning a device state and moving some of said device state into said compute capsule;

repartitioning a virtual memory state and moving some of said virtual memory state into said compute capsule;

repartitioning inter-process communication (IPC) state and moving some of said IPC state into said compute capsule.