Concurrent web based multi-task support for control management system

• US 7,418,702 B2
• Filed: 08/06/2002
• Issued: 08/26/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 08/06/2002
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: STT WebOS, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Sheng Tai Tsao
• Inventors: Tsao, Sheng (Ted) Tai
• Primary Examiner(s): An, Meng-Al T.
• Assistant Examiner(s): Tang, Kenneth
• Application Number:
  US10/713,904
• Publication Number:
  US 20040215791A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,212 Days
• Field of Search: 718/100, 718/1, 726/2, 713/155, 709/229
• US Class Current: 718/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/95 Retrieval from the web
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/45595 Network integration; Enabling network access in virtual machine instances
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2209/541 Client-server
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45558 Hypervisor-specific management and integration aspects
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/4843 by program, e.g. task dispatcher, supervisor, operating system
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5016 the resource being the memory
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/526 Mutual exclusion algorithms
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/54 Interprogram communication
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0806 for initial configuration or provisioning, e.g. plug-and-play
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/783 Distributed allocation of resources, e.g. bandwidth brokers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/02 based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/06 specially adapted for file transfer, e.g. file transfer protocol [FTP]
• 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
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/18 Multiprotocol handlers, e.g. single devices capable of handling multiple protocols

Abstract

Supporting multiple users concurrent login and providing each user to be able to perform multiple concurrent tasks in his/her computer work environment are very critical to modem computer user working environment, which is running on top of modem operating system, due to it greatly improved machine efficiency and user'"'"'s productivities. Therefore, supporting multiple users concurrent login CCDSVM through each user'"'"'s web-browser and providing each user to be able to perform multiple concurrent tasks in his/her single login web-browser over resources of CCDSVM will qualify the conventional web-browser to be a new means of a computer user working environment at the Internet era.

To support one or multiple users to perform multiple concurrent tasks within a single web-browser for system like CCDSVM, the software modules on systems of CCDSVM require to work and communicate together to collect resource information of CCDSVM, and to display them in each user'"'"'s web-browser, and further to allow each user selecting the resource, initiating and submitting the tasks from said single web- browser; the software of CCDSVM needs to store each received task information into a user space task list and further to distribute each task to the target system for executing. In addition, software of CCDSVM needs to obtain associated conventional or non- conventional locks for each task and properly release these acquired locks one at a time in the order during each tasks executing up to the point when the tasks are finished.

Claims

1. A computer system for supporting multiple simultaneous concurrent tasks within a single web browser in a central controlled distributed scalable virtual machine (CCDSVM) environment over a network, said computer system comprising:

one or more Console Hosts, from which a user for each of said one or more Console Hosts is able to perform system tasks through a web browser;

one or more System Units, each configured with service modules;

a Control Management Station comprising a web browser, web server software, and console supporting software, wherein said console supporting software comprises of web server interface software modules and control management software modules;

wherein said service modules of said one or more System Units are coupled with said console support software of said Control Management Station and said one or more Console Hosts over the network to support running multiple simultaneous concurrent tasks within a single web browser by the following;

wherein each user logs into said CCDSVM environment from the web browser of said one or more Console Hosts on the network, such that each user can obtain information of said one or more System Units and said Control Management Station, wherein each user selects one of said System Units or Control Management Station as a Target System, initiates and submits tasks to the selected Target System based on each user'"'"'s authentication of certain privileges, which can run concurrently within said each user'"'"'s single web-browser in said CCDSVM environment, based on said obtained information of said one or more System Units and said Control Management Station in addition to said user authentication of certain privileges;

wherein said console supporting software on said Control Management Station receives and stores said submitted tasks into a user space task list and obtains associated locks for each of the tasks; and

wherein said console supporting software on said Control Management Station distributes said tasks to be executed on said Target System until all of said tasks are performed and releasing said locks along with the task execution.

2. A method for supporting multiple simultaneous concurrent tasks within a single web browser in a central controlled distributed scalable virtual machine (CCDSVM) environment over a network, said method comprising:

providing one or more users to perform user space tasks through a web browser on one or more Console Hosts;

configuring one or more System Units with service modules, wherein said service modules of said one or more System Units are coupled with console software of a Control Management Station and said one or more Console Hosts over the network to support running multiple simultaneous concurrent tasks within a single web browser by the following;

logging in by each user into said CCDSVM environment from the web browser of said one or more Console Hosts on the network, such that each user can obtain information of said one or more System Units and said Control Management Station, wherein each user selects one of said a System Units or Control Management Station as a Target System, initiates and submits tasks to the selected Target System based on a user authentication of certain privileges;

wherein said tasks can run concurrently within said single web-browser in said CCDSVM environment, based on said obtained information of said one or more System Units and said Control Management Station in addition to said user authentication of certain privileges;

wherein said console support software on said Control Management Station receives and stores said submitted tasks into the user space task list and obtains associated locks for each of the tasks; and

wherein said console supporting software on said Control Management Station allocates said tasks to be executed on said Target System until all of said tasks are performed and said associated locks along with the task execution are released.

3. The method of claim 2, further includes:

said software modules of said Control Management Station providing a login web page to said user;

said software modules of Control Management Station providing said user a mechanism to input password and account information on said login web page;

said web-browser of said one or more Console Hosts transmitting the authentication information to said console support software of said Control Management Station.

4. The method of claim 2, further includes:

said software modules of said Control Management Station performing authentication and validation checking after receiving said authentication information, wherein said authentication validation checking further includes determining whether a user is allowed to login.

5. The method of claim 2, further includes:

said software modules of said Control Management Station allows a plurality of users, each from the web browser of said one or more Console Hosts on the network, to concurrently login to said CCDSVM environment.

6. The method of claim 2, further includes:

said obtained information of each System Unit and Control Management Station are related to and are used by said user to initiate tasks; and

said obtained information comprises of resource and configuration information of said system units and control station.

7. The method of claim 2, further includes:

said software modules of said Control Management Station allowing said user to initiate one or multiple simultaneous concurrent tasks from a single web-browser of a Console Host for a Target System or for several different Target Systems based on said obtained information;

task information is transmitted from said web-browser of said Console Host to said software modules of said Control Management Station;

wherein said tasks could be any of the following;

moving or transmitting data such as a multiple Gig-bytes data file to and from any location within the CCDSVM network environment;

configuring entire resources in the CCDSVM environment;

configuring, partitioning, and assigning the entire storage system within the CCDSVM environment;

setting up authentication of a specific user from a specific web browser with certain privileges for said Target System, or a plurality of Target Systems;

setting up authentication for a client to obtain services of the CCDSVM environment;

monitoring and displaying network, storage, CPU, processes and thread activities and status for the CCDSVM environment; and

creating and mounting a file system, file and directory structures, and performing all related data file operations on either Control Management Station or System Units; and

performing tasks that are compatible to tasks in a regular native computer user work environment.

8. The method of claims 2, further includes:

allowing multiple users on different Console Hosts to each login to the CCDSVM environment through a web browser such that multiple simultaneous concurrent tasks for a Target System or for a plurality of Target Systems can be initiated.

9. The method of claim 2, further includes:

software modules of said Control Management Station receives task information from said web browser of said one or more Console Hosts;

software modules of said Control Management Station stores information of each task one at a time into a valid slot of said user space task list;

software modules of said Control Management Station acquires associated locks to protect resources used by each task and further to prevent each task from interfering or blocking each other.

10. The method of claim 2, including:

wherein said locks acquired for each task are conventional or non-conventional locks;

wherein said conventional lock can be acquired and released by the same thread; and

wherein said non-conventional lock can be acquired by one thread and released by another thread.

11. The method of claim 2, further includes:

if the Target System for a task is a System Unit, then said software modules of said Control Management Station transmits the task information to said service software modules of said Target System and said service software modules of said Target System performs the task; and

if the Target System for a task is the Control Management Station, then said software modules of said Control Management Station performs the task.

12. The method of claim 11, further includes:

creating threads of the software modules of the Control Management Station to perform the task on the Control Management Station

creating threads of said service modules of the System Unit to perform the task on the System Unit.

13. The method of claim 2, further includes:

said software modules of control station determines whether said user is permitted to run a specific task, and to determine whether said user is permitted to run a task on a specific system.

14. The method of claim 2, further includes:

wherein said associated locks are released one at a time along with each task'"'"'s executing up to a point where the task is completed.