Provisioning system including stack manager

• US 8,171,141 B1
• Filed: 06/30/2009
• Issued: 05/01/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 04/02/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Vmware LLC (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: VMware, Inc. (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Inventors: Offer, Richard, Bridygham, Debbie
• Primary Examiner(s): WASEL, MOHAMED A
• Application Number:
  US12/495,638
• Time in Patent Office: 1,036 Days
• Field of Search: 709/223, 709/226
• US Class Current: 709/226
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5077 Logical partitioning of resources; Management or configuration of virtualized resources specific details on emulation or internal functioning of virtual machines G06F9/455

Abstract

Systems and methods of executing and/or provisioning an application in an application specific runtime environment are disclosed. The application specific runtime environment is defined by an application environment specification to include a minimal or reduced set of software resources required for execution of the application. These software resources are optionally stored in a resource repository that includes resources associated with a plurality of operating systems and/or executable applications. Various embodiments of the invention include the development of hierarchical resource metadata configured to characterize the various files, packages and file families included in the resource repository. In some embodiments this metadata is used to select between files and different versions of files when provisioning an application specific runtime environment. Various embodiments of the invention include systems and methods for dynamically and/or manually determining which resources should be included in the provisioning of an executable application.

Claims

1. A system comprising:

a repository configured to store a plurality of resources from a distribution of a general purpose runtime environment and repository metadata, the repository metadata including characteristics of each of the plurality of resources;

a stack manager configured to;

categorize members of the plurality of resources based on the characteristics into a plurality of categories based on criteria associated with the plurality of categories;

receive from a user one or more category selections in the plurality of categories, the one or more category selections indicating whether a category should be included in or excluded from an application specific runtime environment; and

select from among the members of the plurality of resources for inclusion in or exclusion from the application specific runtime environment, wherein a resource is included in or excluded from the application specific runtime environment based on the resource being associated with a category selection in the one or more category selections; and

a provisioning server configured to provision the application specific runtime environment for a first executable application on a computing device using the selection of members of the plurality of resources by the stack manager, the application specific runtime environment including a subset of resources from the distribution of the general purpose runtime environment required by the application to run on the computing device.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the computing device includes a virtual machine.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the plurality of resources are associated with a plurality of executable applications.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the characteristics of the plurality of resources include a file extension.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the characteristics of each of the plurality of resources include a package grouping designated by a third party.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein at least part of the stack manager is disposed within the provisioning server.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the categorization of members of the plurality of resources includes categorization based on content of the members of the plurality of resources.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the categorization of members of the plurality of resources includes categorization based on inclusion in a third party designated package group.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein the categorization of members of the plurality of resources includes categorization based on a file path.

10. The system of claim 1, wherein the categorization of members of the plurality of resources includes categorization based on a file type.

11. The system of claim 1, wherein the categorization of members of the plurality of resources includes categorization based on a file name extension.

12. The system of claim 1, wherein the categorization of members of the plurality of resources includes at least two of the three categorization schemes consisting of 1) categorization based on inclusion in a third party designated package group, 2) categorization based on a resource type, and 3) categorization based on a file name extension.

13. The system of claim 1, wherein the one or more category selections are ordered.

14. The system of claim 1, wherein the one or more category selections are stored in an application environment specification and retrieved from the application environment specification by the provisioning server at a time the first executable application is provisioned on the computing device.

15. The system of claim 1, wherein the stack manager is configured for selecting from among the members of the plurality of resources based on at least two of the category selections.

16. The system of claim 15, wherein the at least two category selections are used for selecting from among the members of the plurality of resources by applying a logic operation to the two category selections, the logic operation selected from the set consisting of conjunction, alternative denial, material non-implication, and material implication.

17. The system of claim 1, wherein one of the one or more category selections is configured to exclude members of the plurality of resources.

18. The system of claim 17, wherein one of the one or more category selections is configured to include members of the plurality of resources in the selected members of the plurality of resources.

19. The system of claim 1, wherein the stack manager is configured to apply the one or more category selections in a specific order for selecting from among the members of the plurality of resources.

20. The system of claim 1, wherein the provisioning server is configured to provision the first executable application on the computing device by providing the selected members of the plurality of resources to the computing device.

21. The system of claim 1, wherein the provisioning server is configured to provision the first executable application on the computing device by removing the selected members of the plurality of resources from an image of the first executable application.

22. The system of claim 1, wherein the provisioning server is configured to provision the first executable application on the computing device by adding or subtracting the selected members of the plurality of resources to dynamically generate the application specific runtime environment.

23. A method of provisioning an executable application, the method comprising:

categorizing members of a plurality of resources from a distribution of a general purpose runtime environment stored in a resource repository based on characteristics of the resources, the categorization resulting in a plurality of resource categories;

receiving a first category selection from a user, the first category selection including at least one of the resource categories and indicating whether the first category should be included in or excluded from an application specific runtime environment;

selecting one or more members of the plurality of resources for inclusion in or exclusion from the application specific runtime environment, wherein a resource is included in or excluded from the application specific runtime environment based on the resource being associated with the first category selection; and

using the selection of one or more members of the plurality of resources to provision the application specific runtime environment for a first executable application on a computing device, the application specific runtime environment including a subset of resources from the distribution of the general purpose runtime environment required by the application to run on the computing device.

24. The method of claim 23, further comprising receiving a second category selection from the user, the second category selection including at least one of the resource categories.

25. The method of claim 24, wherein selecting one or more members of the plurality of resources is further based on the second category selection.

26. The method of claim 24, further comprising receiving from the user an order in which the first category selection and the second category selection are to be used for selecting from among the members of the plurality of resources.

27. The method of claim 23, further comprising storing the first category selection in an application environment specification, wherein the application environment specification is used to provision the application specific runtime environment for the first executable application.

28. The method of claim 23, wherein using the selection of one or more members of the plurality of resources to provision the first executable application includes removing the selected members of the plurality of resources from an image of the executable application.

29. The method of claim 23, wherein using the selection of one or more members of the plurality of resources to provision the first executable application includes adding and/or subtracting the selected members of the plurality of resources to dynamically generate the application specific runtime environment.

30. The method of claim 23, further comprising performing a dependency analysis of an image of the first executable application generated based on the selection of one or members of the plurality of resources.

31. The method of claim 23, further comprising performing an automatic runtime extension of the first executable application on the computing device, the automatic runtime extension including accessing an additional resource in the resource repository during execution of the first executable application.

32. A non-transitory computer readable storage medium having stored thereupon computing instructions comprising:

computing instructions configured for categorizing members of a plurality of resources from a distribution of a general purpose runtime environment stored in a resource repository based on characteristics of the resources, the categorization resulting in a plurality of resource categories;

computing instructions configured for receiving a first category selection from a user, the first category selection including at least one of the resource categories and indicating whether the first category should be included in or excluded from an application specific runtime environment;

computing instructions configured for selecting one or more members of the plurality of resources for inclusion in or exclusion from the application specific runtime environment, wherein a resource is included in or excluded from the application specific runtime environment based on the resource being associated with the first category selection; and

computing instructions configured for using the selection of one or more members of the plurality of resources to provision the application specific runtime environment for an first executable application on a computing device, the application specific runtime environment including a subset of resources from the distribution of the general purpose runtime environment required by the application to run on the computing device.