Method and system for remote computing session management

• US 8,224,885 B1
• Filed: 01/26/2010
• Issued: 07/17/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 01/26/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Teradici Corporation (HP Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Teradici Corporation (HP Inc.)
• Inventors: Doucette, Daniel Jean Donat, Hobbs, David Victor, Fennig, Kurt Rien
• Primary Examiner(s): Macilwinen, John
• Application Number:
  US12/657,695
• Time in Patent Office: 903 Days
• Field of Search: 709/201
• US Class Current: 709/201
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/4557 Distribution of virtual machine instances; Migration and load balancing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2209/503 Resource availability
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2209/509 Offload
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/1438 using more than one graphics controller
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/00 Arrangements for program control, e.g. control units program control for peripheral devices G06F13/10
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/452 Remote windowing, e.g. X-Window System, desktop virtualisation protocols for virtual reality H04L67/131
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5044 considering hardware capabilities

Abstract

A method and system for communicating a display image. The method comprises (a) compressing, by a first application on a first processor, initial updates; (b) determining, by the first application, availability of a second processor comprising compression hardware not in the first processor; (c) determining, by a second application on the first processor, a requirement to compress, by the second processor, future image updates; (d) compressing, by the second processor a first future image update; (e) initiating, by the first application on the first or a third processor, compressing by the second processor of a second future image update; (f) determining, by the first application, an unavailability of the second processor; (g) compressing, by the first application subsequent future image updates, including the second future image update, to generate compressed updates; and (h) transmitting the compressed initial updates, the compressed first update, and the compressed updates to a remote computer.

Claims

1. A method of communicating a display image, the method comprising:

(a) compressing, by a first application running on a first processor, initial updates to the display image to generate compressed initial updates;

(b) determining, by the first application running on the first processor, an availability of a second processor to compress future updates to the display image, the second processor comprising image compression hardware not present in the first processor;

(c) determining, by a second application on the first processor, a requirement to compress, by the second processor, the future updates;

(d) compressing, by the second processor, in response to the availability of the second processor and the requirement to compress by the second processor, a first update of the future updates to generate a compressed first update;

(e) initiating, by the first application running on the first processor or a third processor, compressing by the second processor of a second update of the future updates;

(f) determining, by the first application, an unavailability of the second processor to compress subsequent updates of the future updates, the subsequent updates comprising the second update;

(g) compressing, by the first application, in response to the unavailability of the second processor, the subsequent updates to generate compressed updates; and

(h) transmitting the compressed initial updates, the compressed first update, and the compressed updates to a remote computer.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein determining the unavailability of the second processor comprises the first application running on the third processor, the first application running on the third processor comprising transferring execution of the first application to the third processor subsequent to compressing the first update.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the first application comprises a Virtual Machine (VM) and transferring execution of the first application comprises migrating the VM from a first server to a second server.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the second application comprises a hypervisor managing the VM and wherein migrating the VM comprises freeing resources of the second processor associated with the VM.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising signaling, by the second application, the unavailability of the second processor, the signaling in response to at least one of a limitation of a resource of the second processor or a limitation on an update rate of the future updates to the display image.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising compressing and transmitting additional portions of the display image necessary to synchronize a decoder of the remote computer with compression of the subsequent updates and transmission of the compressed updates.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the first application is a Virtual Machine (VM), the second application is a hypervisor, and determining the availability of the second processor and compressing the first update comprises communications using a shared memory structure between the VM and the hypervisor.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein determining the unavailability of the second processor comprises the second application determining an error in an operation of the second processor.

9. A set of servers for communicating display images, the set of servers comprising:

a first and a second plurality of servers, wherein

(i) each server of the first and the second plurality of servers comprises a host processor comprising a second application and a plurality of first applications;

(ii) each server of the first plurality of servers comprises a session processor comprising image compression hardware absent from the host processor;

(iii) the second application is enabled to (a) initiate and manage the plurality of first applications, each first application of the plurality of first applications generating image updates for a different display image of a plurality of display images, and (b) migrate at least one first application from the plurality of first applications between two servers of the first and the second plurality of servers;

(iv) the first application is enabled to (a) detect an availability of the session processor and, resultant from detecting the availability, communicate current updates of the image updates to the session processor to generate compressed image updates, and (b) detect an unavailability of the session processor and, resultant from detecting the unavailability, compress the current updates to generate the compressed image updates; and

(v) each server of the first and the second plurality of servers is enabled for communicating the compressed image updates to a plurality of remote computers.

10. The set of servers of claim 9, wherein the second application is a hypervisor and the first application is a virtual machine comprising an operating system, an image generation application, and an image compression application.

11. The set of servers of claim 9, wherein detecting the unavailability comprises a migrated first application unable to detect a local presence of the session processor as a result of a migration of the migrated first application to a different server.

12. The set of servers of claim 9, wherein the session processor is enabled to compress a plurality of image updates from at least two first applications of the plurality of first applications.

13. The set of servers of claim 9, wherein the host processor further comprises at least one multi core processor.

14. The set of servers of claim 9, wherein detecting the availability of the session processor comprises the first application and the session processor co-located on a server from the first plurality of servers.