Streaming optimized virtual application images

• US 8,510,734 B2
• Filed: 12/21/2012
• Issued: 08/13/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 06/25/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Criddle, Jefferson B., Brar, Gurashish Singh, Krueger, Anthony D.
• Primary Examiner(s): Mamo, Elias
• Application Number:
  US13/725,258
• Publication Number:
  US 20130139151A1
• Time in Patent Office: 235 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 717/178
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/60 Software deployment
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/455 Emulation; Interpretation; Software simulation, e.g. virtualisation or emulation of application or operating system execution engines

Abstract

Embodiments provide an optimized virtual application or suite of virtual applications, but are not so limited. In an embodiment, components of a system are configured to generate an optimized virtual package that can be used in a virtual application streaming environment. Components of the system can provide bits of the optimized virtual package based in part on scenario mappings associated with a user action and/or an application or application feature. In one embodiment, a client virtualization handler can operate to download byte ranges of an optimized virtual package including re-prioritizing byte range download operations as part of streaming virtual application functionality over a computing network.

Claims

1. A system comprising:

processing and memory resources, wherein the system is configured to;

generate a virtual package including a virtual application image and a faux feature block file to describe mappings to portions of the virtual application image, the faux feature block file including one or more of product boot faux feature blocks, application faux feature blocks, and feature-level faux feature blocks;

host the virtual package; and

,

communicate byte ranges of the virtual package based in part on user input including re-prioritizing byte range downloads.

2. The system of claim 1, further comprising a bootstrapping component configured to pre-fetch and store byte ranges to a bootstrap cache.

3. The system of claim 1, further operable to reduce out of sequence requests by predicting user behavior and loading bits corresponding to predicted behavior.

4. The system of claim 1, further operable to re-prioritize a priority queue based in part on a user action.

5. The system of claim 1, further comprising a server computer to host the faux feature block file and an optimized virtual application image.

6. The system of claim 1, further comprising a client virtualization handler to selectively download byte ranges of an optimized virtual application image based in part on user actions and scenario mappings.

7. The system of claim 1, further operable to download default byte ranges of the virtual application image to a virtual application cache by prioritizing the default byte ranges in a prioritized queue, use detection data corresponding to a user action associated with a desired virtual application feature, determine a number of scenarios associated with a detected user action, determine relevant byte ranges corresponding with the desired application feature and the number of scenarios, pause a current byte range download operation if the relevant byte ranges are different than the default byte ranges in the prioritized queue, re-prioritize bit download operations by prioritizing the relevant byte ranges in the prioritized queue, and download the relevant byte ranges to the virtual application cache.

8. The system of claim 1, further operable to use a XML schema description to provide a scenario authoring file.

9. The system of claim 8, wherein the XML schema includes a scenario identifier, an identifier that maps to an automation scenario, a unique identifier for a feature block, and a fully-parenthesized expression of set operations to run on scenarios in order to compose each feature block.

10. The system of claim 1, further operable to dynamically reorder a background stream based in part on user actions and a priority queue.

11. The system of claim 1, further operable to use the faux feature block file to determine scenarios and feature blocks including block offsets and range mappings of an optimized virtual package.

12. The system of claim 1, further operable to use user input as part of providing virtual applications and associated features to download byte ranges based in part on a scenario-based bit mapping.

13. The system of claim 1, further operable to generate FFB XML to define all scenarios, map feature blocks to byte ranges, and list data block offsets.

14. A method comprising:

generating a virtual package including generating a virtual application image and a faux feature block file to describe mappings to portions of the virtual application image, the faux feature block file including one or more of product boot faux feature blocks, application faux feature blocks, and feature-level faux feature blocks;

hosting the virtual package; and

,

communicating byte ranges of the virtual package including re-prioritizing byte range downloads.

15. The method of claim 14, further comprising storing pre-fetched bits of the virtual package in a pseudo-cache of a client computing device.

16. The method of claim 14, further comprising re-prioritizing a priority queue based in part on a user action.

17. The method of claim 14, further comprising generating the virtual package based in part on optimization data and a block order that includes a feature block order, a version number, primary faux feature blocks in a first order, and secondary faux feature blocks in a second order.

18. The method of claim 14, further comprising using a base virtual application image and optimization data to generate a feature block file and an optimized virtual application image including a number of feature blocks and faux feature blocks which correspond to a suite of virtual applications, and using the feature block file and a faux feature block authoring file to generate a faux feature block file describing scenario mappings to byte ranges of the optimized virtual application image.

19. A computer readable storage medium including instructions operable to:

generate a virtual package including a virtual application image and a faux feature block file, the faux feature block file including one or more of product boot faux feature blocks, application faux feature blocks, and feature-level faux feature blocks; and

,

communicate byte ranges of the virtual package based in part on user input including re-prioritizing byte range downloads.

20. The computer readable storage medium of claim 19 wherein the instructions are further operable to use a base virtual application image and optimization data to generate a feature block file and an optimized virtual application image including a number of feature blocks and faux feature blocks which correspond to a suite of virtual applications, and use the feature block file and a faux feature block authoring file to generate a faux feature block file describing scenario mappings to byte ranges of the optimized virtual application image.