Integrated client for access to remote resources

• US 8,612,862 B2
• Filed: 06/27/2008
• Issued: 12/17/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 06/27/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Mascarenhas, Ayesha M, London, Kevin Scott, Reskusich, Raymond Matthew, Raghunathan, Subhashini, Ben-Shachar, Ido, Henriquez, Alberto, Porter, Nelly L., Erdogan, Ersev Samim, Agarwala, Niraj, Ramadugu, Naga Vankata Rajagopal, Pullappan, Ramasamy
• Primary Examiner(s): Belousov, Andrey
• Application Number:
  US12/163,673
• Publication Number:
  US 20090327905A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,999 Days
• Field of Search: 715/734, 715/735, 715/736, 715/738, 715/740
• US Class Current: 715/738
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/025 for remote control or remote monitoring of applications
• 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 67/75 Indicating network or usage conditions on the user display

Abstract

Techniques for discovering, connecting to, disconnecting from, reconnecting to, updating, and removing workspaces are described. In one embodiment, a list of discovered workspaces is maintained on a user device. Shortcuts for resources corresponding to each respective one of the discovered workspaces are integrated into a user interface of the user device. A request to access one of the resources contained in one of the discovered workspaces is received. Responsive to receiving the request, a connection from the user device to one or more resource hosts containing the resources corresponding to the indicated one of the discovered workspaces is opened. Access from the user device to the resources stored on the resource host(s) corresponding to the indicated one of the discovered workspaces is enabled by presenting shortcuts for resources corresponding to the discovered workspaces as though they were local resources.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

maintaining a list of discovered workspaces on a user device, wherein each of the discovered workspaces is associated with a location on a network;

dynamically integrating shortcuts for resources corresponding to each respective one of the discovered workspaces into a user interface (UI) of the user device, wherein the resources comprise a remote application;

receiving a request to access one of the resources corresponding to one of the discovered workspaces;

responsive to receiving the request, opening a connection from the user device to one or more resource hosts containing the resources corresponding to the indicated one of the discovered workspaces;

enabling access from the user device to the resources stored on the resource host(s) corresponding to the indicated one of the discovered workspaces by presenting shortcuts for resources corresponding to the discovered workspaces as though they were local resources, wherein the local resources and the remote resources are listed together in a start menu; and

displaying a workspace connection indicator on the user interface separately from the start menu, wherein the workspace connection indicator is displayed when the connections to the discovered workspaces remain open and the workspace connection indicator is not displayed when the connections to the discovered workspaces are closed.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the opening comprises reconnecting to the resources, wherein if the resources were previously opened and then disconnected, the resources are maintained in an active state on the resource host(s) such that the resources are in the same state at the time of reconnection as at a time of a previous disconnection.

17. The method of claim 1, wherein the resources comprise an icon supplied from a one of the discovered workspaces and the icon is displayed in the UI of the user device.

18. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

associating a file type extension of a file present on the user device with the remote application.

3. A method of disconnecting from a workspace, the method comprising:

receiving a request to disconnect from a connected workspace;

responsive to receiving the request, closing a connection between a user device and resource hosts containing resources corresponding to the connected workspace, the closing of the connection causing the contained resources to also close;

generating a confirmation that the connection is closed;

maintaining shortcuts for resources corresponding to the workspace in a user interface (UI) of the user device when the connection is closed; and

if other workspaces remain open, displaying a workspace connection indicator on the user interface separately from the shortcuts for resources corresponding to the workspace and, if connections to the other workspaces are closed, removing the workspace connection indicator from the user interface.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the request comprises an explicit disconnect command or passage of a defined period of time after the contained resources have been closed.

5. The method of claim 3, further comprising:

storing a description of the workspace on the user device, the description comprising a unique name of the workspace, a locator of the workspace, a list of the resources associated with the workspace, and a status indicator of the workspace indicating connected or disconnected status.

19. The method of claim 3, further comprising:

responsive to closing the connection, presenting a reconnect button in the UI of the user device that, when activated, connects the user device to the workspace without additional input.

6. One or more computer-readable storage media containing instructions that, when executed by a computer, perform acts comprising:

establishing a connection to one or more resource hosts; and

operating a client on the user device, the client configured to perform acts comprising;

receiving one or more locators directing the client to one or more workspaces;

receiving, from a web server, a workspace feed associated with a workspace specified by the one or more locators;

parsing the workspace feed to extract information about the workspace including resources stored on the resource host(s) associated with the workspace;

creating shortcuts corresponding to the resources on the user device;

storing a description of the workspace on the user device, the description comprising a unique name of the workspace, the locator of the workspace, a list of the resources associated with the workspace, a status indicator of the workspace as either connected or disconnected, and a time of most recent update of the description of the workspace;

automatically integrating the shortcuts into a user interface (UI) of the user device and using the shortcuts to present the resources as though they were local resources on the user device;

repeating the receiving the workspace feed, parsing, creating shortcuts, storing, and automatically integrating for each of the one or more locators;

displaying a workspace connection indicator on the user interface separately from the shortcuts if the status indicator for one of the one or more workspaces is connected, and not displaying the workspace connection indicator if the status indicator of each of the one or more workspaces is disconnected; and

associating a file type extension of a file present on the user device with a resource stored on a resource host, wherein the associating enables a file present on the user device with a same file type extension to be opened by the resource stored on the resource host.

7. The computer-readable storage media of claim 6, wherein the user device is in a different domain than the resource host(s) or connected to the resource host(s) through a non-domain joining.

8. The computer-readable storage media of claim 6, wherein the one or more locators comprise one or more e-mail addresses.

9. The computer-readable storage media of claim 6, wherein the acts further comprise:

receiving an e-mail address;

creating a Domain Name System (DNS) service record (SRV) query based at least in part on a domain part of the e-mail address; and

sending the DNS SRV query to the client to be used as a locator.

10. The computer-readable storage media of claim 6, wherein the resource hosts comprise virtual machine hosts.

11. The computer-readable storage media of claim 6, wherein the resources comprise at least one of remote applications, remote files, icons, or remote desktop protocol (RDP) files.

12. The computer-readable storage media of claim 6, further comprising:

creating a secure hypertext transfer protocol secure socket layer (https) connection between the client on the user device and the web server, wherein the https connection transmits a text file that includes a username and password for accessing the workspace.

13. The computer-readable storage media of claim 6, further comprising:

adding the workspace to a list of discovered workspaces maintained on the user device.

14. The computer-readable storage media of claim 6, further comprising:

removing the workspace from the user device, wherein the removing comprises deleting the shortcuts and the description of the workspace from the user device.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein the removing is performed by a dynamic link library (dll) with a remove-workspace entry point.

16. The computer-readable storage media of claim 6, further comprising:

associating a file type extension of a file present on the user device with one of the resources, wherein the one of the resources is a remote application file.

20. The computer-readable storage media of claim 6, wherein the workspace feed comprises an extensible markup language (XML) file.