Provisioning a computing application executing on a cloud to a client device

• US 8,621,069 B1
• Filed: 09/03/2010
• Issued: 12/31/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 09/03/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Adobe Inc.
• Original Assignee: Adobe Systems Incorporated (Adobe Inc.)
• Inventors: Tompkins, David
• Primary Examiner(s): Ashraf, Waseem
• Application Number:
  US12/875,634
• Time in Patent Office: 1,215 Days
• Field of Search: 709/224, 709/223
• US Class Current: 709/224
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2209/5018 Thread allocation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5027 the resource being a machine, e.g. CPUs, Servers, Terminals
• CPC Class Codes: Y02D 10/00 Energy efficient computing, e.g. low power processors, power management or thermal management

Abstract

A system is described to provision a computing application deployed on a cloud to a client device. In one embodiment, the system comprises a launch request detector and a provisioning module. The launch request detector may be configured to detect, at a server computer, a request from a client device to launch a computing application. The provisioning module may be configured to provision an application container from a plurality of application containers provided on a virtual instance of a machine for executing the computing application. The client device may be a desktop device or a client device.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method comprising:

storing, at a network storage system, a machine image comprising an application containers manager to partition a virtual instance of a machine into a plurality of application containers, the plurality of application containers to provide resources for executing a plurality of computing applications, the application containers manager including a respective frame buffer for each of the plurality of application containers for storing interfaces of each of the plurality of computing applications to be streamed to a client device;

detecting, at a server computer, a request from the client device to launch a particular computing application from the plurality of computing applications; and

in response to the request, provisioning an application container from a the plurality of application containers, the provisioned application container to provide resources for executing the particular computing application.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the client device is a mobile device.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the provisioning of the application container comprises determining that the virtual instance of a machine is an existing virtual instance and determining that the application container is available for launching the computing application.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the provisioning of the application container comprises causing a virtualization service to start the virtual instance of a machine, the virtual instance of the machine to host an application containers manager, the application containers manager to provide the application container for launching the computing application.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the application container is associated with a constrained amount of processing power, memory, and disk space that can be applied to a computing application executing on the virtual instance of a machine.

6. The method of claim 1, comprising storing, at the network storage system, an image of the computing application, the image of the computing application to be used for launching the computing application within the application container.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the application containers manager comprises a streaming protocol manager to stream interfaces of the computing application to the client device.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the client device hosts an application interface viewer, the application interface viewer to facilitate communications between the client device and the computing application executing in the application container on the virtual instance of the machine.

9. A computer-implemented system comprising:

a memory storing an image module, a launch request detector, and a provisioning module; and

a processor;

wherein the image module is executed by the processor to store, at a network storage system, a machine image comprising an application containers manager, the application containers manager to partition a virtual instance of a machine into a plurality of application containers, the plurality of application containers to provide resources for executing a plurality of computing applications, the application containers manager comprises a respective frame buffer for each of the plurality of application containers for storing interfaces of each of the plurality of computing applications to be streamed to the client device;

wherein the launch request detector is executed by the processor to detect, at a server computer, a request from the client device to launch a particular computing application from the plurality of computing applications; and

wherein the provisioning module is executed by the processor to provision an application container from the plurality of application containers, the application container to provide resources for executing the computing application, in response to the request.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein the client device is a mobile device.

11. The system of claim 9, wherein the provisioning module is to determine that the virtual instance of a machine is an existing virtual instance and to determine that the application container is available for launching the computing application.

12. The system of claim 9, wherein the provisioning module is to cause a virtualization service to start the virtual instance of a machine, the virtual instance of the machine to host an application containers manager, the application containers manager to provide the application container for launching the computing application.

13. The system of claim 12, wherein the application container is associated with a constrained amount of processing power, memory, and disk space that can be applied to a computing application executing on the virtual instance of a machine.

14. The system of claim 9, wherein the image module is to store, at the network storage system, an image of the computing application, the image of the computing application to be used for launching the computing application within the application container.

15. The system of claim 9, wherein the application containers manager comprises a streaming protocol manager to stream interfaces of the computing application to the client device.

16. A machine-readable non-transitory storage medium having instruction data to cause a machine to:

storing, at a network storage system, a machine image comprising an application containers manager to partition a virtual instance of a machine into a plurality of application containers, the plurality of application containers to provide resources for executing a plurality of computing applications, the application containers manager including a respective frame buffer for each of the plurality of application containers for storing interfaces of each of the plurality of computing applications to be streamed to a client device;

detect, at a virtual instance of a machine, a request from the client device to start a particular computing application from the plurality of computing applications;

in response to the request, activate an application container from the plurality of application containers on the virtual instance, the application container to provide resources for executing the particular computing application;

retrieve, from a network storage system, an image of the computing application;

launch the computing application within the application container, utilizing the image of the computing application;

establish a connection between the application container and an application interface viewer provided at the client device; and

commence streaming interfaces of the computing application to the application interface viewer provided at the client device.