Independent access to virtual machine desktop content

• US 9,274,821 B2
• Filed: 01/27/2010
• Issued: 03/01/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 01/27/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Omnissa, LLC
• Original Assignee: VMware, Inc. (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Inventors: Chawla, Puneet, Chamcham, Jad
• Primary Examiner(s): HUANG, MIRANDA M
• Application Number:
  US12/694,358
• Publication Number:
  US 20110184993A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,225 Days
• Field of Search: 707802-831, 718/714, 718/708
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/182 Distributed file systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/45591 Monitoring or debugging support
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/45595 Network integration; Enabling network access in virtual machine instances
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/6218 to a system of files or objects, e.g. local or distributed file system or database
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45533 Hypervisors; Virtual machine monitors
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45558 Hypervisor-specific management and integration aspects

Abstract

Methods, systems, and techniques for facilitating access to content stored remotely, for example, as part of a virtual machine infrastructure or elsewhere in a networked environment, using a uniform mechanism are provided. Example embodiments provide an Enhanced Virtual Desktop Management Server/System with a Content Abstraction Layer which enables users to access their data stored as part of a virtual machine environment, or replicated otherwise on a network, using a generic API. The API can be incorporated into a web browser or other third party interface to provide access to the users'"'"' data without needing to remote a bitmap representation of a virtual desktop display. Accordingly, users can access their data, applications, and settings regardless of the type of access device and regardless of whether the corresponding virtual desktop is running in the data center, provisioned in the datacenter but running on a client device, or not running at all.

Claims

1. A virtual desktop management server computing system comprising:

a memory;

a computer processor;

an

a control layer module comprising;

first logic instructions stored in the memory that when executed on the computer processor, cause the computer processor to receive a client application request from a client device for user data stored in a remote location from the client device in a centralized datastore communicatively coupled to the server computing system; and

second logic instructions stored in the memory that when executed in response to a request from the first logic instructions, cause the computer processor to;

determine the remote location of the stored user data being requested;

determine whether the remote location of the requested user data is on a virtual disk that is associated with a virtual desktop of a first virtual machine assigned to the user that is not currently running;

in response to a determination that the first virtual machine is currently running, instruct the virtual machine to obtain the requested user data;

in response to a determination that the first virtual machine is not currently running;

identify one or more hypervisors that have access to the virtual disk stored in the centralized datastore;

select a control virtual machine that is running on one of the one or more hypervisors, wherein the control virtual machine is distinct from the first virtual machine assigned to the user, and wherein the control virtual machine, when instantiated on a particular hypervisor, provides on demand access to user data for a plurality of users located on respective virtual disks accessible by the particular hypervisor when the corresponding virtual machines are not running;

cause a connection to the control virtual machine; and

cause the control virtual machine to mount the virtual disk;

access the user data from the virtual disk; and

generate a client view of the user data;

wherein the connection to the control virtual machine, the mounting of the virtual disk, and the providing access to the requested data occurs while the virtual disk is not accessible through the associated non-running virtual machine assigned to the identified user.

2. The server computing system of claim 1 wherein the centralized datastore is a part of an enterprise virtualization infrastructure.

3. The server computing system of claim 1 wherein the centralized datastore is a shared network repository.

4. The server computing system of claim 1 wherein the user data is a data file, an application, or settings associated with the identified user.

5. The server computing system of claim 1, further comprising:

third logic instructions stored in the memory that when executed by the computer processor, cause the computer processor to assess whether the identified user has authority to access the requested user data; and

wherein the second logic instructions further cause the computer processor to invoke the third logic instructions to verify that the identified user has authority to access the requested user data before invoking the control virtual machine to access the user data.

6. The server computing system of claim 1, further comprising:

a policy database that stores rules defining which users have access to which data; and

wherein the second logic instructions further cause the computer processor to use the policy database to determine whether the identified user has legitimate access to the requested user data before causing the control virtual machine to access the user data.

7. The server computing system of claim 1, further comprising:

an audit database that tracks accesses to user data; and

wherein the first logic instructions further cause the computer processor to cause the audit database to track the request for the requested user data before invoking the control virtual machine to access the user data.

8. A virtual desktop management server comprising:

a memory;

a computer processor; and

first logic instructions stored in the memory that when executed on the computer processor, cause the computer processor to receive a client application request, from a client device, for user data that is stored in a remote location from the client device; and

second logic instructions stored in the memory that when executed in response to a request from the first logic instructions, cause the computer processor to;

determine the remote location of the stored user data being requested;

determine whether the remote location of the requested user data is on a target virtual disk that is associated with a virtual desktop of a first virtual machine assigned to the user that is not currently running;

in response to a determination that the first virtual machine is currently running, instruct the virtual machine to obtain the requested user data;

in response to a determination that the first virtual machine is not currently running;

identify one or more hypervisors that have access to the virtual disk stored in the centralized datastore;

select a control virtual machine that is running on one of the one or more hypervisors, wherein the control virtual machine is distinct from the first virtual machine assigned to the user, and wherein the control virtual machine, when instantiated on a particular hypervisor, provides on demand access to user data for a plurality of users located on respective virtual disks accessible by the particular hypervisor when the corresponding virtual machines are not running;

cause the control virtual machine to mount the target virtual disk;

access the requested user data from the target virtual disk; and

generate a client view of the user data;

wherein the mounting of the target virtual disk and the access of the requested user data occurring while the target virtual disk is not accessible to the user through the associated non-running virtual machine assigned to the user.

9. The virtual desktop management server of claim 8 wherein the control virtual machine is a virtual machine running on a hypervisor having access to a datastore that provides storage for data of the target virtual disk.

10. The virtual desktop management server of claim 8 wherein the user data of the target virtual disk is stored on external network storage and the control virtual machine retrieves the requested user data from the external network storage.

11. The virtual desktop management server of claim 8 wherein the user data that is a user profile on a network share, data on the virtual disk that is part of the running virtual desktop, or data on the target virtual disk is physically stored on different types of backend storage repositories including at least one of NFS, SAN, VNFS, or cloud storage.

12. The virtual desktop management server of claim 8 wherein the user data is a file that contains an application.

13. The virtual desktop management server of claim 8 wherein the first logic instructions further generate a view of the obtained user data that is presentable in a web browser.

14. The virtual desktop management server of claim 8 wherein the first logic instructions further pass the obtained user data without any presentation mark up to the requesting client application.

15. The virtual desktop management server of claim 8, further comprising:

third logic instructions stored in the memory that when executed by the computer processor, cause the computer processor to assess whether an identified user associated with the requested user data has authority to access the requested user data; and

wherein the second logic instructions further cause the computer processor to invoke the third logic instructions to verify that the identified user has authority to access the requested user data before determining the remote location of the stored user data being requested.

16. The virtual desktop management server of claim 8, further comprising:

a policy data repository that stores rules defining which users have access to which data; and

wherein the second logic instructions further cause the computer processor to invoke the policy data repository to determine whether an identified user associated with the requested user data has legitimate access to the requested user data before determining the remote location of the stored user data being requested.

17. The virtual desktop management server of claim 8, further comprising:

an audit data repository that tracks accesses to user data; and

wherein the first logic instructions further cause the computer processor to invoke the audit data repository to track the request for the requested user data before invoking the content abstraction layer to obtain the requested user data.

18. The virtual desktop management server of claim 8 wherein the first logic instructions provide a REST interface based web server.

19. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium containing instructions that control a computer processor in a computing system to perform a method comprising:

receiving a request from a client device for user data that is stored in a remote location from the client device;

determining the remote location of the stored user data being requested;

determining whether the remote location of the requested user data is on a target virtual disk that is associated with a virtual desktop of a first virtual machine assigned to the user that is not currently running;

in response to a determination that the first virtual machine is currently running, instruct the virtual machine to obtain the requested user data;

in response to a determination that the first virtual machine is not currently running;

identify one or more hypervisors that have access to the target virtual disk;

select a control virtual machine that is running on one of the one or more hypervisors, wherein the control virtual machine is distinct from the first virtual machine assigned to the user, and wherein the control virtual machine, when instantiated on a particular hypervisor, provides on demand access to user content for a plurality of users located on respective virtual disks accessible by the particular hypervisor when a corresponding virtual machines are not running;

executing the control virtual machine without causing a connection session between the client device and the control virtual machine to be established;

causing the control virtual machine to mount the target virtual disk to access the requested user data;

retrieving the requested data from the virtual disk without running the non-running virtual machine assigned to the identified user, and without causing a connection session to be established by the client device to access the virtual disk; and

returning the requested user data to the client device in response to the request by generating a client view of the user data while the virtual disk is not accessible through the associated non-running virtual machine assigned to the user.

20. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 19 wherein the method further comprises:

recording the request for user data in an audit data repository.

21. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 19 wherein the method further comprises:

accessing rules from a policy datastore to determine whether the identified user is authorized to have access to the requested data.

22. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 19, further comprising forwarding the request to a content abstraction layer logic to cause the content abstraction layer to obtain the user data in a manner transparent to the requesting client device determines that the requested data is in a virtual desktop associated with the non-running virtual machine assigned to the user.

23. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 19, the requested user data being an application.

24. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 19 wherein the request is at least one to list a file in a folder, get file metadata, download a file, or upload a file.

25. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 19 wherein the storage medium is computer memory in a computer system.