Distributed ledger platform for computing applications

• US 10,310,824 B2
• Filed: 05/11/2018
• Issued: 06/04/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 09/07/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Imagine Communications Limited (Gores Broadcast Holdings LLC)
• Original Assignee: Imagine Communications Limited (Gores Broadcast Holdings LLC)
• Inventors: Eksten, Brick, White, Craig, Palmer, Scott, Belme, Frank, Li, Stephen, Saceanu, Cristian
• Primary Examiner(s): Vu, Tuan A
• Application Number:
  US15/977,155
• Publication Number:
  US 20180329693A1
• Time in Patent Office: 389 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/21 Design, administration or maintenance of databases
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/105 Arrangements for software license management or administration, e.g. for managing licenses at corporate level
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/1077 Recurrent authorisation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/64 Protecting data integrity, e.g. using checksums, certificates or signatures
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/20 Software design
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/34 Graphical or visual programming
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/36 Software reuse
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/60 Software deployment
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/61 Installation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/65 Updates security arrangements therefor G06F21/57
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/70 Software maintenance or management
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/71 Version control security arrangements therefor G06F21/57; Configuration management
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/44521 Dynamic linking or loading; Link editing at or after load time, e.g. Java class loading
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5066 Algorithms for mapping a plurality of inter-dependent sub-tasks onto a plurality of physical CPUs mappping at compile time, see G06F8/451
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/08 for authentication of entities cryptographic mechanisms or cryptographic arrangements for entity authentication H04L9/32
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/0823 using certificates cryptographic mechanisms or cryptographic arrangements for entity authentication involving certificates H04L9/3263

Abstract

Systems and methods for dynamic development and/or management of computing applications including a development framework, a visual design subsystem, a deployment subsystem, and a distributed ledger, where at runtime the deployment subsystem is operable to dynamically deploy a computing application realized by a blueprint by sending a request at runtime for graphs and components instantiated by the blueprint, and the distributed ledger is operable to store a set of components and associating each component with a digital certificate.

Claims

1. A system for dynamic development of computing applications comprising:

one or more linked repositories storing blueprints, graphs, and components, each component defining a computing processing mechanism for processing data containers of computing data, each component being associated with one or more versions;

at least one development processor to develop and output at least one computing application to process at least one input data stream to generate at least one output data stream, the at least one computing application realized by a blueprint of the blueprints in the one or more linked repositories, the blueprint used to instantiate at least one graph of the graphs in the one or more linked repositories at application runtime, the at least one graph representing a workflow of components from the components stored in the one or more linked repositories, the workflow defining an arrangement of the plurality of components and connections between the components using pins; and

an interface for defining, updating, and testing a solution set of the components of the workflow, the solution set identifying a set of components of the components of the workflow and, for each component of the set of components, a version;

the at least one development processor for adding a label to the blueprint realizing the at least one computing application, the label referencing the solution set for loading appropriate versions of the set of components from the one or more linked repositories at application runtime such that when the solution set updates to identify a different version of a component in the set of components, the label references the updated solution set with the different version of the component without requiring modification to the blueprint realizing the at least one computing application; and

a distributed ledger comprising data storage structures for one or more blocks, wherein each of the one or more blocks is associated with a respective component and a respective function or purpose for the respective component, and wherein the blockchain system is configured to;

receive a request to update the distributed ledger with at least one new component for a specific function or purpose;

determine that the at least one new component is linked to a digital certificate and a solution set;

authenticate the digital certificate;

generate a digital signature for the at least one new component based on the digital certificate;

generate a new block comprising the digital signature, the solution set, and a pointer to the at least one new component as stored in the one or more linked repositories; and

update the distributed ledger with the new block.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein a graph delivers functionality defined by the components identified by the graph, and wherein a blueprint connects the functionality to a running environment.

3. The system of claim 1, further comprising a certification system to issue a digital certificate to sign the solution set of components to indicate agreement that the set of components of the solution set satisfy a performance standard.

4. The system of claim 1, further comprising:

a visual design subsystem for realizing computing applications, wherein the visual design subsystem is operable to arrange components into functional blocks, define specific orders of operation for the functional blocks, and define the connections between the functional blocks using the pins to define the at least one computing application.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein a first component is in a first language and a second component is in a second different language, wherein the first and second components comprise data and are operable to access the memory and data structures, and wherein the system further comprises a translation module operable to translate multiple languages into a common language by translating the first and second component data and how the first and second component are operable to access the memory and the data structures.

6. A computer-implemented method for managing computing components using a distributed ledger platform, the method implemented with a computer processor coupled with memory-stored executable instructions which, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to perform the method, comprising:

storing blueprints, graphs, and components at one or more linked repositories, each component being associated with one or more versions;

configuring one or more processors to execute a command to define, using each component, a computing processing mechanism for processing data containers of computing data;

generating, using a development processor, at least one computing application to process at least one input data stream to generate at least one output data stream, the at least one computing application realized by a blueprint of the blueprints in the one or more linked repositories,

instantiating at least one graph of the graphs in the one or more linked repositories using the blueprint at application runtime, the at least one graph representing a workflow of components from the components stored in the one or more linked repositories, the workflow defining an arrangement of the plurality of components and connections between the components using pins;

configuring the one or more processors to define, update, and test, at an interface, a solution set of the components of the workflow, the solution set identifying a set of components of the components of the workflow and, for each component of the set of components, a version;

adding a label to the blueprint realizing the at least one computing application, the label referencing the solution set for loading appropriate versions of the set of components from the one or more linked repositories at application runtime such that when the solution set updates to identify a different version of a component in the set of components the label references the updated solution set with the different version of the component without requiring modification to the blueprint realizing the at least one computing applications;

loading appropriate versions of the components from the one or more linked repositories using the label referencing the solution set of components;

receiving a request to update one or more data sets representative of a distributed ledger with at least one new component for a specific function or purpose, the distributed ledger comprising one or more blocks, each of the one or more blocks associated with a respective component and a respective function or purpose for the respective component;

determining, by the one or more processors, that the at least one new component is linked to a digital certificate;

authenticating the digital certificate;

generating a digital signature for the at least one new component based on the digital certificate;

generating a new block comprising the digital signature and a pointer to the at least one new component as stored in the one or more linked repositories; and

updating the distributed ledger with the new block.

7. The method of claim 6, further comprising generating a digital certificate to sign the solution set of components to indicate agreement that the set of components of the solution set satisfy a performance standard.

8. A system for dynamic deployment of computing applications comprising:

one or more linked repositories storing blueprints, graphs, and components, each component defining a computing processing mechanism for processing data containers of computing data, each component being associated with one or more versions;

at least one deployment processor for receiving a command to deploy at least one computing application to process at least one input data stream to generate at least one output data stream, the deployment processor realizing the at least one computing application by a blueprint of the blueprints in the one or more linked repositories, the blueprint used to instantiate at least one graph of the graphs in the one or more linked repositories at application runtime, the at least one graph representing a workflow of components from the components stored in the one or more linked repositories, the workflow defining an arrangement of the plurality of components and connections between the components using pins, the blueprint having a label referencing a solution set of the components of the workflow, the solution set identifying a set of components of the components of the workflow and, for each component of the set of components, a version such that when the solution set updates to identify a different version of a component in the set of components, the label references the updated solution set with the different version of the component without requiring modification to the blueprint realizing the at least one computing application;

the deployment processor configuring one or more cloud agents, and one or more cloud engines, the cloud agent receiving the command to deploy the at least one computing application to process the at least one input data stream and, in response, instantiate the one or more cloud engines on a host system and provide a running environment for the one or more cloud engines;

the one or more cloud engines dynamically construct the at least one computing application on the respective host system by realizing requirements of the blueprint of the at least one computing application, the requirements identifying the at least one graph and the components of the workflow and by sending a request to the one or more linked repositories to load the blueprint, the at least one graph, and the set of components on the respective host system using the label to reference the solution set of components to load appropriate versions of the set of components; and

a distributed ledger platform comprising data storage devices for one or more blocks, wherein each of the one or more blocks is associated with a respective component and a respective function or purpose for the respective component.

9. The system of claim 8, further comprising a license server, wherein the license server dynamically manages licenses and associates licenses with components and graphs, wherein use of components and graphs at application runtime requires the associated license.

10. The system of claim 8, further comprising a job manager, wherein the job manager dispatches blueprints and graphs to cloud agents based on available licenses managed by the license server.

11. The system of claim 8, further comprising a security manager, wherein the security manager provides for secure connections and communications between system components.

12. The system of claim 8, further comprising a job manager configured to provide job and cloud engine dispatch, failover, tracking and reporting.

13. The system of claim 8, further comprising a certification system to issue a digital certificate to sign the solution set of components to indicate agreement that the set of components of the solution set satisfy a performance standard.

14. The system of claim 8, wherein a data container defines a data type and a data object, wherein the data type is metadata describing the data container and the data object maintains raw data.

15. The system of claim 8, wherein the cloud agent is provided to each user system to manage the local resources of the user system, wherein the cloud agents interact with cloud engines to instantiate graphs using blueprints.

16. The system of claim 8, further comprising a normalization module operable to receive input data files and convert and parse the input data files into data containers for processing by a graph.

17. The system of claim 8, further comprising a code signing module operable to digitally sign each component to associate at least one of a developer and license with at least one component.

18. The system of claim 8, further comprising:

a digital certificate associated with a component provider subsystem, wherein the component provider subsystem provides one or more components of the set of components identified by the solution set;

a digital certificate associated with a user computing subsystem, wherein the user computing subsystem is associated with the at least one computing application, wherein the computing application involves a component provided by the component provider computing system;

a license server configured to digitally sign a component of the set of components by linking the component to the digital certificate associated with the user computing subsystem and the digital certificate associated with the component provider subsystem to indicate that the user computing system and the component provider subsystem accept performance of the digitally signed component;

wherein at runtime prior to deploying each component the deployment subsystem queries the license server to determine whether the component is linked to the digital certificate associated with the user computing subsystem and the digital certificate associated with the component provider subsystem.

19. The system of claim 8, wherein the deployment subsystem is further configured to partition a graph into two or more subgraphs and handle interprocess communications between the two or more subgraphs.

20. A computer-implemented method for dynamic deployment of computing applications, the method implemented with a computer processor coupled with memory-stored executable instructions which, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to perform the method, comprising:

storing blueprints, graphs, and components, each component defining a computing processing mechanism for processing data containers of computing data, each component being associated with one or more versions;

providing at least one deployment processor for receiving a command to deploy at least one computing application to process at least one input data stream to generate at least one output data stream;

realizing the at least one computing application by a blueprint of the blueprints in the one or more linked repositories;

instantiating, using the blueprint, at least one graph of the graphs in the one or more linked repositories at application runtime;

using the at least one graph to represent a workflow of components from the components stored in the one or more linked repositories, the workflow defining an arrangement of the plurality of components and connections between the components using pins;

defining in the blueprint a label referencing a solution set of the components of the workflow, the solution set identifying a set of components of the components of the workflow and, for each component of the set of components, a version such that when the solution set updates to identify a different version of a component in the set of components, the label references the updated solution set with the different version of the component without requiring modification to the blueprint realizing the at least one computing application;

configuring, using the deployment processor, one or more cloud agents, and one or more cloud engines;

receiving, at the cloud agent, the command to deploy the at least one computing application to process the at least one input data stream and, in response, instantiating the one or more cloud engines on a host system and provide a running environment for the one or more cloud engines;

dynamically constructing, using the one or more cloud engines, the at least one computing application on the respective host system by realizing requirements of the blueprint of the at least one computing application, the requirements identifying the at least one graph and the components of the workflow and by sending a request to the one or more linked repositories to load the blueprint, the at least one graph, and the set of components on the respective host system using the label to reference the solution set of components to load appropriate versions of the set of components;

processing the input data stream as a plurality of data containers using the plurality of components to generate the output data stream, the plurality of data containers flowing between the components of the workflow using the pins; and

storing each of the set of components in a respective block in a distributed ledger, and associating each of the set of components with a specific function or purpose in the respective block.

21. The method of claim 20, further comprising:

generating a digital certificate associated with a component provider subsystem, wherein the component provider subsystem provides one or more components of the set of components identified by the solution set;

generating a digital certificate associated with a user computing subsystem, wherein the user computing subsystem is associated with the at least one computing application, wherein the computing application involves a component provided by the component provider computing system;

providing a license server configured to digitally sign a component of the set of components by linking the component to the digital certificate associated with the user computing subsystem and the digital certificate associated with the component provider subsystem to indicate that the user computing system and the component provider subsystem accept performance of the digitally signed component;

receiving, at a license server, acceptance of the component provided by the component provider subsystem in the computing application associated with user computing system by receiving the digital certificate from the user computing subsystem and the digital certificate from the component provider computing system;

linking, at the license server, the component provided by the component provider subsystem in the computing application associated with user computing system to the digital certificate from the user computing subsystem and the digital certificate from the component provider computing system; and

at application runtime prior to deploying each component, querying the license server to determine whether the component is linked to the digital certificate associated with the user computing subsystem and the digital certificate associated with the component provider subsystem.