Intelligent network streaming and execution system for conventionally coded applications

• US 20080178298A1
• Filed: 06/13/2006
• Published: 07/24/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 02/14/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Numecent Holdings Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Endeavors Technologies, Inc. (DivestCap Management, Inc.)
• Inventors: Shah, Lacky, Arai, Daniel T., Benitez, Manuel E., Panwar, Sameer, Holler, Anne M.
• Granted Patent: US 8,438,298 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 726/29
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/1083 Partial license transfers
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/34 involving the use of external additional devices, e.g. dongles or smart cards
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/61 Installation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/65 Updates security arrangements therefor G06F21/57
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2463/101 applying security measures for digital rights management data processing systems or methods, specially adapted for commerce, e.g. marketing, shopping, billing, auctions or e-commerce G06Q30/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/10 for controlling access to devices or network resources
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/01 Protocols
• 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 67/289 Intermediate processing functionally located close to the data consumer application, e.g. in same machine, in same home or in same sub-network
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/34 involving the movement of software or configuration parameters network booting or remote initial program loading [RIPL] G06F9/4416
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/51 Discovery or management thereof, e.g. service location protocol [SLP] or web services
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/565 Conversion or adaptation of application format or content adding application control or application functional data H04L67/561
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/568 Storing data temporarily at an intermediate stage, e.g. caching
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/5681 Pre-fetching or pre-delivering data based on network characteristics
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/5682 Policies or rules for updating, deleting or replacing the stored data

Abstract

An intelligent network streaming and execution system for conventionally coded applications provides a system that partitions an application program into page segments by observing the manner in which the application program is conventionally installed. A minimal portion of the application program is installed on a client system and the user launches the application in the same ways that applications on other client file systems are started. An application program server streams the page segments to the client as the application program executes on the client and the client stores the page segments in a cache. Page segments are requested by the client from the application server whenever a page fault occurs from the cache for the application program. The client prefetches page segments from the application server or the application server pushes additional page segments to the client based on the pattern of page segment requests for that particular application. The user subscribes and unsubscribes to application programs, whenever the user accesses an application program a securely encrypted access token is obtained from a license server if the user has a valid subscription to the application program. The application server begins streaming the requested page segments to the client when it receives a valid access token from the client. The client performs server load balancing across a plurality of application servers. If the client observes a non-response or slow response condition from an application server or license server, it switches to another application or license server.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

providing secure license-based streaming delivery of a program over a network;

executing the program at a client as if the program were installed on the client;

facilitating server-based file accesses, by page, associated with the program.

2. A system comprising:

a subscription server for subscribing to an application by a client;

a license server for providing a license to the client to run the application;

an application server for streaming a subset of the application to the client, wherein the client executes the application as if it were installed on the client.

3. A system comprising:

a client license manager for requesting a license to run an application;

a client cache manager for caching portions of the application so that subsequent requests for portions of the application can be serer by the cache;

a client streaming file system for serving file system requests from the application for pages by handling page faults associated with the file system requests, asking the client cache manager for the pages, and if the pages are not cached, asking an application server for the pages;

a client prefetcher for requesting pages from the application server before the client streaming file system serves a file system request from the application;

a client file spoofer for intercepting file requests and redirecting the file requests to the client streaming file system.