FLEXIBLE NAMESPACE PRIORITIZATION

• US 20090007162A1
• Filed: 06/29/2007
• Published: 01/01/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 06/29/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Sheehan, John M.
• Granted Patent: US 8,862,590 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 719/331
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/14 Details of searching files based on file metadata
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/24 Querying
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/284 Relational databases
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5005 to service a request

Abstract

Access to resources on a computer may be provided by using a first namespace of resources and a second namespace of resources, where one or more names are common to both namespaces and those names refer to different respective instances of resources. A request is received for a first resource name from an application, where the first resource name exists in the first resource namespace and in the second resource namespace. In response to the request, whether to obtain a resource from the first namespace or from the second namespace is determined by applying one or more resource policies to the first resource namespace and to the second resource namespace.

Claims

1. A method for resolving conflicts between resource namespaces, where each resource namespace comprises a plurality of resources and corresponding names thereof, and where resource namespaces at least partially overlap such that a same name in two or more resource namespaces refers to different instances of resources in the respective resource namespaces, the different instances having different content, the method comprising:

providing context information describing conditions under which different namespaces are applicable;

receiving a request for a name of a resource and prioritizing the resource namespaces relative to each other by comparing the name against the context information; and

obtaining a resource for the name from the prioritized namespaces.

2. A method according to claim 1, wherein a resource namespace is not prioritized if it is not associated with one of the conditions under which a namespace is applicable.

3. A method according to claim 1, wherein prioritizing the namespaces further comprises weighting the resource namespaces in proportion to degrees to which the name matches the context information.

4. A method according to claim 1, wherein the resource namespaces are have default relative priorities and when the name matches context information for both of the resource namespaces a resource for the name is obtained according to the default relative priorities.

5. A method according to claim 1, wherein a condition of a context comprises information describing an open ended set of resource names which arbitrary resources names can be compared against to determine whether such arbitrary resource names fall within the context.

6. A method according to claim 5, wherein the condition comprises a file directory or registry location.

7. A method performed on a computer having a virtualization component that virtualizes access to system resources on the computer, the computer having a first namespace of resources on the computer and a second namespace of resources on the computer, where one or more resource names are common to both namespaces and those same resource names correspond to differing resources in their respective namespaces, the method comprising:

providing a plurality of policies for prioritizing namespaces;

receiving a request for a first resource name, and in response to the request determining relative priorities of the first namespace and the second resource namespace by using the policies to prioritize the first resource namespace and the second resource namespace; and

in accordance with the determining, obtaining from the first resource namespace or the second namespace a resource corresponding to the first resource name.

8. A method according to claim 7, further comprising:

receiving a request for a second resource name, and in response to the request again determining relative priorities of the first namespace and the second resource namespace by using the selected policies to prioritize the first resource namespace and the second resource namespace; and

in accordance with the again determining, obtaining from the first resource namespace or the second namespace a resource corresponding to the second resource name.

9. A method according to claim 7, further comprising selecting from among the resource policies those policies that are applicable to the first resource name and using those policies for the determining the relative priorities of the first and second namespaces.

10. A method according to claim 9, wherein the policies are selected based on whether they match the first resource name.

11. A method according to claim 7, wherein the policies describe conditions under which they should be used to prioritize a resource namespace, and when such conditions are met the resource namespaces are prioritized based on the policies.

12. A method according to claim 11, wherein a namespace is prioritized by two different policies.

13. A method according to claim 12, wherein a policy'"'"'s contribution in prioritizing a namespace is proportional to how specific the policy is to the first resource name.

14. One or more computer readable media storing information for enabling a computing device to perform a process for flexibly prioritizing two or more overlapping resource namespaces, the process comprising:

before a resource is requested by a resource name, storing policy information defining a plurality of resource contexts;

when the resource is requested by the resource name, prioritizing two or more of the overlapping resource namespaces relative to each other based on the policy information; and

obtaining the resource by accessing the prioritized resource namespaces in order of their priority until the resource is found in one of the resource namespaces.

15. One or more computer readable media storing information for enabling a computing device to perform a process according to claim 14, wherein the process is performed such that the resource namespaces are prioritized relative to each other with a same order of priority independent of an order in which the resource namespaces are prioritized.

16. One or more computer readable media storing information for enabling a computing device to perform a process according to claim 14, wherein the prioritizing is further based on the resource name.

17. One or more computer readable media storing information for enabling a computing device to perform a process according to claim 16, the process further comprising passing the resource name, the resource namespaces, and/or the policy information to a policy engine that performs the prioritizing.

18. One or more computer readable media storing information for enabling a computing device to perform a process according to claim 14, wherein the namespaces are prioritized based on which of the resource contexts are most relevant to the requested resource name.

19. One or more computer readable media storing information for enabling a computing device to perform a process according to claim 14, wherein a resource context is compared against a context of the request.

20. One or more computer readable media storing information for enabling a computing device to perform a process according to claim 14, the process further comprising receiving a request for a second resource name and prioritizing the two or more of the overlapping resource namespaces relative to each other based on the policy information, where the resource namespaces are prioritized in a different order than when they were prioritized for the first resource name.