INTEGRATED CLIENT FOR ACCESS TO REMOTE RESOURCES

• US 20090327905A1
• Filed: 06/27/2008
• Published: 12/31/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 06/27/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Porter, Nelly L., Henriquez, Alberto, Mascarenhas, Ayesha M, Raghunathan, Subhashini, Pullappan, Ramasamy, Ramadugu, Naga Vankata Rajagopal, Reskusich, Raymond Matthew, Ben-Shachar, Ido, Erdogan, Ersev Samim, Agarwala, Niraj, London, Kevin Scott
• Granted Patent: US 8,612,862 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/738
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/025 for remote control or remote monitoring of applications
• 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 67/75 Indicating network or usage conditions on the user display

Abstract

Techniques for discovering, connecting to, disconnecting from, reconnecting to, updating, and removing workspaces are described. In one embodiment, a list of discovered workspaces is maintained on a user device. Shortcuts for resources corresponding to each respective one of the discovered workspaces are integrated into a user interface of the user device. A request to access one of the resources contained in one of the discovered workspaces is received. Responsive to receiving the request, a connection from the user device to one or more resource hosts containing the resources corresponding to the indicated one of the discovered workspaces is opened. Access from the user device to the resources stored on the resource host(s) corresponding to the indicated one of the discovered workspaces is enabled by presenting shortcuts for resources corresponding to the discovered workspaces as though they were local resources.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

maintaining a list of discovered workspaces on a user device;

dynamically integrating shortcuts for resources corresponding to each respective one of the discovered workspaces into a user interface (UI) of the user device;

receiving a request to access one of the resources corresponding to one of the discovered workspaces;

responsive to receiving the request, opening a connection from the user device to one or more resource hosts containing the resources corresponding to the indicated one of the discovered workspaces; and

enabling access from the user device to the resources stored on the resource host(s) corresponding to the indicated one of the discovered workspaces by presenting shortcuts for resources corresponding to the discovered workspaces as though they were local resources.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the request comprises accessing one of the resources by selecting one of the shortcuts.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the request comprises selecting one of the discovered workspaces and issuing an explicit open command.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the opening comprises reconnecting to the resources, wherein if the resources were previously opened and then disconnected, the resources are maintained in an active state on the resource host(s) such that the resources are in the same state at the time of reconnection as at a time of a previous disconnection.

5. A method of disconnecting from a workspace, the method comprising:

receiving a request to disconnect from a connected workspace;

responsive to receiving the request, closing a connection between a user device and resource hosts containing resources corresponding to the connected workspace, the closing of the connection causing the contained resources to also close;

generating a confirmation that the connection is closed; and

maintaining shortcuts for resources corresponding to the workspace in a user interface (UI) of the user device when the connection is closed.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the request comprises passage of a defined period of time after the contained resources have been closed.

7. The method of claim 5, wherein the request comprises an explicit disconnect command.

8. The method of claim 5, further comprising:

storing a description of the workspace on the user device, the description comprising a unique name of the workspace, a locator of the workspace, a list of the resources associated with the workspace, and a status indicator of the workspace indicating connected or disconnected status.

9. One or more computer-readable storage media containing instructions that, when executed by a computer, perform acts comprising:

establishing a connection to one or more resource hosts; and

operating a client on the user device, the client configured to perform acts comprising;

receiving a locator directing the client to a workspace;

querying a workspace feed specified by the locator for resources stored on the resource host(s) associated with the workspace;

creating shortcuts corresponding to the resources on the user device;

storing a description of the workspace on the user device, the description comprising a unique name of the workspace, the locator of the workspace, a list of the resources associated with the workspace, and a time of most recent update of the description of the workspace; and

automatically integrating the shortcuts into a user interface (UI) of the user device and using the shortcuts to present the resources as though they were local resources.

10. The computer-readable storage media of claim 9, wherein the user device is in a different domain than the resource host(s) or connected to the resource host(s) through a non-domain joining.

11. The computer-readable storage media of claim 9, wherein the locator comprises a uniform resource locator (URL) or an e-mail address.

12. The computer-readable storage media of claim 11, wherein a domain-part of the e-mail address is used to create a Domain Name System (DNS) service record (SRV) query.

13. The computer-readable storage media of claim 9, wherein the resource hosts comprise at least one of remote resource hosts or virtual machine hosts.

14. The computer-readable storage media of claim 9, wherein the resources comprise at least one of remote applications, remote files, icons, remote desktop protocol (RDP) files, or remote computers.

15. The computer-readable storage media of claim 9, wherein a display of the shortcuts on the UI of the user device is customizable by a user of the user device.

16. The computer-readable storage media of claim 9, further comprising:

creating a secure hypertext transfer protocol secure socket layer (https) connection between the user device and the a workspace feed server, wherein the https connection transmits cookies.

17. The computer-readable storage media of claim 9, further comprising:

adding the workspace to a list of discovered workspaces maintained on the user device.

18. The computer-readable storage media of claim 9, further comprising:

removing the workspace from the user device, wherein the removing comprises deleting the shortcuts and the description of the workspace from the user device.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein the removing is performed by a dynamic link library (dll) with a remove-workspace entry point.

20. The computer-readable storage media of claim 9, further comprising:

associating a file type extension of a file present on the user device with one of the resources, wherein the one of the resource is a remote application file.