System and method for supporting multiple users

• US 8,171,500 B2
• Filed: 03/22/2011
• Issued: 05/01/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 01/20/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Avago Technologies International Sales Pte Limited (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Broadcom Corporation (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Inventors: El Zur, Uri, Young, Gregory
• Primary Examiner(s): Ho, Andy
• Application Number:
  US13/053,718
• Publication Number:
  US 20110173612A1
• Time in Patent Office: 406 Days
• Field of Search: 719/318, 719/330, 718/1
• US Class Current: 719/318
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45537 Provision of facilities of other operating environments, e.g. WINE I/O emulation G06F13/105

Abstract

Systems and methods that support splitting a compute resource from its input/output and sharing among one or more users are provided. In one embodiment, a system that supports one or more user devices may include, for example, a compute engine, a first user device and a second user device. The compute engine may be adapted to provide virtualization. The virtualization may provide, for example, a first instance of a particular operating system and a second instance of the particular operating system. The first user device may be coupled to the compute engine and may access the first instance of the particular operating system. The second user device may be coupled to the compute engine and may access the second instance of the particular operating system. In one example, the user devices are input/output devices that do not run applications or operating systems.

Claims

1. A system for supporting multiple devices, comprising:

a compute engine configured to provide virtualization, wherein the virtualization provides a first instance of a particular operating system and a second instance of the particular operating system; and

a first user device operatively coupled to the compute engine via a network, wherein the first user device accesses the first instance of the particular operating system in a particular server blade of a plurality of server blades in a server, wherein the first user device includes a keyboard and a mouse, wherein input signals generated by the keyboard and the mouse cannot be graphically processed locally and graphically displayed locally because the first user device lacks a local operating system, wherein the input signals generated by the keyboard and the mouse cannot be graphically processed locally and graphically displayed locally before being processed by the compute engine.

2. The system according to claim 1, wherein the input signals received from the first user device are processed by the compute engine, wherein the processed input signals are then sent over the network to the first user device for display.

3. The system according to claim 1, comprising a second user device operatively coupled to the compute engine, wherein the second user device accesses the second instance of the particular operating system in the particular server blade.

4. The system according to claim 1, wherein the compute engine employs one or more of the following:

a storage area network and direct attached storage (DAS).

5. The system according to claim 3, wherein the first user device or the second user device comprises an embedded reduced-instruction-set-computer (RISC) core.

6. The system according to claim 1, wherein the compute engine supports one or more of the following:

transmission control protocol (TCP) offload, remote direct memory access (RDMA), and Internet small computer system interface (iSCSI).

7. The system according to claim 3, wherein processing resources of the first user device and the second user device are disposed in the compute engine.

8. The system according to claim 1, wherein the virtualization provides a first instance of a particular application running on the first instance of the particular operating system, and wherein the virtualization provides a second instance of the particular application running on the second instance of the particular operating system.

9. The system according to claim 8, wherein the first user device accesses the first instance of the particular application, and wherein the first user device accesses the second instance of the particular application.

10. The system according to claim 3, wherein the first user device or the second user device includes a Gigabit Ethernet controller that is operatively coupled to the compute engine.

11. The system according to claim 3, comprising a third user device operatively coupled to the compute engine, wherein the third user device accesses a third instance of the particular operating system, and wherein the virtualization provides a third instance of the particular operating system.

12. A server system comprising:

a plurality of server blades comprising a particular server blade, wherein the particular server blade provides virtualization, wherein the virtualization provides a first instance of a particular operating system and a second instance of the particular operating system; and

a first user device operatively coupled to the particular server blade via a network and accessing the first instance of the particular operating system, the first user device comprising a keyboard and a mouse, wherein keyboard signals and mouse movement signals generated by the keyboard and the mouse cannot be graphically processed and graphically displayed on a display before the keyboard signals and the mouse movement signals are sent over the network to a compute engine for processing, wherein the keyboard signals and the mouse movement signals received from the first user device are processed by the compute engine instead of being processed locally by the first user device, wherein the processed keyboard signals and the processed mouse movement signals are then sent to the first user device for display.

13. The server system according to claim 12, comprising a second user device operatively coupled to the particular server blade via the network, wherein the second user device accesses the second instance of the particular operating system.

14. The server system according to claim 13, wherein the first user device and the second user device do not locally provide operating system resources.

15. The server system according to claim 13, wherein the particular server blade provides the operating system resources for the first user device and the second user device.

16. The server system according to claim 13, wherein the first instance of the particular operating system or a first instance of a particular program running on the first instance of the particular operating system provides processing resources for the first user device, and wherein the second instance of the particular operating system or a second instance of the particular program running on the second instance of the particular operating system provides processing resources for the second user device.

17. A method of supporting multiple user devices, comprising:

virtually providing a plurality of instances of an operating system on a particular server blade of a plurality of server blades of a server;

coupling, via a network, a plurality of remote user devices with the plurality of instances of the operating system, each remote user device being coupled with a respective instance of the operating system, a particular remote user device of the plurality of remote user devices comprising a keyboard and a mouse;

generating mouse movement signals by moving the mouse, the particular remote user device being unable to graphically display mouse movements without first sending the generated mouse movement signals over the network to the particular server blade for processing;

sending the generated mouse movement signals over the network to the particular server blade;

receiving, by the particular server blade, the generated mouse movement signals via the network;

processing the received mouse movement signals at the particular server blade instead of processing the generated mouse movement signals at the particular remote user device; and

sending the processed mouse movement signals over the network to the particular remote user device to graphically display the mouse movements.

18. The method according to claim 17, wherein each remote user device is exclusively coupled with the respective instance of the operating system in a one-to-one correspondence.

19. The method according to claim 17, comprising providing services to the particular remote device as if the particular remote device locally ran its own operating system, storage, and visual hardware, when the operating system, the storage, and the visual hardware are remotely run at the server.

20. The method according to claim 17, wherein the particular remote user device does not have a local operating system with which to process the generated mouse movement signals for display, and wherein the particular remote user device does not have the local operating system with which to process the generated mouse movement signals to graphically display the mouse movements.