Systems and methods for computing applications

• US 9,152,470 B2
• Filed: 09/06/2012
• Issued: 10/06/2015
• 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:
  US14/343,299
• Publication Number:
  US 20140245261A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,125 Days
• Field of Search: 717/174, 717/177, 717/171, 717/176, 717/105, 715/733, 715/736, 714/15, 718/1, 718/104, 726/7, 709223-226, 707/10
• US Class Current: 1/1
• 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 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 8/70 Software maintenance or 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 deployment of computing applications including a development framework, a visual design subsystem, and a deployment subsystem, where at runtime the deployment subsystem is operable to dynamically deploy a computing application by sending a request at runtime for graphs and components identified in the computing application.

Claims

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

one or more linked repositories storing blueprints, graphs, and components;

one or more processors configured to receive a command to deploy at least one computing application to process at least one input data stream, and in response, trigger deployment of the at least one computing application over a plurality of disparate host systems,

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

at least one host system of the disparate host systems comprising;

a cloud agent and one or more cloud engines instantiated by the cloud agent;

wherein the cloud agent is configured to receive 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 the respective host system and provide a running environment for the one or more cloud engines;

wherein the one or more cloud engines are configured to 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 at least one graph from the graphs stored in the linked one or more repositories, a plurality of components from the components stored in the linked one or more repositories, and by sending a request to the one or more linked repositories to load the blueprint, the at least one graph, and the plurality of components on the respective host system; and

wherein the one or more cloud engines deploy the dynamically constructed at least one computing application on the respective host system by;

instantiating the at least one graph using the blueprint, the graph representing a workflow of the plurality of components, the workflow defining an arrangement of the plurality of components;

detecting that the plurality of components comprise a first set of components written for a first architecture and a second set of components written for a second architecture;

representing at least a portion of the graph as a first subgraph and a second subgraph;

using the first subgraph to define connections between the first set of components using pins and the workflow of the graph, and using the second subgraph to define connections between the second set of components using additional pins and the workflow of the graph, each component of the first and second sets of components having at least one input pin for receiving at least one input data container and at least one output pin for providing at least one output data container, the respective component transforming the input data container into the output data container using a computing processing mechanism, each component being a distribution plug-in unit to provide a portable and isolated dependency set for the computing processing mechanism of the respective component;

connecting the second subgraph to the first subgraph using at least one additional input in and at least one additional output in to pass at least a portion of the data containers between the first subgraph and the second subgraph, the connected first and second subgraphs maintaining the workflow of the graph;

instantiating a running process instance of the first architecture on the respective host system for the first set of components of the first subgraph;

instantiating a running process instance of the second architecture on another host system of the disparate host systems for the second set of components of the second subgraph, the running process instance of the first architecture being linked to the running process instance of the second architecture by the cloud engine at deployment time to link the first subgraph and the second subgraph; and

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

using the at least one additional input pin and the at least one additional output pin to pass at least a portion of the data containers between the running process instance of first architecture on the respective host system and the running process instance of the second architecture of the other host system to generate the output data stream.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein each of the plurality of components is associated with one or more versions, wherein the graph of the at least one computing application comprises a label as a reference to a solution set of components, wherein the solution set identifies a set of components and a version for each component in the set.

3. The system of claim 1, further comprising a license server, wherein the license server dynamically manages licenses and associates licenses with the plurality of components and the graph, wherein use of the plurality of components and the graph at application runtime requires the associated license.

4. The system of claim 1, further comprising a job manager, wherein the job manager dispatches the blueprint and the graph to cloud agents based on available licenses managed by the license server.

5. The system of claim 1, further comprising a security manager, wherein the security manager provides for secure connections and communications between the disparate host system components.

6. The system of claim 1, further comprising a job manager configured to provide job and cloud engine dispatch, failover, tracking and reporting.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein each graph in the linked repository identifies components, connections between the components, and properties for the components, wherein components are connected by different types of pins.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the 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.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein the linked repositories manage versioning of the components and the graphs to keep track of updates made thereto, wherein the linked repositories serve the components and graphs at application runtime using appropriate versions of the graphs and the components.

10. The system of claim 1, wherein the cloud agent is provided to each of the disparate host systems to manage the local resources of the respective host system, wherein the cloud agent interacts with the cloud engines to instantiate the graph using the blueprint.

11. The system of claim 1, further comprising a normalization module operable to receive input data files and convert and parse the input data files into a plurality of data containers for processing by the at least one computing application.

12. The system of claim 1, further comprising a code signing module operable to digitally sign each of the plurality of components to associate at least one of a developer and license with at least one component.

13. The system of claim 1, wherein the one or more cloud engines are further configured to partition the graph into a plurality of sub-graphs and handle interprocess communications between the plurality of sub-graphs.

14. The system of claim 1 further comprising:

a digital certificate associated with a component provider subsystem, wherein the component provider subsystem provides the plurality of components;

a digital certificate associated with a user computing subsystem, wherein the user computing subsystem transmits commands to define the at least one computing application, wherein the at least one computing application involves a component of the plurality of components provided by the component provider computing system;

a license server configured to digitally sign the component of the plurality 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 one or more cloud engines query 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.

15. A method for dynamic deployment of computing applications:

providing one or more linked repositories storing blueprints, graphs and components;

configuring one or more processors to receive a command to deploy at least one computing application to process at least one input data stream, and in response, trigger deployment of the at least one computing application over a plurality of disparate host systems, the at least one computing application realized by a blueprint of the blueprints in the one or more linked repositories;

configuring at least one host system of the plurality of disparate host systems with a cloud agent and one or more cloud engines instantiated by the cloud agent;

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, using the cloud agent, the one or more cloud engines on the respective host system and providing a running environment for the one or more cloud engines;

using the one or more cloud engines to dynamically construct the computing application on the respective host system by realizing requirements of the blueprint of the at least one computing application, the requirements identifying at least one graph from the graphs stored in the linked one or more repositories, a plurality of components from the components stored in the linked one or more repositories, and by sending a request to the linked repositories to load the blueprint, the at least one graph and the plurality of components on the respective host system; and

deploying, using the one or more cloud engines, the dynamically constructed at least one computing application on the respective host system by;

instantiating the at least one graph using the blueprint, the graph representing a workflow of the plurality of components, the workflow defining an arrangement of the plurality of components;

detecting that the plurality of components comprise a first set of components written for a first architecture and a second set of components written for a second architecture;

representing at least a portion of the graph as a first subgraph and a second subgraph;

using the first subgraph to define connections between the first set of components using pins and the workflow of the graph, and using the second subgraph to define connections between the second set of components using additional pins and the workflow of the graph, each component of the first and second sets of components having at least one input in for receiving at least one input data container and at least one output in for providing at least one output data container, the respective component transforming the input data container into the output data container using a computing processing mechanism, each component being a distribution plug-in unit to provide a portable and isolated dependency set for the computing processing mechanism of the respective component;

connecting the second subgraph to the first subgraph using at least one additional input in and at least one additional output in to pass at least a portion of the data containers between the first subgraph and the second subgraph, the connected first and second subgraphs maintaining the workflow of the graph;

instantiating a running process instance of the first architecture on the respective host system for the first set of components of the first subgraph;

instantiating a running process instance of the second architecture on another host system of the disparate host systems for the second set of components of the second subgraph, the running process instance of the first architecture being linked to the running process instance of the second architecture by the cloud engine at deployment time to link the first subgraph and the second subgraph; and

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

using the at least one additional input pin and the at least one additional output pin to pass at least a portion of the data containers between the running process instance of first architecture on the respective host system and the running process instance of the second architecture of the other host system to generate the output data stream.

16. The method of claim 15, further comprising:

providing a digital certificate associated with a component provider subsystem, wherein the component provider subsystem provides at least of portion of the plurality of components;

providing a digital certificate associated with a user computing subsystem, wherein the user computing subsystem sends control commands to define the at least one computing application, wherein the at least one computing application involves a component of the portion of the plurality of components provided by the component provider computing system;

providing a license server configured to digitally sign the component 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 at least one 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.