Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Joseph S Barrera, Iii

Michael B Jones

Paul J Leach

Richard F Rashid

Robert P Fitzgerald

Steven P Levi

Richard Powell Draves, Jr

Richard P Draves

Nathan P Myhrvold

William J Bolosky

Garth A Gibson

A resource management mechanism is provided to ensure that real-time application programs running on a single machine or set of machines exhibit predictable behavior. The resource management mechanism employs the abstraction of an activity which serves as the basis for granting resource reservations and for accounting. An activity submits a request for resources in specified amounts to a resource planner. The activity is resource self-aware so that it is aware of its resource requirements. The activity may query resource providers to obtain resource requirements for particular operations. The resource planner determines whether the activity should be granted the requested reservation by employing an internal policy. Policy is separated by mechanism so that the resource planner may implement any of a number of policies. The resource planner may choose to grant the reservation to an activity or deny the request by an activity. When denying a request, the resource planner may inform the activity of what quantity of the requested resources are currently available so that the activity may submit a modified request. The resource management mechanism includes a dynamic feedback mechanism for initiating renegotiation of resource reservations when appropriate.

Method and system for resource management with independent real-time applications on a common set of machines

A method and system for scheduling the use of a computer system resource using a resource planner and a resource provider are provided. In a preferred embodiment, a resource is scheduled for use by a plurality of consumer entities. Each consumer entity may request the commitment of a share of the resource. The method and system use representations of resource usage policy, present commitments of shares of the resource, and present commitments of specified amounts of the resource over a specified period of time. The method and system first receive a request from a consumer entity for the commitment of a specified share of the resource. In response, the method and system determine whether the specified share of the resource should be committed to the requesting consumer entity. This determination is based on the representations of resource usage policy and present commitments of shares of the resource. If it is determined that the specified share of the resource should be committed to the requesting consumer entity, then the method and system modify the representation of present commitments of shares of the resource to commit the specified share of the resource to the requesting consumer entity. The method and system then schedule the use of the resource by the plurality of consumer entities based on the modified representation of present commitments of shares of the resource.

Method and system for scheduling the use of a computer system resource using a resource planner and a resource provider

In a network server that supports multiple instances of the same service, clients individually request the virtual services by using virtual network names assigned to the virtual services. The virtual network names include a locator ID (e.g., server name, IP address) and a designated endpoint ID (e.g., named pipe name, port ID). The server implements an endpoint mapping subsystem that creates new virtual endpoint IDs that are different from the designated endpoint IDs and associates the virtual endpoint IDs with the virtual network names. When a client request is received at the server, the endpoint mapping subsystem examines the virtual network name, looks up the corresponding virtual endpoint ID, and replaces the virtual network name with the virtual endpoint ID in the request. This allows more than one instance of the service to operate concurrently.

Network server supporting multiple instance of services to operate concurrently by having endpoint mapping subsystem for mapping virtual network names to virtual endpoint IDs

A method and system for scheduling the use of a computer system resource using a resource planner and a resource provider is provided. In a preferred embodiment, a resource is scheduled for use by a plurality of consumer entities. Each consumer entity may request the commitment of a share of the resource. The method and system utilizes representations of resource usage policy, present commitments of shares of the resource, and present commitments of specified amounts of the resource over specified period of time. The method and system first receives a request from a consumer entity for the commitment of a specified share of the resource. In response, the method and system determines whether the specified share of the resource should be committed to the requesting consumer entity. This determination is based on the representations of resource usage policy and present commitments of shares of the resource. If it is determined that the specified share of the resource should be committed to the requesting consumer entity, then the method and system modifies the representation of present commitments of shares of the resource to commit the specified share of the resource to the requesting consumer entity. The method and system then schedules the use of the resource by the plurality of consumer entity based on the modified representation of present commitments of shares of the resource.

Method and system for scheduling the use of a computer system resource

A method and system for scheduling the execution of threads using optional time-specific constraints is provided. In a preferred embodiment, a scheduler schedules the execution of a plurality of threads each specifying either a percentage processor time scheduling constraint, indicating that a certain percentage of processor time should be dedicated to the execution of the thread, or a deadline scheduling constraint, indicating that a specified quantity of work should be done by the thread by a specified time deadline. For each thread specifying a percentage processor time scheduling constraint, the scheduler determines a restart time corresponding to the percentage processor time scheduling constraint. For each thread specifying a deadline scheduling constraint, the scheduler determines a restart time corresponding to the deadline scheduling constraint. The scheduler then utilizes the determined restart times for scheduling the threads by selecting the thread having the earliest restart time for execution.

Method and system for scheduling the execution of threads using optional

A scalable method and system for easily scheduling data transfer for a video-on-demand server system is provided. A strategy for locating available bandwidth and allocating available bandwidth to subscribers as needed is provided. The input/output bandwidth of storage devices that store data for video image sequences is modelled as a series of bandwidth units. Each bandwidth unit has sufficient capacity to service an individual subscriber during a scheduling cycle. Video image sequences or other data sequences are striped across storage devices such that data for a data sequence is forwarded to the subscriber by reading from a sequence of storage devices in consecutive time frames.

Growing community of inventors

Belmont, CA, United States of America

Joseph S Barrera, Iii