International Business Machines Corporation

Mauro Arcese

Luigi Pichetti

Giuseppe Ciano

Stefano Sidoti

Gianluca Bernardini

Marco Imperia

Claudio Marinelli

Marco Mattia

Alessandro Donatelli

Nicola Milanese

Michele Crudele

Rosario Gangemi

Fabio De Angelis

Enrica Alberti

Andrea Napoleoni

Giorgio Corsetti

Pier Fortunato Bottan

Luca Gimondo

Leonardo Rosati

Marco De Santis

Gianluca Perreca

Roberto Piras

Stefano Manocchio

Genoveffa Nacchia

Sandro Piccinini

Antonio Perrone

Antonio Di Cocco

Fabio Cerri

Francesca Curzi

Michele D'Urso

Felice Mansi

Marcin Mirecki

Luigi Piciietti

A method for creating a software image of a software application. During an installation of the software application on a computing machine, one or more changes of the computing machine occurring during the installation of the software application are detected. The one or more changes include one or more artifacts being added to the computing machine and one or more updates being applied to the computing machine. The software image is created by copying the one or more artifacts from the computing machine to a virtual disk and by adding activation procedures and activation information obtained from the activation procedures to the virtual disk. The activation procedures and activation information were determined according to the updates. The activation procedures are configured to apply the updates when running the activation procedures according to the activation information.

Creation of software images of software applications for image-based maintenance of the software applications

Controlling usage of virtual disks in a data-processing center hosting a set of virtual machines is described where each virtual disk comprises a set of software artifacts. A corresponding method comprises detecting a request of adding a new virtual disk comprising a set of new software artifacts to a selected one of the virtual machines, determining composition information of the new virtual disk, which includes an indication of the new software artifacts, retrieving an indication of usage entitlements of the new software artifacts in the data-processing center, enabling or preventing the attachment of the new virtual disk to the selected virtual machine according to a comparison between the composition information and the usage entitlements, attaching the new virtual disk to the selected virtual machine in response to the enabling thereof, and updating the usage entitlements in response to the attachment of the new virtual disk.

Controlling usage of virtual disks before their attachment to virtual machines

A method and system for creating a software image of a software application. The software application is installed on a computing machine. One or more changes of the computing machine resulting from the installation of the software application are detected. The one or more changes include one or more artifacts being added to the computing machine and one or more updates being applied to the computing machine. One or more activation procedures and activation information according to the updates are determined. The activation procedures are configured to apply the updates when running the activation procedures according to the activation information. The software image are created by copying the artifacts from the computing machine to a virtual disk and by adding the activation procedures and the activation information obtained from the activation procedures to the virtual disk.

In an approach for managing user profiles, a computer identifies a first user profile and one or more additional user profiles, wherein the first user profile is active on a computing device. The computer receives streaming data. The computer receives a trigger wherein the received trigger includes biometric data. The computer identifies a second user profile from the identified one or more additional user profiles that is associated with the received trigger. The computer compares biometric data from the second user profile with the biometric data in the received trigger. The computer determines whether the biometric data matches, within a defined tolerance level, the biometric data in the second user profile.

Dynamic multi-user computer configuration settings

A solution is proposed for accessing a database by an application client. A corresponding method comprises receiving a connection command for opening a user connection between a user client of the application client and the database from the application client, the connection command comprising an indication of a context of the user client, assigning an application connection between the application client and the database to the user client in response to the connection command, and switching a context of the application connection to the context of the user client.

Context switch of database connections

A method for application switching in an operating system may be provided. The method may comprise providing at least two active applications on the operating system, and providing a first list of actions related to the first active application, via a first interface, to an application switching manager, and providing a second list of actions related to the second active application, via a second interface, to the application switching manager. Additionally, the method may further comprise selecting an active application out of the at least two active applications together with selecting an action selected from the first list of actions for a first application or a second action for the second list for a second application using a graphical user interface.

Application switching in a graphical operating system

A solution for updating at least one software product installed on a virtual machine, including providing a software image of at least one new virtual disk storing a new level of the software product together with new metadata including an indication of at least one new activation procedure of the new level of the software product, and replacing a current level of the software product with the new level of the software product, the current level of the software product being stored in at least one current virtual disk of the virtual machine together with current metadata including current activation information of the current level of the software product, where the replacing includes removing at least one current virtual disk from the virtual machine; adding at least one new virtual disk to the virtual machine; and running at least one new activation procedure according to the current activation information.

Updating software products on virtual machines with software images of new levels

A solution is provided for controlling usage of one or more software programs on one or more mobile computing devices. A corresponding method comprises monitoring an indication of a position of each mobile computing device to determine a location area of the mobile computing device. The method comprises assigning each one of the software programs to a usage group. For each location area, the software programs of each software program type are assigned to the corresponding usage groups providing one or more usage characteristics that fulfill one or more usage requirements of each software program; this is performed according to one or more optimization criteria depending on one or more usage weights of each usage group. The method comprises enabling the usage of each software program according to the usage characteristics of the corresponding usage group.

Usage of software programs on mobile computing devices

Techniques for reconfiguring a snapshot of a virtual machine (VM) may be provided. The VM may be deployed on a hypervisor running on a computer. Techniques comprise provisioning of a VM, installing and configuring an operating system and a base program. A snapshot of the virtual machine may be taken together with the operating system and the base program together with configuration data defining the configuration of the virtual machine, the operating system and base application in a metadata descriptor. All may be stored in a persistent storage. Then the content of the metadata descriptor may be modified, and it may be reverted back to the snapshot using the modified content of the metadata descriptor such that the snapshot of the virtual machine with the operating system and the base program is reconfigured upon deployment of the snapshot including the operating system and the base program.

Reconfiguring a snapshot of a virtual machine

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Rome, Italy

Mauro Arcese