Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Ping Xie

Neal Robert Christiansen

Michael John Novak

Scott A Brender

Craig Ashley Barkhouse

John Andrew Starks

Shaheed Gulamabbas Chagani

Ravisankar V Pudipeddi

Octavian Tony Ureche

Nathan Jeffrey Ide

Jack Allen Nichols

Aaron Payne Goldsmid

Abhishek Gupta

Sarosh Cyrus Havewala

Lei Shi

Russell Humphries

Ran Kalach

Niels Thomas Ferguson

Tyler Kien Beam

Anshul Rawat

Mohammed Samji

Nir Ben-Zvi

David John Linsley

Alex Mark Semenko

Raju Jain

James Anthony Schwartz, Jr

David B Perry

Robert Paul St Pierre

Ellsworth Davis Walker

Nir Ben Zvi

Sai Vinayak

Chun Ho Cheung

Brian David Jones

Karan Singh Dhillon

Kashif Hasan

Daniel Hefenbrock

Shon Eizenhoefer

Aniket Krishnat Naravanekar

Arvind R Padole

Yanran Hao

Sekhar Poornananda Chintalapati

Troy Alan Funk

Itai Rosenberger

Valeh Valiollah Pour Amiri

Srinivasan Malayala

Sripresanna Sripresanna

Trevor Van Leeuwen

Ioannis Giannoumis

Manoj R Mehta

Scott Miller

Sanket Patel

James A Schwartz Jr

Mohammed Amirali Samji

David Ben Perry

Shon T Eizenhoefer

Methods, systems, and computer storage media for providing a set of common flat files in a composite image that can be mounted as a container (i.e. composite container) to support isolation and interoperation of computing resources. Container management is provided for a container management system based on a composite image file system engine that executes composite operations to support resource isolation and operating system (OS) virtualization functionality. In particular, a layout manager operates with a composite engine interface to support generating composite images with optimized configurations (i.e., pre-alignment and pre-computed hashes of for executable files). In operation, a plurality of files for generating a composite image are accessed. The composite image for the plurality of files is generated while pre-processing executable files, where pre-processing the one or more files comprises pre-aligning the executable files in the composite image or pre-computing a hash for the executable files in the composite image.

Container management system with a layout manager system

Methods, systems, and computer storage media for providing a set of common flat files in a composite image that can be mounted as a container (i.e., composite container) to support isolation and interoperation of computing resources. Container management is provided for a container management system based on a composite image file system engine that executes composite operations to support resource isolation and operating system (OS) virtualization functionality. In particular, a container engine interface supports creating, mounting, and providing access to and from composite images or composite containers. In operation, a plurality of files for generating a composite image are accessed. The composite image for the plurality of files is generated. The composite image includes a set of common flat files. The composite image is communicated to cause mounting of the composite image, where mounting the composite image is based on a metadata file from the set of common flat files.

Container management system with a composite engine interface

Methods, systems, and computer storage media for providing a set of common flat files in a composite image that can be mounted as a container (i.e. composite container) to support isolation and interoperation of computing resources. Container management is provided for a container management system based on a composite image file system engine that executes composite operations. In particular, a remote sharing manager operates with a composite engine interface to support generating composite images configured for split layer memory sharing, split layer direct access memory sharing, and dynamic base images. In operation, a plurality of files and a selection of a remote sharing configuration for generating a composite image are accessed. The composite image for the plurality of files and the remoting sharing configuration is generated. The composite image is communicated to cause sharing of the composite image, sharing of the composite image is based on the remote sharing configuration.

Container management system with a remote sharing manager

A file system executing on a computing device may store a placeholder for a file on secondary storage of the computing device. The placeholder may comprise a sparse data stream containing none or some of the data of the file and information which enables the remotely stored data of the file to be retrieved from the network. As some or all of the data for the file is being stored remotely, the computing device may rely on a storage virtualization provider to create metadata for the file. Thus, the file system executing on the computing device may receive, from the storage virtualization provider, a request to store metadata associated with the file. In response to this request, the file system may store the metadata as a Binary Large Object (BLOB) in a secondary data stream of the placeholder for the file.

Metadata storage for placeholders in a storage virtualization system

Storage virtualization techniques allow files and directories to be stored remotely, for example, by a cloud storage provider, but in a manner that appears to a user or application running on a local computing device as if the files are stored locally&#x2014;even though the data of those files and directories may not be resident on the local computing device. That is, the contents of files and directories that may exist in the cloud look and behave as if they were stored locally on a computing device. The level of hydration of placeholders may be monitored and operations may be performed to reduce the impact of excessive hydration on the resources of the computing device.

Preventing excessive hydration in a storage virtualization system

Techniques are disclosed for managing applications. Responsive to receiving a request for access to a first application, metadata is retrieved that is written to the local drive of the computing device. Responsive to the metadata indicating that the first application is not written to the local drive of the computing device, a download request is transmitted to an application provider. A download package for application is received that includes one or more application files that are operable to execute the application when stored on the computing device without executing an installation process.

Hydration of applications

Storage virtualization techniques allow directories to be stored remotely, for example, by a cloud storage provider, but in a manner that appears to a user or application running on a local computing device as if the directories are stored locally&#x2014;even though the data of those directories may not be resident on the local computing device. That is, the contents of directories that may exist in the cloud look and behave as if they were stored locally on a computing device.

Storage virtualization for directories

A system to enable a user to generate copies of files at a client device and to cause a file hosting platform to generate backups of these copies in a cloud database without transferring file content data for these files between the client device and the cloud database. When a user copies a file from a first folder on a client device to a second folder on the client device, the system may determine that the file content data for this file is already present in the cloud database. Then, rather than uploading the file content data to the cloud database from the client device, the system may cause a file hosting platform to access the file content data directly from the cloud database to perform a file copy operation.

Enhanced techniques for copying cloud stored files

Systems, methods, and apparatuses are disclosed for file synchronizing service status monitoring and error handling. A client device includes a local file system access manager that includes a status interface. The status interface is configured to receive a status message from a client-side sync manager of the client device. The client-side sync manager that communicates with a server-side sync manager at a server to synchronize data objects between file systems of the client device and server. The status message corresponds to a state of the client-side sync manager during a multi-stage start-up process for the client-side sync manager. A status caller in an application of the client device can retrieve the status message from the status interface. The status message can also be provided to a user interface for display to a user of the client device, and/or to a telemetry server for use in improving the file synchronizing service.

File synchronizing service status monitoring and error handling

Determination logic for a cloud content states framework is described herein. In implementations, a framework is configured to perform operations for management of cloud content files at the computing device on behalf of cloud storage providers. Determination logic for the framework is utilized to make state determinations in dependence upon a defined set of file sync properties. The framework operates to make assessments of the file sync properties and set states for files in accordance with the assessments. In implementations, file sync properties are related to corresponding states through a mapping data structure that maps file sync property values to different states and enables look-ups of states based on property values. The framework utilizes and references the mapping data structure to match file sync properties identified for cloud content files to corresponding states and then set states for the cloud content files accordingly.

Cloud content states determination logic

The subject disclosure is directed towards partially recalling file ranges of deduplicated files based on tracking dirty (write modified) ranges (user writes) in a way that eliminates or minimizes reading and writing already-optimized adjacent data. The granularity of the ranges does not depend on any file-system granularity for tracking ranges. In one aspect, lazy flushing of tracking data that preserves data-integrity and crash-consistency is provided. In one aspect, also described is supporting granular partial recall on an open file while a data deduplication system is optimizing that file.

Granular partial recall of deduplicated files

Various embodiments provide an ability to automatically boot a computing device with an operating system stored on a portable storage device when the portable storage device is detected to be present. The computing device can be configured to dynamically boot from the portable storage device when the portable storage device is detected, and revert to a programmed boot order in its associated boot module when the portable storage device is not detected. In some embodiments, the operating system is fully encapsulated on the portable storage device, such as the operating system being completely separate from an operating system initially booting the computing device.

Dynamically redirecting boot to another operating system

Presented is an anti-tampering method that validates and protects specific sections of a binary file. In one embodiment, this method permits a proxy engine to execute (via emulation by a virtual machine) the protected code on behalf of the binary in kernel mode upon successful completion of an integrity check. The integrity check can optionally check only the specific parts of code that the developer wishes to validate. The integrity check can cross binary boundaries. Moreover, the integrity check can be done on a hard drive or in memory. Furthermore, since the encrypted code is executed by the proxy engine in kernel mode, hackers are further deterred from modifying the code. Additionally, a method of creating a protected binary file is described herein.

Authentication of binaries in memory with proxy code execution

A storage volume is encrypted using a particular encryption technique, the storage volume including an access application and one or more cover files. The access application can be executed by a computing device having an operating system lacking support for the particular encryption technique, and allows the computing device to access data on the storage volume encrypted using the particular encryption technique.

Storage volume protection supporting legacy systems

In accordance with one or more aspects, a current security policy for accessing a device or volume of a computing device is identified. A secondary access control state for the device or volume is also identified. An access state for the device is determined based on both the current security policy and the secondary access control state.

Access control state determination based on security policy and secondary access control state

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Redmond, WA, United States of America

Ping Xie