Symantec Corporation

Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Symantec Operating Corporation

Novell, Inc.

Fsl, L.l.c.

Altiris, Inc.

Fslogix, Inc.

Randall Richards Cook

Jared Blaser

Jeremy K Hurren

William E Sobel

Bill Guy Bodine

Kevin John Goodman

Nicholas Huston Franklin

Scott Jones

Sourabh Satish

Brian Hernacki

Peter J Kaufman

Shayak Lahiri

Matthew G Brooks

Yi Zhao

Calvin R Gaisford

Paul MacKay

Go Komatsu

Karl Bunnell

Michael E Sainsbury

Dwain A Kinghorn

Pieter Willem Wigleven

Bruce McCorkendale

Shaun P Cooley

Kelly Ervin Sonderegger

John C Whytock

Parthasarathy Sundararajan

Prasanna Chromepet Padmanabhan

Sandeep Patnaik

Roland Radtke

Scott Hopwood

Kevin Unbedacht

Jinhua Fei

Mark A Greenwood

Lance TeNgaio

Carla M Heesch

Jared G Payne

Kenneth Berryman

Alexander Ryan Fromm

Gary Liao

Matthew Shadbolt

Christiaan Brinkhoff

Howard Jones

Robert P Palethorpe

Brian Mann

Jeremy Hurren

Mark Greenwood

Scott G Hopwood

Embodiments described herein are directed to configuring managed virtual machines. For instance, a management service (e.g., a mobile device manager) may provide configuration settings to a parent virtual machine. Upon successful application of the configuration settings, the parent virtual machine notifies a configuration service that it is in a steady state and provides the configuration settings to the configuration service. The configuration service notifies a cloud-based service (e.g., a virtual desktop service) that it is configured to instantiate virtual machines. The notification informs the cloud-based service that it is permitted to instantiate child virtual machines. Responsive to receiving the notification, the cloud-based service instantiates child virtual machine(s) as needed. To configure the child virtual machine(s), the configuration service provides the configuration settings received from the parent virtual machine to the child virtual machine(s), and the child virtual machine(s) configure themselves accordingly.

Configuration techniques for managed virtual machines

Embodiments are provided for imaging an operating system (OS) by creating a new OS image from an installer OS image copy maintained in durable storage. During the OS imaging, only a subset of OS files from the installer image are fully copied into the new OS image. Placeholder files are created for other files not included in the initial subset of OS files which were determined to be critical for booting of the OS and/or a minimum set of OS functionality. The placeholder files are distinguished from sparse files and are inaccurately presented by the file system as being full copies of the underlying installer OS image. The data for the placeholder files is only copied when requested, on demand, and/or when there is available/unused processing bandwidth that is subsequently identified after rebooting the computing system with the new OS image.

Reduce OS imaging time using 'just in time' file delivery

A desktop switcher provides equally convenient user interface navigational access to remote virtual desktops as to local virtual desktops for reliable and convenient human-computer interaction. Underlying mechanisms transparently confirm remote computer availability and compatibility, transfer thumbnails between computers, and support remoting sessions. Virtual desktops may share a clipboard, a geographic location setting, and application thumbnails, despite being based on computers that are remote from one another, e.g., when only one of a session's computers resides in a cloud. Virtual desktop context menus may be shown and utilized remotely. A visual separator in the desktop switcher may distinguish local virtual desktops from remote virtual desktops.

Virtual desktop switching and communications

Technologies are disclosed for redirecting input/output ('I/O') requests to virtual hard disks ('VHDs') to improve network performance and data redundancy. More particularly, files can be encapsulated in remote VHDs and accessed in such a way that the files appear to a local operating system and any local applications to be residing locally. Furthermore, I/O requests redirected to files encapsulated in VHDs may also be redirected to one or more additional VHDs for data redundancy. The redirected I/O requests may be transmitted simultaneously but separately to the additional VHDs in a split stream.

Redirection of I/O requests from local to remote storage locations to improve network performance and data redundancy

The present systems and methods generally relate to the elimination or reduction of network traffic required to support operations on a file of any size stored remotely on a file server or network share. More particularly, the present systems and methods relate to encapsulation of a remote file in such a way that the file appears to the local operating system and any local applications to be residing locally, thus overcoming some of the performance issues associated with multiple users accessing a single network share (e.g., CIFS share) and/or a single user remotely accessing a large file.

Systems and methods for accessing remote files

Disclosed is a system for configuring a terminal by intercepting requests, such as Input/Output (IO) requests or registry requests, evaluating rules based on the intercepted requests during runtime, and performing actions based on the rule evaluations, such as passing the request through, redirecting the request, modifying the request, hiding resources, or performing other actions. The system can be implemented in one or more of the terminal's file system filter drivers and registry filter drivers.

Managing configurations of computing terminals

Distributed application virtualization provides for the distribution, configuration and control of multiple application components, layered file systems, and configuration settings that may be applied on top of an operating system of each system configured to work in conjunction with other systems within a single distributed virtualization layer. A distributed software virtualization manager or service handles communication between systems within each distributed virtual layer. One distributed virtualization operation activates components, selected based on user-defined parameters, on systems across the network belonging to a selected distributed virtual application layer. Other virtualization operations, whether local and/or distributed, include capturing file system and configuration activity associated with the detected event and storing data representative of the captured file system and configuration activity to a virtual layer, such as a local or distributed application layer.

Distributed application virtualization

The disclosure is directed to dynamic insertion and removal of virtual software sub-layers. In one example, a virtual layer associated with a software application is virtually installed and activated in a computing device. A virtual sub-layer associated with a component of the software application is dynamically inserted in the virtual layer. The virtual layer remains active during the dynamic insertion of the virtual sub-layer. In certain embodiments, a process is executed from the virtual layer, a determination is made as to whether the process launched before or after the insertion of the virtual sub-layer, and the inserted virtual sub-layer is selectively made visible or invisible to the process based on the determination.

Dynamic insertion and removal of virtual software sub-layers

A computer-implemented method for replacing sensitive information stored within non-secure environments with secure references to the same may include (1) identifying sensitive information stored within a non-secure environment on a computing device, (2) removing the sensitive information from the non-secure environment, (3) storing the sensitive information within a secure environment, (4) replacing the sensitive information originally stored within the non-secure environment with a reference that identifies the sensitive information stored within the secure environment, (5) identifying a request to access at least a portion of the sensitive information identified in the reference, (6) determining that at least a portion of the request satisfies a data-loss-prevention policy, and then (7) providing access to at least a portion of the sensitive information via the secure environment. Various other systems, methods, and computer-readable media are also disclosed.

Systems and methods for replacing sensitive information stored within non-secure environments with secure references to the same

The inventions relate generally to layered computing systems that provide public access to the content of the layers. Also disclosed herein are prioritization schemes usable in a layered computing system, including prioritization by layer type, by assigned priority weights, by access type, by sub-layers and by read-write indicators. Processes may further be associated to layers from which they originate, and priority given to associated layers thereby. Association may also be provided for installer services, thereby depositing an applications updates into its layer. Layers may also contain file reference information including exclusion or inclusion entries indicating what files may be written thereto. Paths recorded in layers may also embed variables to true paths on a layered system. Detailed information on various example embodiments of the inventions are provided in the Detailed Description below, and the inventions are defined by the appended claims.

Process tracking application layered system

Disclosed is a method implemented by a computer system that comprises a file system. The file system comprises first, second, third, and fourth directories wherein the first and second directories are sub-directories of the third directory, the third directory is a sub-directory of the fourth directory, the first directory stores only files identified by a first file extension, the second directory stores only files identified by a second file extension, and the first and second file extensions are distinct. In one embodiment, the method comprises receiving first and second requests to open first and second files, respectively, that are contained in the file system. The first and second requests comprise first and second file system paths, respectively. The first file system path comprises a first file name, and the first file name comprises the first file extension. The second file system path comprises a second file name, and the second file name comprises the second file extension. The first file system path is modified by adding identities of the first, third, and fourth directories to the first file system path. The second file system path is modified by adding identities of the second, third, and fourth directories to the second file system path.

Finer granted data organization using data sublayers

A computer-implemented method for defragmenting virtual machine prefetch data. The method may include obtaining prefetch information associated with prefetch data of a virtual machine. The method may also include defragmenting, based on the prefetch information, the prefetch data on physical storage. The prefetch information may include a starting location and length of the prefetch data on a virtual disk. The prefetch information may include a geometry specification of the virtual disk. Defragmenting on physical storage may include placing the prefetch data contiguously on physical storage, placing the prefetch data in a fast-access segment of physical storage, and/or ordering the prefetch data according to the order in which it is accessed at system or application startup.

Methods and systems for defragmenting virtual machine prefetch data on physical storage

A method is proposed. The method includes receiving a file operation request from a process and performing a census of instances of a file applicable to the file operation request to populate a data structure. The data structure including a listing of the instances of the file applicable to the file operation request. The data structure also includes characteristics for a first instance from among the instances of the file applicable to the file operation request, and characteristics for a second instance of a selected file from among the instances of the file applicable to the file operation request. The method also includes eliminating the first instance from among the instances of the file applicable to the file operation request on the basis of a rule associated with properties from a record for the process, and the characteristics for the first instance.

Per user and per process layer visibility

A computer-implemented method for classifying files may include identifying data to be written to a file on a storage system. The method may also include, before the data is written to the storage system, 1) identifying a characteristic of the data, 2) determining, based on the characteristic of the data, a classification for the file, and 3) using the classification of the file to select a location within the storage system where the file should be stored. The method may further include writing the data to the file at the selected location within the storage system. Various other methods, systems, and computer-readable media are also disclosed herein.

Systems and methods for classifying files

Growing community of inventors

Springville, UT, United States of America

Randall Richards Cook