On-demand delivery of applications to virtual desktops

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10182103-B2
Application number	US-201414516233-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Oct 16, 2014
Priority date	Oct 16, 2014
Publication date	Jan 15, 2019
Grant date	Jan 15, 2019

Abstract

A service provider system may include an application fulfillment platform that delivers desktop applications on demand to desktops on physical computing devices or virtual desktop instances. The applications may be selected for delivery from a catalog of applications, and may be required to be installed on the destination computing resource instance, or may be assigned to a customer's end user on whose behalf the resource instance was provisioned. A workflow for deploying a selected application may invoke services implemented on the platform. The desktop application may be delivered as a virtualized application package that is subsequently executed by a runtime engine installed on the end user's resource instance, without installing the selected application itself on the computing resource instance. A customer's IT administrators may create and populate the catalog, add customer-generated or customer-licensed applications, assign applications to users, apply constraints on application use, and monitor application usage.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A system, comprising:
a plurality of computing nodes that collectively provide virtual computing services to one or more clients of a service provider, each of the computing nodes comprising at least one processor and a memory; and
a virtualized computing resource instance configured to execute on one of the computing nodes;
wherein the virtualized computing resource instance is configured to implement a virtual desktop instance on behalf of a given end user that receives services from the service provider using a computing device connected over a network, wherein an application delivery agent is installed on the virtual desktop instance;
wherein one or more of the plurality of computing nodes implement an application fulfillment platform, and wherein the one of the computing nodes executing the virtualized computing resource instance is different than the one or more nodes implementing the application fulfillment platform;
wherein the application fulfillment platform is configured to:
receive, from the application delivery agent installed on the virtual desktop instance and on behalf of the given end user connected using the computing device over the network, a request for delivery of a desktop application; and
in response to the request, initiate execution of a workflow that delivers a virtualized application package for the desktop application to the virtual desktop instance; and

wherein, in response to delivery of the virtualized application package to the virtual desktop instance, the application delivery agent installed on the virtual desktop instance is configured to execute, on the virtual desktop instance, instructions of the virtualized application package to execute the desktop application without installing the desktop application on the virtual desktop instance, wherein the virtualized computing resource instance is configured to transmit a desktop view of the virtual desktop instance including results of execution of the virtualized application package over the network to the computing device for the given end user.

2. The system of claim 1 ,
wherein the system further comprises a desktop application management module that is installed on the virtual desktop instance;
wherein the request for delivery of the desktop application is received in response to selection of the desktop application from a list of desktop applications presented to the given end user in a graphical user interface of the desktop application management module; and
wherein the list of desktop applications presented to the given end user comprises one or more of:
a desktop application that was developed by an organization to which the given end user belongs and through which the given end user receives services from the service provider;
a desktop application that was developed by the service provider;
a desktop application that was published by an entity other than the organization to which the given end user belongs or the service provider, and that has been made available to the organization to which the given end user belongs;
a desktop application that has been licensed from an entity other than the organization to which the given end user belongs by the service provider; or
a desktop application that was published by an entity other than the organization to which the given end user belongs or the service provider, and that is available for licensing by the service provider on behalf of its clients.

3. The system of claim 1 ,
wherein the application fulfillment platform is further configured to:
provide an administrator interface through which an administrator within an organization that receives services from the service provider interacts with the application fulfillment platform to manage the fulfillment of desktop applications to end users in the organization, including the given end user;
receive, through the administrator interface, one or more requests from the administrator to grant access to the desktop application by one or more end users, including the given end user;
store information indicating that the one or more end users, including the given end user, have been granted access to the desktop application; and

wherein the workflow is configured to verify that the given end user has been granted access to the desktop application prior to delivery of the virtualized application package.

4. The system of claim 1 ,
wherein the virtualized application package for the desktop application comprises a plurality of pages of virtualized program instructions that implement the functionality of the desktop application; and
wherein to execute the virtualized application package for the desktop application without installing the virtualized application package on the virtual desktop instance, the application delivery agent is configured to execute the virtualized program instructions in the plurality of pages of virtualized program instructions within an isolated container.

5. A method, comprising:
performing, by one or more computers that collectively implement an application fulfillment platform:
receiving, from an application delivery agent installed on a virtual desktop instance that is implemented by a virtualized computing resource instance of a given user, input indicating selection of one of a plurality of desktop applications for execution on behalf of the given user, wherein the virtualized computing resource instance is implemented on a different computing node than the application fulfillment platform, and wherein the virtualized computing resource instance is configured to transmit a desktop view over a network to a computing device for the given user; and
in response to said receiving:
determining that the given user is authorized to execute the selected desktop application; and
in response to said determining, delivering the selected desktop application from the application fulfillment platform to the virtual desktop instance for execution on behalf of the given user;

wherein said delivering comprises delivering a virtualized application package for the selected desktop application to the virtual desktop instance;
wherein the plurality of desktop applications from which the selected desktop application was selected comprises one or more other desktop applications deliverable through the application fulfillment platform, and wherein the selected desktop application and the one or more other desktop applications were obtained from each of two or more sources comprising at least one different source other than a source of the selected desktop application; and
wherein, in response to delivery of the virtualized application package to the virtual desktop instance, the application delivery agent is configured to execute, on the virtual desktop instance, instructions of the virtualized application package to execute the selected desktop application without installing the selected desktop application on the virtual desktop instance, wherein the virtualized computing resource instance is configured to transmit a desktop view of the virtual desktop instance including results of execution of the virtualized application package over the network to the computing device for the given user.

6. The method of claim 5 , wherein the selected desktop application is sourced by an entity other than a service provider that provides application fulfillment services through the application fulfillment platform and other than an organization to which the given user belongs and through which the given user receives application fulfillment services from the service provider.

7. The method of claim 6 ,
wherein said receiving comprises receiving a request that the selected desktop application be made available for delivery through the applicatio

Assignees

• Amazon Tech Inc

Inventors

• Koushik Sheshadri Supreeth
• Lin Yang
• Shah Jaimin Paresh
• Shrivastava Abhinav
• Sahijwani Vikram Vijay
• Peng Hao
• Pessis David

Classifications

• G06F9/45504

  Abstract machines for programme code execution, e.g. Java virtual machine [JVM], interpreters, emulators · CPC title

• G06F8/61

  Installation · CPC title

• G06F3/0482

  Interaction with lists of selectable items, e.g. menus · CPC title

• H04L67/10 Primary

  in which an application is distributed across nodes in the network (software deployment G06F8/60; multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/46) · CPC title

• H04L67/025

  for remote control or remote monitoring of applications · CPC title