Application management within deployable object hierarchy

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10970062-B2
Application number	US-201916696391-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Nov 26, 2019
Priority date	Mar 20, 2008
Publication date	Apr 6, 2021
Grant date	Apr 6, 2021

Abstract

The management of applications in a computing environment often involves a significant number of computing operations, such as acquiring the application, deploying data objects in various locations, and configuring the application with respect to the deployed device. Conventional computing environments may provide inadequate support throughout a typical application life cycle, especially for a computing environment distributed across many devices. Instead, the computing environment may be represented in a deployable object hierarchy that may be distributed to various devices. An application management service may therefore be provided to install representations of the application in the object hierarchy, and to support many other aspects of the application life cycle, such as application discovery, sharing, updating, and removal. The devices may therefore provide the applications of the computing environment to the user in a consistent manner with reduced manual management among the devices comprising the computing mesh.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method of sharing an application comprising:
storing, on a first device, an object hierarchy comprising a first version of the application, a reduced-functionality second version of the application, and application-specific data objects;
determining to share the reduced-functionality second version of the application with a second device; and
synchronizing, to the second device, a selected portion of the object hierarchy that includes the reduced-functionality second version of the application and the application-specific data objects.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein determining to share the reduced-functionality second version of the application comprises determining the second device is not associated with a license to the application.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the synchronized application-specific data objects are reduced-quality versions of the application-specific data objects of the object hierarchy.

4. The method of claim 3 , further comprising:
determining digital rights associated with the application-specific data objects; and
determining to synchronize the reduced-quality versions of the application-specific data objects based on the digital rights.

5. The method of claim 1 , comprising:
receiving a request to share the application with the second device; and
in response to the request, determining to share the reduced-functionality second version of the application with the second device.

6. The method of claim 5 , wherein determining to share the reduced-functionality second version of the application comprises determining the second device is not associated with a license to the application.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein the application is a media player application, wherein the synchronized selected portion of the object hierarchy includes a media player session object, and wherein the application-specific data objects are media objects, the method further comprising:
determining that the media objects are associated with the media player session object; and
including the media objects in the selected portion of the object hierarchy based on the determination that the media objects are associated with the media player session object.

8. The method of claim 7 , further comprising:
transcoding the media objects in the selected portion of the object hierarchy to a lower fidelity prior to synchronizing the selected portion of the object hierarchy.

9. The method of claim 8 , further comprising:
determining digital rights associated with the media objects; and
determining to transcode the media objects in the selected portion of the object hierarchy to a lower fidelity based on the digital rights.

10. A system for managing sharing of an application, the system comprising:
an application mapping component to generate an object hierarchy that includes a first version of the application and a reduced-functionality second version of the application;
an application deployment component to deploy the object hierarchy to a second device by:
determining to share the reduced-functionality second version of the application with a second device; and
synchronizing, to the second device, a selected portion of the object hierarchy that includes the reduced-functionality second version of the application.

11. The system of claim 10 , wherein determining to share the reduced-functionality second version of the application comprises determining the second device is not associated with a license to the application.

12. The system of claim 10 , wherein the selected portion of the object hierarchy includes reduced-quality versions of application-specific data objects.

13. The system of claim 12 , the application deployment component further deploying the object hierarchy to a second device by:
determining digital rights associated with the application-specific data objects; and
determining to synchronize the reduced-quality versions of the application-specific data objects based on the digital rights.

14. The system of claim 10 , the application deployment component further deploying the object hierarchy to a second device by:
receiving a request to share the application with the second device; and
in response to the request, determining the second device is not associated with a license to the application; and
in response to the determination that the second device is not associated with a license to the application, determining to share the reduced-functionality second version of the application.

15. The system of claim 10 , wherein the application is a media player application, wherein the synchronized selected portion of the object hierarchy includes a media player session object and media objects, the application deployment component further deploying the object hierarchy to a second device by:
determining that the media objects are associated with the media player session object; and
including the media objects in the selected portion of the object hierarchy based on the determination that the media objects are associated with the media player session object.

16. The system of claim 15 , the application deployment component further deploying the object hierarchy to a second device by:
determining digital rights associated with the media objects;
determining to transcode the media objects in the selected portion of the object hierarchy to a lower fidelity based on the digital rights; and
transcoding the media objects in the selected portion of the object hierarchy to a lower fidelity prior to synchronizing the selected portion of the object hierarchy.

17. A server to share an application, the server comprising:
a processor; and
a memory storing instructions that, when executed by the processor, provide a system comprising:
an application mapping component to generate an object hierarchy that includes a first version of the application, a reduced-functionality second version of the application, and application-specific data objects;
an application deployment component to deploy the object hierarchy to a second device by:
determining to share the reduced-functionality second version of the application with a second device; and
synchronizing, to the second device, a selected portion of the object hierarchy that includes the reduced-functionality second version of the application and the application-specific data objects.

18. The server of claim 17 , the application deployment component further deploying the object hierarchy to a second device by:
determining digital rights associated with the application-specific data objects; and
determining to synchronize the reduced-quality versions of the application-specific data objects based on the digital rights.

19. The server of claim 17 , the application deployment component further deploying the object hierarchy to a second device by:
receiving a request to share the application with the second device; and
in response to the request, determining the second device is not associated with a license to the application; and
in response to the determination that the second device is not associated with a license to the application, determining to share the reduced-functionality second version of the application.

20. The server of claim 19 , wherein the application is a media player application, wherein the synchronized selected portion of the object hierarchy includes a media player session object, and wherein the application-specific data objects are media objects, the application dep

Assignees

• Microsoft Technology Licensing Llc

Inventors

• Amiga Ori
• Macintyre John
• Shukla Dharma
• Zhang Junfeng

Classifications

• G06F9/468

  Specific access rights for resources, e.g. using capability register · CPC title

• G06F8/71

  Version control (security arrangements therefor G06F21/57); Configuration management · CPC title

• G06F8/65 Primary

  Updates (security arrangements therefor G06F21/57) · CPC title

• G06F9/5027

  the resource being a machine, e.g. CPUs, Servers, Terminals · CPC title