Client bandwidth emulation in hosted services

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9294549-B2
Application number	US-201213372705-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Feb 14, 2012
Priority date	Feb 14, 2012
Publication date	Mar 22, 2016
Grant date	Mar 22, 2016

Abstract

Bandwidth on the Internet and intranets is highly variable and unreliable, two properties that can make streaming digital media content difficult. In a virtualization system (e.g., virtual desktop, remote desktop, remote application, and the like), this is especially so based on different bandwidths available to the session host and the session client. Methods and systems for emulating a bandwidth of a client device in a virtualization system are described. When the session host is executing an application (e.g., a digital media application), the session host may emulate the bandwidth of the session client by hooking into and throttling data over one or more APIs associated with the digital media application, thereby tricking the application into making a bandwidth determination based on the emulated bandwidth of the session client, rather than based on the bandwidth of the session host.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method comprising:
hooking an application programming interface (API) on a session host in a virtualization system;
determining a client bandwidth of a session client connected to the session host;
when the API is called by a first application executing on the session host:
intercepting the API call based on the hook;
throttling a bandwidth of the API based on the determined client bandwidth and maintaining a bandwidth of another API associated with a different application on the session host; and
returning data to the first application based on the throttled bandwidth of the API; and

determining, by the first application, an available bandwidth based on analyzing the data returned by the API.

2. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
determining the API by querying a database for a process name associated with the first application.

3. The method of claim 2 , further comprising:
hooking the API within the process associated with the first application; and
when the API is called by a second application executing on the session host, executing the API without interception by the hook.

4. The method of claim 1 , further comprising the first application selecting a video stream based on the data returned via the API.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein determining the client bandwidth is based on a data rate of communications between the session client and the session host.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein determining the client bandwidth is based on an estimated client bandwidth maintained by the session host.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein determining the client bandwidth is based on communications between the session client and a bandwidth estimation web site accessible by the session client over the Internet.

8. One or more non-transitory computer readable media comprising computer readable instructions that, when executed, emulate a client bandwidth in a virtual desktop session by:
determining an application programming interface (API) associated with a first application executing on a session host of the virtual desktop session;
hooking (the API) by the session host;
in response to a call to the API by a first application executing on the session host:
intercepting the API call based on the hook;
throttling, via the hook, a bandwidth of the API based on a determined client bandwidth of a session client connected to the session host; and
returning data by the API based on the throttled bandwidth of the API; and

determining, by the first application, an available bandwidth based on the data returned by the API.

9. The computer readable media of claim 8 , wherein determining the API associated with the first application comprises:
determining the API by querying a database for a process name associated with the first application.

10. The computer readable media of claim 9 , said emulating the client bandwidth further comprising:
hooking the API within the process associated with the first application; and
when the API is called by a second application executing on the session host, executing the API without interception by the hook.

11. The computer readable media of claim 8 , said emulating the client bandwidth further comprising:
determining the client bandwidth of the session client, wherein the client bandwidth is a current bandwidth between the session host and the session client.

12. The computer readable media of claim 8 , said emulating the client bandwidth further comprising the first application selecting a video stream based on the data returned via the API.

13. A session host apparatus comprising:
a processor; and
memory storing computer readable instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the session host apparatus to emulate a client bandwidth within a virtual desktop session associated with a session client to:
hook an application programming interface (API) associated with a first application executing within the virtual desktop session;
when the API is called by the first application;
intercept the API call based on the hook;
determine a client bandwidth of the session client connected to the virtual desktop; and
return data via the API based on the determined client bandwidth; and

determine, via the first application, an available bandwidth based on an analysis of the data returned via the API.

14. The session host apparatus of claim 13 , said emulating the client bandwidth further comprising:
determining the API by querying a database stored in the memory for a process name associated with the first application,
wherein the API is called by the first application.

15. The session host apparatus of claim 14 , said emulating the client bandwidth further comprising:
hooking the API within the process associated with the first application; and
when the API is called by a second application executing within the virtual desktop, executing the API without interception by the hook.

16. The session host apparatus of claim 13 , wherein returning data to the API based on the bandwidth of the session client comprises throttling a data bandwidth of the API based on the bandwidth of the session client.

17. The session host apparatus of claim 13 , said emulating the client bandwidth further comprising:
the first application performing a first action based on the analysis of the data returned via the API.

18. The session host apparatus of claim 13 , said emulating the client bandwidth further comprising the first application selecting a video stream based on the data returned via the API.

19. A method comprising:
at a host device, establishing a virtual desktop session between a client device and the host device;
hooking an application programming interface (API) associated with an application executing in the virtual desktop session;
receiving, by the application, a request from the client device for a first video stream;
calling, by the application, the application programming interface (API);
in response to the call to the API;
determining a client bandwidth of the client device based on communications between the host device and the client device; and
returning data to the application based on the determined client bandwidth;

determining, by the application, an available bandwidth based on the data returned from the API; and
retrieving, by the application, the first video stream at a bitrate selected based on the determined available bandwidth.

20. The method of claim 19 , wherein determining the client bandwidth comprises determining a current bandwidth between the host device and the client device.

Assignees

• Jakubowski Robert
• Citrix Systems Inc

Inventors

• Jakubowski Robert

Classifications

• H04W28/20

  Negotiating bandwidth · CPC title

• H04L67/08 Primary

  specially adapted for terminal emulation, e.g. Telnet · CPC title

• H04W4/003

  Electricity · mapped topic

• H04L41/0896

  Bandwidth or capacity management, i.e. automatically increasing or decreasing capacities (flow or congestion control using dynamic resource allocation, e.g. in-call renegotiation, H04L47/76) · CPC title

• H04L63/0272

  Virtual private networks · CPC title