Method and system for executing network streamed application

A method for executing a streamed application on a client system having an operating system and connected to an application server via a network, the application being divided into a plurality of streamlets, each of which corresponds to a code-page sized portion of an application file, the method comprising the steps of:

• sending to the server a request to initiate the application;
• receiving from the server a start block comprising a file structure specification for at least a primary file of the application when the application is installed on a computer and a startup streamlet set containing at least a minimal set of streamlets sufficient to begin application execution;
• installing a virtual file system on the client which interacts with the operating system as a local data storage device via device driver;
• configuring the virtual file system to the operating system that the files defined in the file structure specification are present in the virtual file system;
• signaling the operating system to execute the primary application file from the virtual file system;
• in response to the receipt of a streamlet from the server, adding the received streamlet to the virtual file system.
• in response to the operating system issuing a data retrieval request to retrieve a sequence of code pages beginning at a specified portion of a specific file from the virtual file system:
• (a) determining if the streamlets corresponding to the specified code pages are present in the virtual file system,
• (b) if the corresponding streamlets are present, returning the requested code pages to the operating system,
• (c) otherwise, sending a fetch request to the server indicating a data missing condition, presenting a busy condition to the operating system until the fetch request is satisfied and the corresponding streamlets have been added to the virtual file system, and returning the requested code pages to the operating system.

A system for executing a streamed application on a client computer system having an operating system and connected to an application server via a network, the application being divided into a plurality of streamlets, each streamlet containing a portion of a file associated with the application, the system comprising:

• a streaming support module comprising a virtual file system, the virtual file system including a streamlet library configured to store a plurality of streamlets and having data associating streamlets in the streamlet library with specific portions of files associated with the application;
• the streaming support module being configured to permit communication between the operating system and the virtual file system as if the virtual file system were a local data storage device, issue fetch requests for streamlets to the server, and add streamlets received from the server to the streamlet library;
• The streaming support module being further configured to respond to data retrieval requests issued by the operating system to retrieve a portion of a specific file from the virtual file system by:
• (a) determining if the streamlets corresponding to the specified portion of the specific file are present in the streamlet library,
• (b) if the streamlets are present, returning the data to the operating system,
• (c) otherwise, initiating a fetch request to the server indicating a data missing condition and returning the requested code pages to the operating system after the fetch request has been satisfied.

A computer program product stored on a computer readable medium, the product comprising a computer program for executing a streamed application on a client system having an operating system and connected to an application server via a network, the application being divided into a plurality of streamlets, each streamlet containing a portion of a file associated with the application, the computer program comprising code to configure the client to:

• receive from the server a file structure specification for at least a primary application file of the application when the application is installed on a computer;
• configure a virtual file system on the client which interacts with the operating system as a local data storage device to appear to the operating system that the files defined in the file structure specification are present in the virtual file system;
• in response to the operating system issuing a data retrieval request to retrieve a portion of a specific file from the virtual file system:
• (a) determine if the streamlets corresponding to the specified portion of the specific file are present in the virtual file system,
• (b) send a fetch request to the server indicating a data missing condition if the corresponding streamlets are not present and adding streamlets returned from the server to satisfy the fetch request to the virtual file system, and
• (c) return the requested portion of the specific file to the operating system.