US 7,441,113 B2Granted

Method and apparatus for virtualization of appliances

AssigneeDEVICEVM, Inc.

InventorsBenedict T. Chong, Mark M. Lee, Philip Sheu, Robert P. Ha, Thomas Deng, Victor E. Chin, Wenchi Fang, Xun Fang, Yuchung Lu

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Abstract

A method and apparatus for the virtualization of appliances provides an embedded operating system (OS) which is included in the system boot ROM of a personal computer. When the system boots, the OS is launched and looks for all available virtual appliances from, for example, the following places: local USB, flash card, e.g. SD, xD, CF, CDROM/DVD, or other storage media; local hard disk storage; and the Internet, e.g. an appliance server. The user selects an appliance to use from the OS, whereupon the appliance is loaded and launched. If the selected appliance is not on a local storage, then it is downloaded, e.g. over the Internet from an appliance server. The downloaded appliance can be cached in local storage media such that, the next time it is needed, it need not be downloaded from the appliance server. The user can also elect to boot an operating system from the hard disk, if an operating system and hard disk are installed, or to power-off the system.

Claims21

Dependent claims

A computer implemented method for the virtualization of appliances, comprising the steps of:

storing an embedded operating system (OS) in a system boot ROM of a personal computer, said personal computer having a default OS;
immediately launching said embedded OS when said personal computer is booted, before launching said personal computer's default OS, and suspending launch of said personal computer's default OS at least in part;
downloading a virtual appliance once said embedded OS is communicatively coupled to an appliance server, wherein a user interface of said embedded OS does not change during this process;
upon launching said embedded OS, said embedded OS looking for available virtual appliances at any of a local storage medium and a network location, an appliance comprising a self-contained binary package that contains everything that is necessary to perform a particular task;
said embedded OS displaying at said personal computer at least some of said available virtual appliances for selection;
selecting from said user interface available virtual appliances at least one appliance to use at said personal computer;
and
downloading and launching said selected virtual appliance at said personal computer;
wherein said virtual appliance includes its own execution environment, resides and executes entirely in RAM, and does not need local persistent storage.

6 more elements

An apparatus for the virtualization of appliances, comprising:

a computer comprising a memory for storing a software stack, said software stack comprising a first portion that is maintained in a BIOS flash memory and a second portion that is downloaded to said memory, said stack comprising both non-virtual applications and virtual applications;
an embedded operating system (OS) stored in a system boot ROM;
a virtual appliance boot loader;
a BIOS boot loader;
means for using said BIOS boot loader to launch said virtual appliance boot loader;
said appliance boot loader comprising means for connecting via a network to an appliance server to download said virtual appliance to said memory;
said embedded OS further comprising means for presenting an end user with a list of applications that are available;
wherein said applications comprise any of:
non-virtual machine applications that can be downloaded from said appliance server;
virtual machine applications that can be downloaded from said appliance server;
and
applications that reside on any of a USB flash device or hard disk drive associated with said computer;
and
a default OS stored on a hard disk of said personal computer, wherein said embedded OS is launched when said personal computer is booted, thereby suspending launch of said default OS, at least in part.

11 more elements

A computer implemented method for the virtualization of appliances, comprising the steps of:

storing an embedded operating system (OS) in a system boot ROM of a personal computer, said personal computer having a default OS;
immediately launching said embedded OS when said personal computer is booted, before launching said personal computer's default OS, and suspending launch of said personal computer's default OS at least in part;
downloading a virtual appliance once said embedded OS is communicatively coupled to an appliance server, wherein a user interface of said embedded OS does not change during this process;
providing a plurality of personalities for multiple users of said personal computer, each personality running in a software container which is abstracted from an underlying platform;
upon launching said embedded OS, said embedded OS accessing available virtual appliances and personalities at any of a local storage medium and a network location, an appliance comprising a self-contained binary package that contains everything that is necessary to perform a particular task;
said embedded OS displaying at said personal computer at least some of said available virtual appliances for selection;
selecting from said user interface available virtual appliances at least one appliance to use at said personal computer;
and
downloading and launching said selected virtual appliance at said personal computer;
wherein said virtual appliance includes its own execution environment, resides and executes entirely in RAM, and does not need local persistent storage.

7 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.