Abstract: Methods and systems for allocating resources in a virtual desktop resource environment are provided. A method includes making a prediction on the future demand for processes running on a distributed environment with several hosts. The prediction is based on the process demand history and includes the removal of historic process demand glitches. Further, the prediction is used to perform a cost and benefit analysis for moving a candidate process from one host to another, and the candidate process is moved to a different host when the cost and benefit analysis recommends such move. In another embodiment, the predictions on future process demand are used for distributed power management by putting hosts in stand-by mode when the overall demand decreases or by adding hosts to the distributed environment when the load increases.

Abstract: Guests, such as virtual machines, that are running on a host hardware platform are selectively descheduled when an idling condition is detected. An example of the idling condition is that the guest has been executing instructions in an idle loop for more than a threshold period. Guest instructions may be evaluated for the idling condition in conjunction with binary translation.

Abstract: In a computer system with a disk array that has physical storage devices arranged as logical storage units and is capable of carrying out hardware storage operations on a per logical storage unit basis, data movement operations can be carried out on a per-file basis. A data mover software component for use in a computer or storage system enables cloning and initialization of data to provide high data throughput without moving the data between the kernel and application levels.

Abstract: A computer system and method are provided that control access to shared resources using a plurality of locks (e.g. mutex locks or read-write locks). A locking unit grants the locks to a plurality of threads of execution of an application in response to lock access requests. A guardian unit monitors the lock access requests and records the locks that are granted to each of the threads. The guardian unit selectively blocks the lock access requests when, according to a predetermined locking protocol, a requested lock must not be acquired after any of the locks which have already been granted to the requesting thread.

Abstract: A system for drift visualization of change data of a datacenter is disclosed. The datacenter includes a plurality of configuration items. The system includes a management server in communication with the data center. The management server includes an agent configured to collect the change data from one or more of the plurality of configuration items. A change data store that is in communication with the management server is provided to store the change data. A data extractor in communication with the change data store is provided to retrieve the change data and providing a filtered subset of the change data to a display. A policy data store in communication with the data extractor is provided to enable the data extractor to filter the change data based on data center policy violations. The visualization depicts multiple dimensions of change-related data for the items in the datacenter in a unique and concise manner.

Abstract: The replication of a group of data sets is coordinated into a single schedule based on the recovery point objective (RPO) of each data set. The resulting generated schedule satisfies each data set's RPO requirements and minimizes bandwidth use. If necessary bandwidth exceeds available bandwidth, the resulting generated schedule attempts to best satisfy each data set's RPO requirements given the available bandwidth.

Abstract: An apparatus and method for the detection and prevention of intrusions, DOS attacks, and computer worms comprising of: 1) dynamically loading information about vulnerabilities and exposures 2) intercepting application data 3) using information about vulnerabilities and exposures to detect their exploitation 4) taking custom action to stop the exploitation. Invention also includes an apparatus and method for reducing time it takes to capture information about vulnerabilities and exposures for the purpose of detecting their exploitation and stopping it. Invention further includes an apparatus and method to convert information about vulnerabilities and exposures into an intermediate form that optimizes the processing speed of the method and apparatus for stopping intrusions, DOS attacks, and computer worms.

Abstract: Disclosed are a method and system of visualization of changes in entities and their relationships in a virtual data center through a log file. In one embodiment, a machine-readable medium embodying a set of instructions is disclosed. Periodically a snapshot is captured from an application programming interface of a management server. The snapshot comprises of entities and relationships of a virtual datacenter. An information of the snapshot is identified. The identified information is relevant to visualization of a state of the virtual datacenter in a log file. An activity of a change in entities and relationships of the virtual datacenter is tracked. An event is registered with the management server through the application programming interface. Based on the event a corresponding delta operation is created and added to the log file.

Abstract: A method for implementing virtual disk reservations on a storage medium for multiple distributed applications. The method includes initializing a plurality of virtual disks, wherein each of the virtual disks is instantiated on a physical storage medium. A reservation status is determined for each of the virtual disks and a first distributed application that uses at least one virtual disk is executed. Upon an update of the reservation status for the at least one virtual disk by the first distributed application, a notification indicator is set to notify a second distributed application of the update. The update is subsequently recognized and the notification indicator is cleared in order to continue I/O for the first distributed application and the second distributed application.

Abstract: A source virtual machine (VM) hosted on a source server is migrated to a destination VM on a destination server without first powering down the source VM. After optional pre-copying of the source VM's memory to the destination VM, the source VM is suspended and its non-memory state is transferred to the destination VM; the destination VM is then resumed from the transferred state. The source VM memory is either paged in to the destination VM on demand, or is transferred asynchronously by pre-copying and write-protecting the source VM memory, and then later transferring only the modified pages after the destination VM is resumed. The source and destination servers preferably share common storage, in which the source VM's virtual disk is stored; this avoids the need to transfer the virtual disk contents.

Abstract: Methods and apparatuses for balancing computing workload via migrating computing tasks are disclosed. An artificial neural network (ANN) is trained based on the workload distribution over time for a host. The ANN predicts the workload for the host, and an indication may be sent to migrate at least one computing task away from the host. The indication is sent when the method is operating in a proactive mode and when the predicted workload is outside of a desired operating range. Some embodiments monitor the workload; and automatically switch the method to the proactive mode, when a difference between the monitored workload and the predicted workload is small. Other embodiments monitor the workload; and automatically switch the method to a reactive mode, when the monitored workload is outside of a failsafe operating range for the particular host.

Abstract: Methods, systems, and computer programs for measuring performance of virtual desktop services offered by a server computer are presented. The method includes receiving from a client computer an action request to be executed at the server computer, where the server computer is configured to generate display views for the requesting client. The method further embeds, at the server computer, a first encoded pixel into a first image frame that is communicated to the client computer when acknowledging receipt of the action request. Further, the method embeds a second encoded pixel into a second image frame that is communicated to the client computer after completion of the action associated with the action request. Action performance time is stored in memory, where the action performance time is the time between arrivals of the first and second image frames at the client computer. The stored timing information is used to generate statistical performance data.

Abstract: One embodiment is a method of transferring data from a computer system to a Universal Serial Bus (USB) device after a computer system crash where interrupts are masked, the method comprising: (a) detecting the computer system crash; (b) transferring at least a portion of the data to a USB driver for the USB device; (c) the USB driver transferring the portion of the data to a USB controller driver for a USB controller for the USB device; (d) the USB controller driver causing the USB controller to transfer the portion of the data to the USB device; (e) polling the USB controller to determine whether the data transfer was completed; and (f) if the data transfer was completed, providing a notification to the computer system.

Abstract: A method, apparatus, and system of network administration in a virtual machine environment through a temporary pool are disclosed. In one embodiment, a method includes determining that a desktop source requires maintenance, creating a temporary pool, accessing the desktop source requiring maintenance, automatically transferring the desktop source requiring maintenance from a source pool to the temporary pool, determining that an issue with the desktop source transferred to the temporary pool is rectified and automatically transferring the desktop source from the temporary pool to the source pool when the issue is rectified.

Abstract: A remote proxy provides remote control to a virtualization system. The virtualization system includes a computer having virtualization software executing on the computer, and one or more virtual machines executing on the computer by way of the virtualization software, each of the virtual machines having a guest operating system. The remote proxy receives over a network connection a plurality of logical channels of a multi-channel remote control protocol at a first domain of a plurality of domains of the virtualization system. Each of the logical channels convey information corresponding to one of the domains. For each logical channel, the remote proxy identifies the corresponding domain. Further, for each of the logical channels corresponding to a domain other than the first domain, the remote proxy forwards the logical channel to the corresponding domain.

Abstract: Methods, systems, and computer programs for measuring performance of remote video delivery are presented. The method embeds at a server computer a marker in selected frames of a video stream. The marker includes a preconfigured sequence of pixels and is followed by a frame number encoded in the pixel data. The method then finds a first marker at a client computer to determine the location of the markers in a display. Once the location of the markers is determined, markers in following frames are detected with their corresponding frame numbers. The method stores the arrival times and frame numbers for each detected marker. The stored arrival times and frame numbers can be used for statistical performance analysis of remote video delivery.

Abstract: According to one or more embodiments a logical virtual device may provide the desired functionality using either a virtual device or a physical device connected to a virtual machine. When the physical device is available, a guest operating system executing on a virtual machine (VM) can be instructed to utilize the physical device. When the VM is migrated between hosts of different underlying hardware, or when the physical device becomes unavailable, e.g., through dynamic reconfiguration or reallocation of physical resources, the guest operating system can be instructed to utilize the virtual device instead.

Abstract: A method, apparatus, and system of desktop source transfer between different pools are disclosed. In one embodiment, a machine-readable medium includes determining that a transfer request is associated with a desktop source, accessing the desktop source from a source pool, and automatically transferring the desktop source from the source pool to a destination pool.

Abstract: A method, apparatus, and system of policy management to initiate an automated action on a desktop source are disclosed. In one embodiment, a machine-readable medium embodying a set of instructions is disclosed. An event is detected. The event associated with a desktop source is automatically determined. A category of the event is determined. A policy is associated to the event based on the category. The policy is applied to the desktop source. Desktop sources may be reshuffled based on the policy. The internal event may be determined as a load balancing issue in which the desktop source may reside in a pool having maximum utilization. The desktop source may be transferred to anther pool having less utilization based on the policy.