Computing environment configuration

Within a computing environment, an application may run in a variety of contexts, e.g., as a natively executable application, as a client-side interpretable application embedded in a web browser, or as a server-side application that communicates with the user through a web interface presented on a device. The application may also access resources of the computing environment stored on multiple devices. The configuration of the application to operate equivalently in these diverse environments may be facilitated by representing the application within an object hierarchy representing the computing environment. The application may be configured to operate on the objects of the object hierarchy regardless of the location of the stored objects, to execute on any device, and to execute upon a standard set of application programming interfaces. The configuration of the application in this manner promotes the versatility of the application in operating equivalently in different programming contexts.

BACKGROUND

Many computing environments comprise a large and diverse set of objects managed by a set of object systems. For example, a computing environment may comprise a set of files managed by a file system, one or more databases managed by a database system, a set of executable binaries representing applications and managed by an assembly cache, a set of user profiles managed by a user profile component of an operating system, and various data caches managed by data caching components, such as a set of copied items managed by a copy buffer of the operating system, a set of undo actions managed by an undo component of the operating system, and a set of “most recently used” items managed by an item usage tracking component of the operating system. Moreover, such objects may be exchanged among a plurality of devices operated by one or more users, and according to one or more operations (e.g., an object synchronization operation that merges two object sets and an object mirroring operation that adjusts a target object set to match a source object set.) In this manner, the objects are loosely organized through a set of object systems and aggregated to represent the computing environment.

The applications available within contemporary computing environments are typically devised and presented to the user according to many contexts. A locally deployed application typically operates on a local device and often utilizes one or more application programming interfaces for functions such as graphics rendering, memory access, window management, and network communication with remote resources. A server-side web application typically operates on a remote resource, such as a remote webserver, and communicates with a user of a local device through a client interface, such as a web browser. A client-side web-deployed application is typically stored as a set of resources on a remote server, sent to a local device upon request, and executed on the device. Such client-side web-deployed applications may run within a web browser, or may be configured to run as a locally deployed application; for instance, a Java or XAML application may be sent to a device, locally compiled or interpreted, and executed similarly to other locally deployed applications. Some applications have features of multiple contexts; for instance, an email service suite may have a server-side portion that receives mail and filters spam, and may offer users a choice between a locally deployed email application and a webmail interface to the mailbox that operates in a browser. Thus, a typical computing environment often manifests as an aggregation of applications presented according to various contexts, each of which may have a particular set of conventions. For instance, an application state of a web application may be bookmarkable, while a locally deployed application may not offer such functionality; and a locally deployed application may have greater access to local resources, such as a local file system, than a web application constrained by browser- and network-based security processes.

SUMMARY

The organization of objects within a computing system as a disjointed, loosely aggregated set of object systems may create several problems. For example, it may be difficult to present a consistent computing environment to the user through various devices, especially if the devices vary in capabilities (e.g., a high-performance personal workstation, a browser-based public terminal, and a low-performance cellphone device.) As another example, applying services to the objects, such as synchronization and backup, may involve interfacing with each object system to affect the objects managed thereby, and such interfacing may vary among object systems. As a third example, relating a diverse set of objects (such as all of the objects comprising an application) may be difficult due to the incomplete cooperation of the managing object systems.

An alternative technique for representing the objects comprising the computing environment involves organizing the objects in an object hierarchy, which may be hosted by a computing environment host. If the objects are represented in a uniform manner and managed in a consistent way by an object system, a set of services may be devised to apply to all of the objects of the computing environment. Moreover, the object hierarchy may be delivered to various devices to represent the same computing environment (including the same user profiles, applications, data files, etc.), and each device may render the computing environment in a consistent manner but customized based on the capabilities of the device (e.g., a hard keyboard interface for receiving data entry from a keyboard device attached to a workstation, and a touchscreen software keyboard interface for receiving data entry from a cellphone device.)

This computing environment may be rendered in several ways. A first device comprising a locally stored object hierarchy may render the entire computing environment. A second device may have access to a portion of a remotely stored object hierarchy, and may be permitted to receive and process applications of the computing environment as a client-side web-deployed application. A third device may be granted access to the entire computing environment through a web browser, and the applications may execute on the computing environment host while communicating with the user through the web browser of the third device. Thus, an application represented in the computing environment may have to operate in many contexts, such as a locally deployed application and a server-side web-based application.

However, it may be difficult to configure the application to run in various contexts. As one example, an application may feature an interface that is specially devised to run in one context (such as a client-side script executing in a web browser) that may be difficult to present in another context (such as a locally deployed application.) As another example, an application may have difficulty accessing a resource over a network connection; e.g., a locally deployed resource that depends on locally deployed application programming interfaces or assemblies in an assembly cache may be unable to operate in the comparative isolation of a web browser. As a result, many contemporary applications are configured only to run in one context, or are presented with several single-context versions (e.g., a first version configured to operate as a locally deployed application, a second version configured to operate as a client-side web application that executes in a web browser or as a locally deployed application, and a third version configured to operate as a server-side web application that communicates with the user through a web browser.)

Presented herein are techniques for configuring an application to run in multiple contexts, such as (e.g.) a locally deployed application, a web-deployed client-side application operating in a browser, and a server-side application that communicates with a user through a web browser. This contextual versatility may be achieved by configuring the application to operate predominantly on objects of the deployable object hierarchy, which may be accessible to the application in a similar form regardless of whether it is available on the same device or remotely accessed. As one example of this versatility, the application may reference the objects of the object hierarchy according to a common addressing model, and the associations may be configured for different contexts simply by updating the addresses to local or remote references. The application may also be serviced by an application runtime that provides access to a uniform application programming interface, regardless of whether the application is executing as a locally deployed application, as a client-side web-deployed application executing in a web browser or as a locally deployed application, or as a server-side web application with a web browser user interface. An application devised to support such versatility may be included in the object hierarchy, and may be diversely configured to match the manner in which the computing environment is rendered on a particular device.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Modern computer systems comprise a large number and variety of objects. Many computer systems feature a file store containing both the files for configuring the computer system (including executables, class libraries, configuration information sets, and resources) and user files generated or received by one or more users. Many computer systems also comprise a wide range of configuration information comprising the computer system hardware and software, including the hardware and devices of the computer system, the operating system, the shell user interface, and the configuration of the applications available within the shell user interface. Various user profiles and accounts may also exist, the former comprising information describing a particular user or user class (name, shell user interface preferences, home directory, etc.), and the latter comprising information describing the privileges of the user or class (file ownership, read/write privileges, access to various devices, etc.) Protected security information, such as passwords, certificates, public/private key pairs, and access control lists, may be stored in a security object, over which the operating system may exert regulated access. One or more data caches may exist, such as browser caches and histories, recent entries in application or browser textboxes, and recently used file and object lists. Various applications may create application- or task-specific archives, such as an email archive containing various folders and messages and a shared address book containing contact information received from various sources by various system users and organized in user-defined groups. Finally, the computer system may be configured to exchange particular sets of information with other computers, users, and devices, such as objects to be synchronized and object sets to which access may be granted with various conditions (read/write privileges, ownership, quotas, etc.) Such object types are typically managed by various management systems (e.g., a file system, a system registry store, a user account management system, and an email system) within the computer system in an ad hoc manner, with little consistency or standardization of access methods or object organization.

The organization of objects within a computing system as a disjointed, loosely aggregated set of object systems may create several problems. As a first example, rendering and maintaining a consistent computing environment comprising a consistent set of objects (such as files, applications, user profiles, application configuration, data caches, etc.) may be very difficult, especially among devices of varying capabilities, such as a personal workstation, a public terminal, and a cellphone device. As a second example, applying services to the objects may be complicated by the storage of diverse objects in multiple object systems. For instance, locating objects matching a particular description (such as objects last modified within a particular time span) may involve querying for matching files through one or more file systems, matching database records through a database system, matching registry keys through a system registry, matching applications through an assembly cache, matching data cache items through various data caches, etc. Because such object systems often store the associated objects in non-standard ways, such as with parameters specific to the nature of the objects (e.g., examining file records through a file system journal, and examining database records through a data-specific timestamp), applying an operation to each the various object systems may be difficult. As a third example, because each object system is configured to manage a particular kind of object, relating and mixing the types of objects may be difficult. For instance, an application may comprise an executable binary stored in an assembly cache, some configuration information stored in a system registry, supplemental files (such as dictionaries for various languages) stored in a file system, and events (such as recently edited documents) stored in data caches. It may be difficult to represent an association of these object types in various systems, and to manipulate all such objects together (e.g., deleting all such objects in order to uninstall the application.) As a fourth example, the object set of the computer system may be distributed across several devices, and providing consistent access to the object sets may be complicated by the various configurations of the devices, the network capabilities of each device, and incompatibilities in the wire formats used by each device for exchanging data (e.g., a first device may be configured to exchange data according to an XML schema, and a second device may be configured to exchange data according to JSON.)

An alternative approach may be devised wherein the computing environment is represented in a manner that may be delivered to devices for rendering according to the capabilities of the device. The representation comprises a set of objects organized according to an object hierarchy and represented according to a common grammar. The objects include the data objects of the computer system, such as the user files and data created by the user. The objects also include the executable binaries and class libraries comprising the operating system components, such as the shell, and the applications offered therein. The object also include the information specifying the user interface of a computing environment, including shell preferences (e.g., visual themes, application launch menu, and double-click threshold), user accounts and privileges, security information (e.g., passwords, security tokens, and certificates), application binaries and configuration information, user data and metadata (e.g., file sharing information), and data caches (e.g., most-recently-used file lists and browser history.) Despite the various nature and uses of these objects, the objects are represented in a common manner in the object hierarchy, and may be arbitrarily organized in the hierarchy. Thus, in contrast with former systems comprising a set of isolated data stores, each containing one type of object (e.g., a file system containing files, a registry containing configuration information, and a data cache containing the browser history), the object hierarchy in this approach organizes all such objects in a common manner in the object hierarchy.

A computing environment represented in this manner may be delivered to any device and rendered in a manner suitable for the capabilities of the device. For instance, a workstation may render the information as a robust and general-purpose computing environment, while a public workstation may render a different computing environment experience through a web browser (e.g., as a virtual machine that may be discarded at the end of the user's session), and a cellphone may provide a leaner interface with quicker access to cellphone-related information (e.g., contacts, calendar, and navigation data.) Moreover, updates to the information set (e.g., preference changes and updates to data files contained therein) may be applied to the canonical source of the information set, and thereby propagated to all other devices to which the information set is delivered. Also, the devices sharing the computing environment may be integrated through the shared information set, such that one device may interact with others that are identified in the information set; e.g., data stored on a first device may be accessed by a second device, and a first device may be controlled by a second device through a communications conduit. The information set may therefore identify the collection of devices that share the computing environment, along with the roles, capabilities, and resources of each device, to provide an integrated computing experience across a potentially large number and variety of devices.

FIG. 1illustrates one such scenario10, wherein the computing environment may be hosted by a computing environment host12, which may store and manage an object hierarchy14. The computing environment host12may also render the object hierarchy14in different ways on behalf of various devices, such as a cellphone device16, a personal notebook computer20, and a public workstation24, and also on behalf of different types of users having different access privileges. The rendering of the computing environment therefore reflects a consistent computing environment across all devices that expose the same applications, user profiles, shell configuration, user data objects, etc. Thus, a user may access a full-featured version22of the computing environment through a high-performance notebook computer, a stripped-down version18of the computing environment on a low-power cellphone device16, and a browser-compatible and privacy-oriented version28of the computing environment through a web browser146of a public terminal24. To the extent that the capabilities of each such device support the rendering of the computing environment, a consistent user interface and data set may be presented due to the rendering of the object hierarchy14adjusted to the capabilities of each device. Updates to the computing environment may be propagated back to the computing environment host12, and may be automatically synchronized with other devices. The various devices may also cooperate by sharing locally stored data with other devices, and by controlling or being controlled by other devices. Hence, the computing environment may therefore be devised and presented as a cloud computing architecture, comprising a device-independent representation (a “cloud”) expressed as a consistent rendering across all devices (“clients”) that form a mesh of cooperating portals (with device-specific properties) to the same computing environment. Moreover, the computing environment host12may apply services to the various objects comprising the object hierarchy14, and the common format in which the objects are stored in the object hierarchy may facilitate consistent availability and application of the services regardless of the nature of the objects applied thereto.

However, the representation of the computing environment as an object hierarchy may create difficulties in executing applications, since the computing environment may execute in different contexts. For example, a high-performance device such as a notebook computer may render a full-featured representation22of the computing environment, and an application operating therein may execute directly on the notebook computer and may access the resources and data objects stored locally on the notebook computer. By contrast, a low-power cellphone device18may render a stripped-down version18of the computing environment, and an application operating therein may execute as a web-deployed, client-side context, and may execute either as a native application within the computing environment or within a web browser provided in the computing environment. Moreover, the low-power cellphone device18may contain only a portion of the object hierarchy14, and the application may have to access some objects of the object hierarchy14locally and other portions through the computing environment host12or another device. As a third example, a public workstation24may render a strictly web-based version of the computing environment through a web browser; an application operating therein may execute wholly or largely on the computing environment host12and the objects of the object hierarchy14stored therein, and may communicate with the user only through a thin-client interface presented by a web browser.

FIG. 2illustrates a first example30of an aspect of the application in which the execution may vary, relating to the execution context of the application. The application may be configured to operate within the computing environment represented by the object hierarchy14hosted by the computing environment host12. As a first example, the application may be configured to execute on a workstation32as a native application34and operably coupled to the object hierarchy14. As a second example, the application may be configured to execute on the workstation32within a web browser36as a web application38operably coupled to the object hierarchy14, e.g., where the application comprises a client-side script. As a third example, the application may be configured to operate only as a client-side web interface40of a server-side web application42that executes on the computing environment host12. It may be infrequent that an application is suitably flexible to operate equivalently in each context.

FIG. 3illustrates a second example50of an aspect of the application in which the execution may vary, relating to the location of the executing application and the location of an accessed portion of the object hierarchy. This second example50involves a computing environment host52configured to store a first object hierarchy portion52, and a notebook computer20configured to store a second object hierarchy portion54. As illustrated in this second example50, a first application instance56may comprise a server-side application that operates on the computing environment host12and accesses the first object hierarchy portion52managed thereby, and that may send to a client device (such as the notebook computer20) a web interface to the server-side application. A second application instance58may comprise a server-side application that also executes on the computing environment host12, but that accesses the second object hierarchy portion54stored on the notebook computer20. Conversely, a third application instance60may execute on the notebook computer20and may access the second object hierarchy portion54, while a fourth application instance62also executing on the notebook computer20may access the first object hierarchy portion52managed by the computing environment host12. Again, it may be is infrequent that an application is suitably flexible to operate equivalently in each location, and in varying conditions of the availability of the object hierarchy

As a result of the contextual differences in which such applications may operate, the applications may exhibit different behaviors in different contexts. As a first example, a web browser that hosts a server-side web application or a web-deployed client-side application often has certain navigation properties, such as a navigation paradigm based on hyperlinks, an availability of “forward,” “back,” and “home” commands, and an ability to bookmark a page in order to store a state of the application. A user may also be accustomed to a delay between page loads, as this is a common navigation behavior among websites. By contrast, an application executing natively in a graphical computing environment (such as a windowing system) may exhibit a different navigation paradigm based on hierarchically organized dialog boxes accessible through a menu system, and users may be less tolerant of delays during transitions between application states. The user may not expect to find a bookmarking system in a natively running application, and may instead rely on saving and loading data objects to capture and restore the state of an application. As a second example, a web-browser-based application often exhibits certain visual properties, such as a common inline arrangement of text and a common vertical scrolling component, while an application executing natively in the windowing environment more often organizes controls in tab pages or child dialog windows and relies less on scrolling within dialogs. A web-browser-based application may also rely on lower-performance computational processes, such as graphics effects, as compared with higher-performance applications executing natively within the computing environment.

In addition, web-browser-based applications may exhibit different performance properties than a natively executing application. As a first example, a natively executing operation may run well whether or not the device can communicate with the computing environment host, or even if the device is not connected to a network; however, it may be considerably more difficult to configure a web application for equivalent online and offline execution. As a second example, many web-browser-based applications operate in a comparatively isolated context with restricted access to many local system resources, such as local storage, the system registry, and user profile information, while natively executing applications have less restricted access. This restriction may pertain to the location of the object hierarchy; for example, if a portion of the object hierarchy is stored on the device where the application is executing, a natively running application may be freely able to access the objects thereof, but a web-browser-based version of the application may be unable to access the objects. Similarly, a natively running application may be able to consume a greater amount of system resources, such as local storage and computation, than a web-browser-based application, which may be resource-restricted for security and performance motivations. Conversely, a web-browser-based application may be more readily implemented in a platform-independent manner than an application to be natively executed, which may depend more closely on a set of application programming interfaces exposed by a particular operating system. Also, a server-side web-based application may be more closely trusted by the hosting server and may be granted more service privileges to the hosting server than a client-side application, to which the server may attribute a lower scope of access. As a third example, an application may have different expectations with regard to a locally stored object hierarchy (e.g., if the application is executing on the computing environment host, or on a device to which the object hierarchy is available) than with regard to a remotely stored object hierarchy that is accessed over a network (e.g., an application running on a device and accessing a portion of the object hierarch on the computing environment host, or a server-side web application attempting to interact with a portion of an object hierarchy stored on a device.) For instance, rapid access to a high-bandwidth object, such as a high-definition video, may be readily achieved if stored in a locally accessible object hierarchy, but may be inadequately accessible for objects in a remotely stored object hierarchy.

Due to these many factors, application developers infrequently develop applications that may be equivalently executed in a variety of contexts. Instead, developers often target a particular context, such as a natively executing application, and design the resources of the computing environment with respect to that context. On occasion, a developer may choose to develop several versions of an application, each designed for a particular context; e.g., an email client developer may design both a natively executing email client version that is adapted to utilize a local email store, and a web-based email client version, such as a webmail client, that is adapted to access email through an email server and to communicate through a web browser interface. This approach often capitalizes on the differences among platforms, such as by utilizing a dialog-driven interface for a local application and hyperlinks for the webmail interface, and by implementing a search function via a server-based index for the webmail application but through an ad hoc search on a locally executing version.

It may be appreciated that these complexities arise, at least in part, from the difficulty in configuring an application to operate in a context-independent manner: as a native application or as a browser; with equivalent access to an object hierarchy stored locally or remotely; and while executing on a device or on a remote server such as a computing environment host. In conventional computer systems, it may be difficult for an application to interface with certain types of objects, such as a file system, the user profile for the current user, a system registry, and various types of system caches, in a platform-independent manner. Moreover, the application may have to make provisions for accessing resources locally or remotely; e.g., locally hosted objects might be accessible through a file system, while remotely hosted objects might involve a request via a URL, serialization, network transport, and deserialization.

However, several of these considerations may be addressed by or compatible with the representation of the computing environment as an object hierarchy. A versatile configuration of the application may promote the portability of the application and an equivalent execution and presentation in any contextual rendering of the computing environment, such as the various application contexts illustrated inFIGS. 2-3.

As a first aspect of these techniques, a device and a computing environment host may handle the task and details of enabling access to the object hierarchy. Rather than attempting to access diverse types of resources (files, user profiles, system registries, data caches, etc.) that may be stored on different devices and organized in platform-specific manners, the application may simply operate on objects within the object hierarchy. The task of identifying the location of an accessed object and of securing the requested access may be relegated to the components of the computing mesh. In addition to alleviating the application of the platform- and location-specific properties of the accessed objects, this technique may present other advantages. For example, the device and/or the computing environment host may analyze accesses to the object hierarchy stored in various locations, and may transparently improve the performance of such accesses by the application through caching and preloading. The device and computing environment may also handle the task of directing the object accesses to the locations on which the accessed portions of the object hierarchy are stored. Thus, the application may be designed simply to access the objects of the object hierarchy, regardless of location, and the computing mesh may properly route the requests, even if portions of the object hierarchy are relocated during use.

As a second aspect of these techniques, instead of being configured to execute in a platform- and context-dependent manner, the application may be configured to operate through a set of application programming interfaces that is equivalently implemented in various contexts, such as a native application, a web browser hosting a client-side web-deployed application, a server executing a server-side application, and a web browser hosting a client web interface to a server-side application. Thus, the application may simply be inserted into the object hierarchy, and may operate within the programmatic capabilities of the object hierarchy. The various devices and contexts embedded therein may be configured to provide a common platform that fulfills application programming interface invocations in an equivalent manner but within various contexts. For instance, the application may operate upon a common application runtime that is equivalently implemented for each context, and which achieves an equivalent execution behavior regardless of the operating context of the application. Again, in addition to alleviating the application of the platform-specific programming configuration, this technique may present additional advantages. For instance, the device and computing environment host may also cooperate to distribute the processing workload of the application in an efficient manner.

FIG. 4illustrates one embodiment of these techniques, comprising an exemplary method70of configuring an application to operate within a computing environment. The exemplary method70begins at72and involves configuring74the application to access objects of an object hierarchy representing the computing environment. The exemplary method70also involves inserting76the application into the object hierarchy, so that the programmatic capabilities of the object hierarchy may be provided thereto. Having achieved the representation of the application in the object hierarchy and having applied the application to the objects of the computing environment as represented in the object hierarchy, the exemplary method70therefore achieves the configuration of the application to operate in a more platform-, location-, and context-independent manner, thereby promoting the versatility of the application; accordingly, the exemplary method70ends at78.

FIG. 5illustrates a second embodiment of these techniques, comprising a scenario80involving an exemplary system84for executing an application82represented in an object hierarchy14representing a computing environment. The exemplary system84comprises a computing environment host12, which is configured to store the object hierarchy14(including the application82), and an application runtime86configured to access objects of the object hierarchy14on behalf of the application82. By permitting the application to operate upon the objects of the computing environment through the object hierarchy82, and by permitting the application runtime86to provide a platform of standardized application programming interfaces, the exemplary system84thereby promotes the operation of the application in a platform-, location-, and context-independent manner.

The techniques described herein may be implemented with variations in many aspects, and some variations may present additional advantages and/or reduce disadvantages with respect to other variations of these and other techniques. These variations may be included in various embodiments, such as the exemplary method70ofFIG. 4and the exemplary system84ofFIG. 5, and may be compatible with other such variations to present several such additional advantages and/or reduced disadvantages. Those of ordinary skill in the art may therefore devise many such embodiments in accordance with the techniques discussed herein.

A first aspect that may vary among implementations of these techniques relates to the contexts in which the application may be configured to operate as discussed herein. Such applications may be configured to in any of the contexts illustrated inFIGS. 2-3. As a first example, the application may be configured to execute natively, such as the native application34configured to execute on the workstation32inFIG. 2, or upon an application runtime configured to access the object hierarchy, such as may be provided by the operating system or by a web browser. As a second example, the application may be configured to access the objects of a locally stored object hierarchy available at a local address, or to access the objects of a remotely stored object hierarchy available at a remote address. As a third example, the application may be configured to execute on a computing environment host configured to store the object hierarchy, such as the first application instance56inFIG. 3that is configured to operate on the computing environment host12storing the first object hierarchy portion52, or the third application instance60configured to operate on the notebook computer20that also stores the second object hierarchy portion54. Alternatively, the application may also be configured to access an object hierarchy stored on a first device and to execute on a second device, such as the second application instance58and the fourth application instance62inFIG. 3.

A second aspect that may vary among implementations of these techniques relates to the form of the application. As a first example, the application may be included in the object hierarchy as one or more source code documents, which may be compiled on a device prior to execution, or as an interpretable script, which may be interpretively executed on the device. This example may be advantageous by enabling many devices and platforms that can compile the source code or interpret the script to execute the application. This example may also be advantageous by allowing the device greater latitude to examine the source code or script, e.g., to examine the application for incompatible, problematic, or potentially malicious code. As a second example, the application may be included as a partially compiled binary, such as a compiler parse tree. This example may be advantageous by reducing the compilation burden on the device, while still permitting the device to compile the partially compiled binary into a platform-specific executable binary. As a third example, the application may be wholly compiled into a wholly compiled executable binary that is ready to execute on the device. This example may be advantageous where the device is low-powered and is not easily capable of including a compiler, or where the application is large and is not amenable to compilation on the device. The wholly compiled executable binary may only run on a subset of platforms; however, the object hierarchy may be configured to include a set of executable binaries for an application that are respectively compiled for a targeted platform. Those of ordinary skill in the art may be able to include the application in the object hierarchy in many forms while implementing the techniques discussed herein.

A third aspect that may vary among implementations of these techniques relates to the representation of the application in the object hierarchy. In accordance with the second aspect, the form in which the application is included in the object hierarchy may result in a binary object, a text-based object, or a hybrid thereof. These basic formats may then be represented in the object hierarchy in many ways. As a first example, the object may be included as an atomic data unit, such as a source code object encoded in the object hierarchy as plaintext or a binary object encoded in the object hierarchy through a binary serializing algorithm (e.g., Uuencode or MIME.) As a second example, the application may be represented in the object hierarchy as a set of individual data units, such as code modules, partially or wholly compiled binaries, a series of imperative instructions or declarative statements, a series of class definitions, etc. These sets of individual data units of the object may be semantically organized in many such ways, but the representation of the application in the object hierarchy may be organized according to a content- and semantic-independent representation that simply reflects the relationships among the data units. Thus, a representation grammar may be devised for representing various organizational relationships among the data units (e.g., a first data unit as a container of a second data unit, or of a series of such data units.) Moreover, the representation grammar may be recursively defined to permit deeper hierarchies of relationships, e.g., a series of one or more series of data items. Based on this recursable base representation format, the resources comprising the application may be stored in the object hierarchy in a well-organized but content-independent manner. As a third example, the representation of the application may be expressed according to a data interchange format chosen as an organizational syntax for the object hierarchy, such as JSON, Atom, or XML. Thus, embodiments of these techniques may include a deployment of the object hierarchy (or a portion of the object hierarchy that contains the application) to at least one device, wherein the application is represented in the object hierarchy according to a data interchange format. Those of ordinary skill in the art may be able to devise many representations of the application (regardless of its form) within the object hierarchy while implementing the techniques discussed herein.

A fourth aspect that may vary among implementations of these techniques relates to the addressing of the objects in the object hierarchy by the application. As discussed herein, the contextual versatility of the application may be improved by applying the application to the objects of an object hierarchy, instead of to the various types and locations of resources in the disjointed organization of a conventional computing environment (e.g., particular files in a file system and particular registry keys in a system registry.) If the application references an object at a particular address within the object hierarchy, the platform on which the application executes (e.g., the rendered computing environment hosting a natively executing application, an application runtime that is servicing the application, such as within a web browser application, and/or the computing environment host on which a server-side application is executing) may resolve the address to the current location of the object.

FIG. 6presents an exemplary scenario90illustrating one suitable addressing model for the object hierarchy. In this exemplary scenario90, the object hierarchy is distributed across three devices: the computing environment host12is configured to store a first object hierarchy portion52, which includes the majority of the objects in the object hierarchy; a notebook computer20is configured to store a second object hierarchy portion54, which includes a photo store comprising some photos that are represented in the object hierarchy; and a cellphone device16is configured to store a third object hierarchy portion102, which includes some contact information.

In this exemplary scenario90, the application82contains a first object reference92to a photo in a photo store that happens to be stored in the second object hierarchy portion54; a second object reference94to the name of the local user stored in the user profile that happens to be stored in the first object hierarchy portion52, and a third object reference96to contact information for an individual named John Lee that happens to be stored in the third object hierarchy portion102. However, in this exemplary scenario90, the application82does not directly address the devices on which the referenced objects are stored. Rather, the application82addresses the objects of the computing environment according to the address of the object within the object hierarchy, beginning with the root of the object hierarchy. The references may be redirected to the device currently storing the portion of the object hierarchy containing the referenced object. In this exemplary scenario90, the application82communicates with the computing environment host12and the devices through an application platform98, which may comprise (e.g.) an application runtime configured to service and facilitate the application82. This application platform98contains a routing table100, which may contribute to a completion of the object reference by prepending a base address for the device storing the referenced portion of the object hierarchy. Thus, the object hierarchy may have a base address, and respective objects of the object hierarchy may be available at an object address relative to the base address. The application82may then be configured to access the objects of the object hierarchy according to the object address relative to the base address. For instance, the first object reference92is evaluated by the application platform98according to the routing table100, which indicates that references to objects in the object hierarchy beginning with /Photos are to be routed to the notebook computer20. Accordingly, the relative address of the first object reference92(/Photos/Photo1) is prepended with a reference to the base address of the notebook computer (http://notebook) to produce an absolute address (http://notebook/Photos/Photo1).

The addressing model illustrated in the exemplary scenario90ofFIG. 6may have several advantages. As a first example, the addressing scenario illustrated inFIG. 6is an application of a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) hierarchical addressing model, which is well-understood and widely supported, e.g., as in the addressing of resources on the World Wide Web. As a second example, the and in furtherance of the versatility of the application84, this referencing may obscure the location of the represented objects form the application84. Thus, the application84may reference objects stored on the notebook computer20according to the relative address of the object (e.g., /Photos/Photo1)—regardless of whether the application84is also executing on the notebook computer20or on another device, such as the cellphone device16. The application platform98may therefore determine how the relative address is to be completed. For instance, if the application is executing on the notebook computer20, the address may be completed with an internal base address (e.g., http://localhost), whereas if the application is executing on the cellphone device16, the address may be completed with a network-specific base address for the notebook computer20(e.g., an IP address, such as http://16.235.147.6). Moreover, the application84may successfully access portions of the object hierarchy even if it is relocated during the accessing; e.g., if a portion of the object hierarchy is moved from a first device to a second device, the references to the address within the application84may remain unchanged, but the routing table100of the application platform98may be updated to reflect the new location of the object hierarchy portion. Those of ordinary skill in the art may be able to devise many addressing models with various advantages with respect to the techniques discussed herein.

A fifth aspect that may vary among implementations of these techniques relates to the nature of the interaction between the application and the object hierarchy through one or both of a computing environment host and an application runtime. The object hierarchy may be exposed to the application as a large data structure, and the application may access the objects of the object hierarchy through object-level operators, such as Create, Read, Update, and Delete objects pertaining to common object operations. As a first example, the object hierarchy may be exposed through a File Transfer Protocol (FTP) model, wherein the application may navigate the object hierarchy in a file structure manner, and may read, write, and update objects. As a second example, the computing environment host may offer a web service or other remote invocation method to exchange data comprising the objects of the object hierarchy. As a third example, the object hierarchy may be exposed through an HTTP interface, and updates to the objects may be made through the standard HTTP verbs (POST, GET, PUT, and DELETE.) This access technique may be advantageous in at least three aspects. First, communicating through an HTTP interface may involve a standardized, well-understood, and widely supported communications protocol. Second, an HTTP interface may be particularly compatible with resources addressed as illustrated inFIG. 6, i.e., according to a URI addressing model. Third, these accessing and addressing techniques may be combined with some other principles, such as a stateless transaction model, to model the object hierarchy accessing according to a representational state transfer (RESTful) interface. However, those of ordinary skill in the art may be able to devise many object hierarchy interfaces, and to configure applications to utilize such interfaces, while implementing the techniques discussed herein.

In view of the foregoing aspects,FIG. 7illustrates an exemplary configuration of an application to access the objects of an object hierarchy. In this scenario, the application may be instantiated either as a server-side application that executes on the computing environment host12and communicates with the user through a web interface displayed on a notebook computer20, or as a locally deployed application that executes on the notebook computer20and accesses locally stored resources.

In the first exemplary configuration110, the application is represented in an object hierarchy14on the computing environment host12as an application binary112and an application resource114. These objects are provided relative addresses (in this scenario, URIs) within the object hierarchy14. An application instance116may be invoked that operates on the computing environment host12. The application instance116may contain a base address reference that directs the references of the application (such as to the application resource114) to the local device, i.e., the computing environment host12. The application instance116may also communicate with the user through a device, such as an application web interface118rendered on a notebook computer20. The application web interface118may also include an application resource reference120, and may access the application resource114through its address within the object hierarchy. However, because the application web interface118also contains a base address reference pointing to the computing environment host12on which the application instance116is executing, the application resource reference120is properly directed to the computing environment host12. Thus, the application may operate in a server-side configuration, and references may be properly resolved between the device and the computing environment host12through the addressing model.

In the second exemplary configuration130, the application is again represented in an object hierarchy14on the computing environment host12as an application binary112and an application resource114. However, this application instance is invoked as a locally deployed application132that executes on the notebook computer20. This context may be achieved by deploying the application binary112and the application resource114to the notebook computer20, e.g., by representing these resources in the object hierarchy14and deploying at least this portion of the object hierarchy to the notebook computer20. Moreover, the application may be configured to access the locally deployed objects instead of the objects stored in the object hierarchy14on the computing environment host12. This configuration may be achieved simply by updating the base address stored by the locally deployed application instance132. The locally deployed application instance132still contains an application resource reference120to the application resource114. However, this application resource reference120remains the same, as it continues to reference the application resource114correctly according to its address within the object hierarchy14. The correct routing of the application resource reference120to the locally deployed version of the application resource114is achieved through the altered base address stored in the locally deployed application132. However, the locally deployed application instance132might also access resources that are not locally deployed by redirection of such requests to the computing environment host12, e.g., through the use of a routing table such as illustrated inFIG. 6.

It may be appreciated by comparison of the first exemplary scenario110and the second exemplary scenario130ofFIG. 7that the application may therefore execute in various contexts, and references to resources may be properly routed to various deployments of the objects of the object hierarchy simply by updating a base address that is prepended to the address of the object. This reconfiguration may promote the versatility of the application in executing in a variety of contexts, and irrespective of the deployment of the objects in the object hierarchy. For example, the application may be readily configurable for operation as a natively deployed application, or as a client-side application in a web browser, or as a server-side application that communicates with the user via a web interface rendered on a device. The application may also be readily configured for either online access (accessing objects stored on an accessible remote server) or offline access (accessing a local snapshot of the objects stored locally, and comprising locally hosted application binaries and resources.)

Still another embodiment involves a computer-readable medium comprising processor-executable instructions configured to apply the techniques presented herein. An exemplary computer-readable medium that may be devised in these ways is illustrated inFIG. 8, wherein the implementation140comprises a computer-readable medium142(e.g., a CD-R, DVD-R, or a platter of a hard disk drive), on which is encoded computer-readable data144. This computer-readable data144in turn comprises a set of computer instructions146configured to operate according to the principles set forth herein. In one such embodiment, the processor-executable instructions146may be configured to perform a method of configuring an application to operate within a computing environment, such as the exemplary method70ofFIG. 4. In another such embodiment, the processor-executable instructions146may be configured to implement a system for executing an application represented in an object hierarchy representing a computing environment, such as the exemplary system84ofFIG. 5. Many such computer-readable media may be devised by those of ordinary skill in the art that are configured to operate in accordance with the techniques presented herein.

FIG. 9illustrates an example of a system150comprising a computing device152configured to implement one or more embodiments provided herein. In one configuration, computing device152includes at least one processing unit156and memory158. Depending on the exact configuration and type of computing device, memory158may be volatile (such as RAM, for example), non-volatile (such as ROM, flash memory, etc., for example) or some combination of the two. This configuration is illustrated inFIG. 9by dashed line154.

In other embodiments, device152may include additional features and/or functionality. For example, device152may also include additional storage (e.g., removable and/or non-removable) including, but not limited to, magnetic storage, optical storage, and the like. Such additional storage is illustrated inFIG. 9by storage160. In one embodiment, computer readable instructions to implement one or more embodiments provided herein may be in storage160. Storage160may also store other computer readable instructions to implement an operating system, an application program, and the like. Computer readable instructions may be loaded in memory158for execution by processing unit156, for example.

Device152may also include communication connection(s)166that allows device152to communicate with other devices. Communication connection(s)166may include, but is not limited to, a modem, a Network Interface Card (NIC), an integrated network interface, a radio frequency transmitter/receiver, an infrared port, a USB connection, or other interfaces for connecting computing device152to other computing devices. Communication connection(s)166may include a wired connection or a wireless connection. Communication connection(s)166may transmit and/or receive communication media.

Device152may include input device(s)164such as keyboard, mouse, pen, voice input device, touch input device, infrared cameras, video input devices, and/or any other input device. Output device(s)162such as one or more displays, speakers, printers, and/or any other output device may also be included in device152. Input device(s)164and output device(s)162may be connected to device152via a wired connection, wireless connection, or any combination thereof. In one embodiment, an input device or an output device from another computing device may be used as input device(s)164or output device(s)162for computing device152.

Those skilled in the art will realize that storage devices utilized to store computer readable instructions may be distributed across a network. For example, a computing device170accessible via network168may store computer readable instructions to implement one or more embodiments provided herein. Computing device152may access computing device170and download a part or all of the computer readable instructions for execution. Alternatively, computing device152may download pieces of the computer readable instructions, as needed, or some instructions may be executed at computing device152and some at computing device170.