Seamless discovery of workstation-installed remote applications from an extranet

mi iiiiiii ill mi mi iiiyii jiiijjip mil Iiiiii mi mi Ihi

(12) United States Patent

Brockway et al.

(io) Patent No.: (45) Date of Patent:

US 7,475,125 B2 Jan. 6, 2009

(54) SEAMLESS DISCOVERY OF

WORKSTATION-INSTALLED REMOTE
APPLICATIONS FROM AN EXTRANET

(75) Inventors: Tad Dennis Brockway, Redmond, WA
(US); Robert K. Leitman, Duvall, WA
(US); John E. Parsons, Jr., Sammamish,
WA(US)

(73) Assignee: Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, WA (US)

( * ) Notice: Subject to any disclaimer, the term of this patent is extended or adjusted under 35 U.S.C. 154(b) by 0 days.

(21) Appl.No.: 10/722,181

(22) Filed: Nov. 24, 2003

(65) Prior Publication Data

US 2005/0125529 Al Jun. 9, 2005

(51) Int. CI.

G06F15/16 (2006.01)

(52) U.S. CI 709/219; 709/203; 709/224;

709/229; 709/217; 709/227; 709/228

(58) Field of Classification Search 709/203,

709/223-225, 217-219, 227-229, 249 See application file for complete search history.

(56) References Cited

U.S. PATENT DOCUMENTS

5,838,916 A * 11/1998 Domenikos et al 709/219

5,845,081 A * 12/1998 Rangarajan et al 709/224

5,845,267 A 12/1998 Ronen

6,131,120 A 10/2000 Reid

6,247,052 Bl* 6/2001 Huang etal 709/224

6,263,363 Bl 7/2001 Rosenblatt et al.

6,279,001 Bl* 8/2001 DeBettencourt et al 707/10

6,356,933 B2 3/2002 Mitchell et al.

6,654,784 Bl 11/2003 Wei

6,760,748 Bl 7/2004 Hakim

6,836,786 Bl 12/2004 Zoller et al.

Systems and methods for enumerating applications by a remote client computer are described. The applications are deployed in an Intranet. The remote client computer is external to the Intranet. In one aspect, a remote application discovery request is sent to a Web service. The Web service is deployed on a remote applications publication (RAP) Web server in the Intranet. The remote application discovery request is sent to the Web service by the remote client computer via a public network that connects the remote client computer to the Web server. Responsive to sending the remote application discover request, a discovery response from the Web service is received. The discovery response identifies at least one application installed on the Intranet for terminal server (TS) based access by a user of the remote client computer.

16 Claims, 5 Drawing Sheets