Centralized Management Server for Remote Presentation Session Farms
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current techniques for managing server farms in remote presentation systems require administrators to configure and manage multiple roles across physical servers, which is time-consuming and requires deep understanding of server farm roles and dependencies.
Innovation Solution
Implementing a task-based paradigm that hides complex interactions and dependencies between role services, allowing administrators to manage remote presentation session deployments as single entities from a central management server, which converts tasks into operations for servers to execute.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If administrators manually configure and manage multiple roles across physical servers, then the server farm can be managed with detailed control over each role service, but the management process becomes time-consuming and requires deep understanding of server farm roles and dependencies
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a centralized management server as an intermediary between administrators and the distributed role services across multiple physical servers. This mediator translates high-level administrative tasks into coordinated operations on underlying role services, hiding the complexity of role dependencies and configurations while maintaining detailed control capabilities.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent segments the management functionality into two distinct layers: a centralized management server that handles high-level task orchestration, and distributed role services on physical servers that execute specific functions. This segmentation allows administrators to interact with the simplified management layer while the complex role service layer operates independently.
2Productivity
If administrators directly manage multiple role services across physical servers, then precise control over each service is achieved, but the time required for configuration and management increases significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The centralized management server performs preliminary actions by pre-configuring and caching information about role services, their dependencies, and relationships. When administrators submit management tasks, the system leverages this pre-prepared information to rapidly process and execute tasks without requiring administrators to understand or manually navigate complex service dependencies.
Solution Approach 2:
The management server acts as a mediator that translates administrator intent into coordinated operations across multiple role services. It handles the time-consuming aspects of task translation, validation, and coordination automatically, significantly reducing the time administrators spend on configuration and management activities.
3Adaptability or versatility
If a centralized management server is introduced to simplify server farm management, then ease of administration and scalability are improved, but the system architecture becomes more complex
Solution Approach 1:
The centralized management server is designed as a universal platform that can manage diverse role services across multiple physical servers through a unified interface. It provides multi-functional capabilities including task translation, configuration management, monitoring, and coordination, reducing the need for separate management tools for different server roles and improving scalability.
Data Source
AI summary
Systems, methods, and computer-readable storage media are disclosed for configuring and managing a remote presentation session server farm. In an example embodiment, a central management server (CMS) receives a task to be carried out on a server farm (e.g. make an otherwise unused server operate as a remote presentation session server). The CMS then validates this request against a model of allowed tasks, and the current configuration of the server farm. Once validated, the CMS converts the task into operations to be carried out by one or more servers of the server farm. The CMS then sends these operations to the respective servers, where the operations are received by an agent process executing on the server. Each agent performs the received operations on the server upon which it executes, and sends an indication of whether the operations were completed successfully to the CMS. The CMS may then update its model and current configuration to reflect the current configuration of the server farm.