Importance

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Abstract

A method and apparatus for appliance host supported network-based application delivery is described. In one embodiment, a local client device requests access to a network-based application for use with data stored locally by the client. In one embodiment, an appliance host retrieves the network-based application from a remote server based upon the client request and negotiated access terms. In one embodiment, the appliance host operates much like a cache in that rather than automatically retrieving the client-requested network-based application from a remote server, the appliance host first determines if a local copy of the application is stored on the appliance host. If the network-based application is stored on the appliance host, whether pre-installed by the vendor or remaining from a previous client request, then the appliance host executes the locally stored version of the application rather than retrieving a copy from the remote server. Since the network-based application is executed locally (with respect to the client) rather than at the remote server location, any communication interruptions that may occur outside the local network will not affect execution of the network-based application.

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First Claim