Site News  |   Monitor Keywords  |   Monitor Archive  |   Organizer  |   Account Info  |

Method and apparatus for template-based provisioning in a service delivery environment

Method and apparatus for template-based provisioning in a service delivery environment description/claims

1. Field of the Invention

The present disclosure relates to computer network management and, more particularly, to methods and apparatus for providing template-based provisioning in a distributed computing environment.

2. Description of Related Art

A variety of deployment topologies have been utilized to deploy an increasingly wide range of services on servers. Common topologies include simple deployment with a single-point of failure, Web-tier only cluster deployment, business-tier only cluster deployment, database-tier only cluster deployment, single-site highly available deployment and multi-site highly available deployment. Selection of a deployment topology may be based on requirements for scalability, redundancy and networking. For example, a deployment may consist of a Web tier and a database tier. The Web tier may consist of a single Web server or multiple Web servers functioning as a cluster. The database tier may consist of SQL database servers. Additionally, each tier may have domain controllers for authentication and DNS services.

The deployment topology affects the ease with which system hardware and software can be updated. Each topology has associated costs, monetary and otherwise, such as hardware costs, software licensing fees and management complexity, and a certain level of quality of service measured in terms of performance, availability and security. In conventional approaches, the design and realization of deployment solutions is a manual, costly and error-prone process.

The “Rainforest Project,” an International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) published document, http://www.research.ibm.com/rainforest/index.html, describes a three-stage automated deployment process. In the first stage, an automated search is employed to generate a deployment topology that offers a good tradeoff between cost and quality relative to an input set of deployment objectives. In the second stage, planning techniques are employed to generate a deployment plan that when executed deploys the service in accordance with the deployment topology design. In the third stage, the plan is executed to actually deploy and configure the service.

Provisioning is the process of deploying, installing, uninstalling, upgrading and configuring application services or otherwise implementing changes for hardware, software, network and/or storage resources. The term provisioning has been used to refer to low-level provisioning of servers or other resources, e.g., installing and configuring operating systems, as well as to high-level application provisioning, i.e., installing, updating and configuring applications on resources that have undergone low-level provisioning. Provisioning in a service delivery environment that supports a variety of deployment topologies incorporating varying numbers of servers can be a challenging task. In the conventional approaches, provisioning solutions are directly mapped, fixed infrastructure in the service delivery environment.

Applications to be implemented over a distributed computing environment can be considered to be composed of multiple elements which are distinct deployable units. In conventional approaches, once a deployment mapping has been developed, it can be difficult to change the mapping to accommodate alternative topologies and to adapt to changes in the delivery environment. A need exists for methodologies that simplify the provisioning process in distributed computing environments.

According to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention, a method for automated provisioning of computing resources in a distributed computing network includes obtaining a data structure representing a resource dependency characterization of an application to be implemented over the distributed computing network, wherein the data structure indicates a set of resources to be deployed, obtaining a template that represents a predefined network topology for supporting deployment of the set of resources, mapping the set of resources represented in the data structure to the template so as to satisfy a set of component requirements to generate a deployment map, and provisioning the set of resources on a plurality of computers based on the deployment map to implement the application over the distributed computing network.

According to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention, a system for automated provisioning of computing resources in a distributed computing network includes a memory device for storing a program of instructions, a processor in communication with the memory device, the processor operative with the program of instructions to obtain a data structure representing a resource dependency characterization of an application to be implemented over the distributed computing network, wherein the data structure indicates a set of resources to be deployed, obtain a template that represents a predefined network topology for supporting deployment of the set of resources, map the set of resources represented in the data structure to the template so as to satisfy a set of component requirements to generate a deployment map, and provision the set of resources on a plurality of computers based on the deployment map to implement the application over the distributed computing network.

According to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention, a method for automated provisioning of software components in a distributed computing network includes obtaining a mapping of a set of resources to nodes of a first template, the first template having a plurality of nodes that follow a first predefined network topology for supporting a first deployment of the set of resources, obtaining a second template having a plurality of nodes that follow a second predefined network topology for supporting a second deployment of the set of resources, migrating the set of resources represented in the nodes of the first template to the nodes in the second template so as to satisfy a set of component requirements to generate a redeployment map, and provisioning the set of resources on a plurality of computers based on the deployment map to implement an application over the distributed computing network.

According to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention, a system for automated provisioning of software components in a distributed computing network includes a memory device for storing a program of instructions, a processor in communication with the memory device, the processor operative with the program of instructions to obtain a mapping of a set of resources to nodes of a first template, the first template having a plurality of nodes that follow a first predefined network topology for supporting a first deployment of a set of resources, obtain a second template having a plurality of nodes that follow a second predefined network topology for supporting a second deployment of the set of resources, migrate the set of resources represented in the nodes of first template to the nodes in the second template so as to satisfy a set of component requirements to generate a deployment map, and provision the set of resources on a plurality of computers based on the redeployment map to implement an application over the distributed computing network.

The present invention will become readily apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art when descriptions of exemplary embodiments thereof are read with reference to the accompanying drawings.

FIG. 1 depicts a pictorial representation of a network data processing system, which may be used to implement an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of a data processing system, which may be used to implement an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 depicts a schematic representation of a service delivery environment, which may be used to implement an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram illustrating an example of a multi-tier model, which may be used to implement an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.

• Provisional Patent
• Utility Patent

• What Is a Patent?
• What Is a Trademark or Servicemark?
• What Is a Copyright?
• Patent Laws