Method and system for communication between a management-server and remote host systems

• US 10,225,142 B2
• Filed: 06/30/2015
• Issued: 03/05/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 06/30/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Vmware LLC (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: VMware, Inc. (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Inventors: Strandzhev, Ivaylo Petkov, Grigorov, Danail, Alexandrov, Asen, Dragoev, Ilko
• Primary Examiner(s): Hussain, Tauqir
• Application Number:
  US14/788,157
• Publication Number:
  US 20170005861A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,344 Days
• Field of Search: 709219
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0813 characterised by the conditions triggering a change of settings
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0856 by backing up or archiving configuration information
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0889 Techniques to speed-up the configuration process
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/56 Provisioning of proxy services store-and-forward switching systems in data switching networks H04L12/54

Abstract

The current document is directed to methods and systems for exchange of information between management servers and remote host systems managed by the management server. In disclosed implementations, a local proxy server associated with the management server and a remote proxy server associated with the remote host systems both locally store configuration data for the host systems and exchange configuration differences through a wide area network in order to synchronize the stored configuration data between the proxy servers. Requests generated by the management server for host configuration data are satisfied by the local proxy server and configuration-data synchronization efficiently employs exchanges of configuration-data differences, rather than repeated transmission of all or large portions of the configuration data.

Claims

1. A logical communications bridge comprising:

a local proxy server that includes one or more processors, one or more memories, and a communications agent that exchanges messages with a management server through a first local area network and that exchanges messages through a wide area network with a remote proxy server;

the remote proxy server that includes one or more processors, one or more memories, a communications agent that exchanges messages with one or more remote host systems through a second local area network and that exchanges messages through a wide area network with the local proxy server; and

bridge adapters in the local proxy server and the remote proxy server that intercommunicate using a bridge protocol that compresses message contents with respect to the native-protocol encodings of the message contents and that each locally stores configuration data for the one or more remote host systems, the remote bridge adapter in the remote proxy server periodically, for each of the one or more remote host systems

obtaining configuration data for the remote host system,

computing a configuration differential that encodes differences between the obtained configuration data for the remote host system and the configuration data locally stored by the remote bridge adapter for the remote host system, and

transmitting the configuration differential to the local proxy server, the local proxy server using the configuration differential to update the configuration data locally stored by the local proxy server for the remote host system.

2. The logical communications bridge of claim 1 wherein the local proxy server receives messages directed by the management server to the one or more remote host systems and transmits the messages through the wide area network to the remote proxy server, which forwards the messages to the one or more remote host systems.

3. The logical communications bridge of claim 1 wherein the local and remote proxy servers are modified host-gateway appliances developed to connect a management server to one or more non-native host systems over a local area network.

4. The logical communications bridge of claim 1 wherein the local proxy server periodically requests a configuration differential for each remote host system.

5. The logical communications bridge of claim 1 wherein the remote proxy server periodically asynchronously transmits a configuration differential to the local proxy server for each remote host system.

6. The logical communications bridge of claim 1 wherein the local proxy server uses locally stored configuration data for a remote host system to return configuration data requested for the remote host system by the management server.

7. The logical communications bridge of claim 1 wherein the local proxy server and remote proxy server communicate with one another using one or more of:

binary-encoded information;

textually-encoded information.

8. The logical communications bridge of claim 1 further including, when communications messages are sent from the management server to the one or more host systems and from the one or more host systems to the management server, translating the contents of the communications messages from a native protocol to the bridge protocol by the transmitting bridge adapter and translating the contents of the communications messages from the bridge protocol to the native protocol by the receiving bridge adapter.

9. The logical communications bridge of claim 1 wherein a configuration differential for a single remote host system in packaged into a wide-area-network message by the remote proxy server for transmission to the local proxy server.

10. The logical communications bridge of claim 1 wherein configuration differentials for two or more remote host systems are packaged into a wide-area-network message by the remote proxy server for transmission to the local proxy server.

11. A distributed computing system comprising:

one or more remote host systems;

a management server that manages the one or more remote host systems by exchanging commands and data with the one or more remote host systems;

a local proxy server that includes one or more processors, one or more memories, and a communications agent that exchanges messages with the management server through a first type of electronic communications; and

a remote proxy server that includes one or more processors, one or more memories, a communications agent that exchanges messages with one or more remote host systems through a second type of electronic communications and that exchanges messages with the local proxy server through a third type of electronic communications accessed through bridge adapters in the local and remote proxy servers that employ a bridge protocol that compresses message contents with respect to the native-protocol encodings of the message contents, the remote proxy server periodically, for each of the one or more remote host systems

obtaining configuration data for the host system,

computing a configuration differential that encodes differences between the obtained configuration data for the host system and the configuration data locally stored by the remote bridge adapter for the remote host system, and

transmitting the configuration differential to the local proxy server.

12. The distributed computing system of claim 11 wherein the local proxy server receives messages directed by the management server to the one or more remote host systems and transmits the messages through the third type of electronic communications to the remote proxy server, which forwards the messages to the one or more remote host systems.

13. The distributed computing system of claim 11 wherein the local proxy server receives configuration differentials from the remote proxy server and uses each received configuration differential to update locally stored configuration for a corresponding remote host system.

14. The distributed computing system of claim 13 wherein the local proxy server periodically requests a configuration differential for each remote host system.

15. The distributed computing system of claim 13 wherein the remote proxy server periodically asynchronously transmits a configuration differential to the local proxy server for each remote host system.

16. The distributed computing system of claim 13 wherein the local proxy server uses locally stored configuration data for a remote host system to return configuration data requested for the remote host system by the management server.

17. The distributed computing system of claim 11 further including, when communications messages are sent from the management server to the one or more host systems and from the one or more host systems to the management server, translating the contents of the communications messages from a native protocol to the bridge protocol by the transmitting bridge adapter and translating the contents of the communications messages from the bridge protocol to the native protocol by the receiving bridge adapter.

18. The distributed computing system of claim 11 wherein the third type of electronic communications having a lower data-transfer rate and a narrower communications bandwidth than the first and second types of electronic communications.

19. A method for interconnecting a management server with one or more remote host systems through a wide area network, the method comprising:

connecting the management server to a local proxy server through a first local area network, the local proxy server storing a data representation of the configuration of each of the one or more remote host systems;

connecting the one or more remote host systems through a second local area network to a remote proxy server, the local proxy server storing a data representation of the configuration of each of the one or more remote host systems;

connecting the local and remote proxy servers by a wide area network accessed through bridge adapters in the local and remote proxy servers that employ a bridge protocol that compresses message contents with respect to the native-protocol encodings of the message contents;

using the locally stored data representation of the configuration of each of the one or more remote host systems by the local proxy server to return configuration data for the remote host systems requested by the management server to the management server; and

transmitting commands to, and reviving responses from, the one or more remote host systems by the management server through the first and second local area networks, the local proxy server and the remote proxy server, and the wide area network.

20. The method of claim 19 wherein the remote proxy server, for each of the one or more remote host systems, periodically:

obtains configuration data for the remote host system,

prepares a configuration differential that encodes differences between the obtained configuration data for the remote host system and the configuration data locally stored by the remote proxy server for the remote host system, and

transmits the configuration differential to the local proxy server.

21. The method of claim 20 wherein the local proxy server processes each received configuration differential by using the configuration differential to update the data representation for the configuration of a corresponding remote host system stored locally within the local proxy server.

22. The method of claim 20 wherein the local proxy server periodically requests a configuration differential for each remote host computer.

23. The method of claim 19 further including, when communications messages are sent from the management server to the one or more host systems and from the one or more host systems to the management server, translating the contents of the communications messages from a native protocol to the bridge protocol by the transmitting proxy server and translating the contents of the communications messages from the bridge protocol to the native protocol by the receiving proxy server.