Software container activation and throttling

• US 10,389,697 B1
• Filed: 09/26/2014
• Issued: 08/20/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 08/27/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc. (Amazon.com, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc. (Amazon.com, Inc.)
• Inventors: Kulkarni, Vijay Ravindra, Beranek, Kevin Michael, Christopher, Keian, Hasz, Chris, Moniz, Samuel Leonard, Peterson, Kyle Bradley, Varangaonkar, Ajit Ashok, Xu, Jun
• Primary Examiner(s): Rashid, Harunur
• Assistant Examiner(s): Taylor, Sakinah
• Application Number:
  US14/498,862
• Time in Patent Office: 1,789 Days
• Field of Search: 726 4
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/08 for authentication of entities cryptographic mechanisms or cryptographic arrangements for entity authentication H04L9/32
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/02 based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/30 Profiles
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 12/08 Access security

Abstract

Technologies are described herein for managing the activation of software containers, for throttling of requests directed to tenants executing in a software container, and for priming the execution of software containers. The activation of software containers and tenants may be managed by maintaining an activation queue for storing requests to activate software containers or tenants on a host computer. Requests may be retrieved from the queue and utilized to determine whether a software container or a tenant is to be activated on a host. “Bounce” or hot swap tenant activations may be performed. Tenant activation requests might also be throttled by denying the requests or by postponing the requests until a later time. A software container might also be configured to throttle incoming requests to tenants executing therein. The execution of a software container might also be primed by replaying previously recorded network traffic to the software container.

Claims

1. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium having computer-executable instructions stored thereupon which, when executed by a computer, cause the computer to:

receive a first request from a tenant to activate the tenant in a software container, the tenant comprising an application executable in the software container;

determine that the first request indicates that, prior to activating the tenant in the first software container, execution of the software container is to be terminated, and then the execution of the software container is to be restarted;

transmit a second request to an authorization system to inquire whether the tenant is authorized to request an activation that includes a restart of the software container;

receive, from the authorization system, a response indicating that the tenant is so authorized to request the activation; and

based at least in part on determining that the tenant is authorized to request the activation;

terminate the execution of the software container;

restart the execution of the software container;

activate the tenant in the software container; and

prime the execution of the software container by replaying previously recorded network traffic to the software container following restarting the execution of the software container.

2. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 1, having further computer-executable instructions stored thereupon to, after the tenant has been activated in the software container:

determine that the tenant is experiencing an operational issue;

terminate the execution of the software container;

restart the execution of the software container; and

activate the tenant in the software container.

3. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 1, having further computer-executable instructions stored thereupon to:

expose an application programming interface (API) for receiving a third request to activate the tenant in the software container by restarting the execution of the software container and activating the tenant therein;

receive the third request by way of the API; and

in response to receiving the third request by the API,

terminate the execution of the first software container,

restart the execution of the first software container, and

activate the tenant in the first software container.

4. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 1, having further computer-executable instructions stored thereupon to:

determine to throttle incoming requests for at least one tenant of a plurality of tenants of the software container; and

throttle the incoming requests by rejecting at least a portion of the incoming requests for the at least one tenant.

5. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 1, having further computer-executable instructions stored thereupon to:

determine to throttle incoming requests for at least one tenant of a plurality of tenants of the software container; and

throttle the incoming requests by queueing at least a portion of the incoming requests for the at least one tenant for processing at a future time.

6. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 1, having further computer-executable instructions stored thereupon to:

receive a request to throttle incoming requests for one or more tenants of a plurality of tenants of the software container; and

throttle the incoming requests for the one or more tenants by denying or queueing at least a portion of the incoming requests for the one or more tenants.

7. A computer for activation of tenant in a software container on the computer, the computer comprising:

a processor; and

a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium having computer-executable instructions stored thereupon which, when executed by the processor, cause the computer to;

receive a first request from a tenant to activate the tenant in a software container, the tenant being executable in the software container;

determine whether the tenant is authorized to request an activation that includes a restart of the software container;

based at least in part on a first determination that the tenant is authorized to request the activation;

terminate the execution of the software container;

restart the execution of the software container;

activate the tenant in the software container; and

prime the execution of the software container by replaying previously recorded network traffic to the software container following restarting the execution of the software container;

or

based at least in part on a second determination that the tenant is not se authorized to request the activation;

activate the tenant in the software container without terminating and restarting the execution of the software container.

8. The computer of claim 7, wherein the non-transitory computer-readable storage medium has further computer-executable instructions stored thereupon to cause the computer to determine whether the tenant is authorized to request the activation that includes the restart of the software container by:

transmitting a second request to an authorization system to inquire whether the tenant is authorized to request the activation; and

receiving, from the authorization system, a response either indicating that the tenant is authorized to request the activation or indicating that the tenant is not authorized to request the activation.

9. The computer of claim 7, wherein terminating the execution of the software container comprises:

completing one or more processes associated with one or more other tenants executing on the software container; and

terminating the execution of the software container after completion of the one or more processes.

10. The computer of claim 7, wherein the non-transitory computer-readable storage medium has further computer-executable instructions stored thereupon to cause the computer to:

execute the software container in a process on the computer, the software container configured to execute one or more tenants in the process, the tenant being one of the one or more tenants in the process;

obtain operational health information by way of the software container;

determine at the software container to throttle incoming requests for at least one of the one or more tenants based, at least in part, on the operational health information; and

throttle at least a portion the incoming requests for at least one of the one or more tenants by way of the software container.

11. The computer of claim 10, wherein the operational health information comprises operational health information for the at least one tenant.

12. The computer of claim 10, wherein the operational health information comprises operational health information for the software container.

13. The computer of claim 10, wherein the operational health information comprises operational health information for the computer.

14. The computer of claim 7, wherein the non-transitory computer-readable storage medium has further computer-executable instructions stored thereupon to cause the computer to:

determine at the software container to throttle incoming requests for at least one tenant of a plurality of tenants, the tenant being one of the plurality of tenants;

throttle at least a portion of the incoming requests for the at least one tenant by way of the software container by routing at least a portion of the incoming requests to another tenant.

15. The computer of claim 7, wherein the non-transitory computer-readable storage medium has further computer-executable instructions stored thereupon to cause the computer to:

determine at the software container to throttle incoming requests for at least one tenant of a plurality of tenants, the tenant being one of the plurality of tenants; and

throttle at least a portion of the incoming requests for the at least one tenant by way of the software container by instructing a load balancer to route at least a portion of the incoming requests to another tenant.

16. A computer-implemented method for activating a tenant in a software container, comprising:

receiving a first request from the tenant to activate the tenant in the software container, wherein the first request indicates that, prior to activating the tenant in the software container, execution of the software container is to be terminated, and then the execution of the software container is to be restarted;

in response to receiving the first request, transmitting a second request to an authorization system to inquire whether the tenant is authorized to request an activation that includes a restart of the software container;

in response to transmitting the second request, receiving, from the authorization system, a first response;

based at least in part on a first determination that the first response indicates that the tenant is not authorized to request activation that includes the restart of the software container then;

refrain from terminating the execution of the software container, and

activating the tenant in the software container without terminating and

restarting the execution of the software container;

or

based at least in part on a second determination that the first response indicates that the tenant is authorized to request the activation that includes the restart of the software container then;

terminating the execution of the software container;

restarting the execution of the software container;

priming the execution of the software container by replaying previously recorded network traffic to the software container following restarting the execution of the second software container; and

activating the tenant in the software container.

17. The computer-implemented method of claim 16, further comprising:

in response to receiving the first request, determining whether the software container is to be restarted prior to activating the tenant in the software container based upon the first request.

18. The computer-implemented method of claim 16, wherein activating the tenant comprises:

performing a hot swap activation of the tenant in the software container.

19. The computer-implemented method of claim 16, wherein the first response indicates that the tenant is not se-authorized to request the authorization, and the first response is based at least in part upon operational health information associated with the software container, a host computer executing the software container, or one or more other software containers or host computers.

20. The computer-implemented method of claim 16 and, subsequent to activating the tenant in the software container, further comprising:

determining to throttle incoming requests for the tenant; and

throttling the incoming requests by at least one of;

rejecting at least a portion of the incoming requests, or queueing at least a portion of the incoming requests for processing at a future time.

21. The computer-implemented method of claim 16, and further comprising:

determine that incoming requests to activate tenants in the software container are to be throttled; and

deny an activation request or postpone the processing of an incoming activation request for a tenant in the software container.