Discovery of remote storage services and associated applications

• US 10,491,692 B1
• Filed: 03/26/2019
• Issued: 11/26/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 01/18/2019
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: ServiceNow Incorporated
• Original Assignee: ServiceNow Incorporated
• Inventors: Feiguine, Alexandra, Aron, Aviya, Bitterfeld, Robert, Solomon, Bary, Biran, Noam, Tal, Hail
• Primary Examiner(s): Hussain, Tauqir
• Application Number:
  US16/365,404
• Time in Patent Office: 245 Days
• Field of Search: 709223
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/2358 Change logging, detection, and notification replication G06F16/27
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/4843 by program, e.g. task dispatcher, supervisor, operating system
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5016 the resource being the memory
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5072 Grid computing
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/025 for remote control or remote monitoring of applications
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1097 for distributed storage of data in networks, e.g. transport arrangements for network file system [NFS], storage area networks [SAN] or network attached storage [NAS]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/125 involving control of end-device applications over a network
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/51 Discovery or management thereof, e.g. service location protocol [SLP] or web services
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/53 using third party service providers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/56 Provisioning of proxy services store-and-forward switching systems in data switching networks H04L12/54

Abstract

A discovery application may obtain, from a remote storage system configured to host storage structures, first data that identifies relationships among the storage structures. The discovery application may generate, based on the first data, a mapping of the storage structures, store the mapping as one or more configuration items, and provide, to the remote storage system, instructions configured to cause the remote storage system to notify the discovery application of modification events associated with the storage structures. The discovery application may receive, from the remote storage system, a notification of a modification event associated with a particular storage structure of the storage structures and, in response, obtain, from the remote storage system, second data that identifies a modification to the particular storage structure. The discovery application may modify the mapping based on the second data and store the modified mapping by updating the one or more configuration items.

Claims

1. A computing system comprising:

a configuration management database (CMDB) containing one or more configuration items that represent storage structures hosted by a remote computing system, wherein each respective storage structure of the storage structures is replicated among two or more geographically-distributed server clusters of the remote computing system, wherein the one or more configuration items indicate, for each respective storage structure;

(i) a parent node representing the respective storage structure, and (ii) two or more child nodes representing the replication of the respective storage structure among the two or more geographically-distributed server clusters, wherein the parent node is connected to each of the two or more child nodes by respective edges; and

a software application configured to perform operations comprising;

providing, to the remote computing system, instructions configured to cause computing resources of the remote computing system to execute a software function that modifies a particular storage structure of the storage structures;

receiving, from the remote computing system, a notification that the particular storage structure has been modified;

in response to receiving the notification, obtaining, from the remote computing system, data that identifies a modification to the particular storage structure;

updating the one or more configuration items based on the data to indicate the modification to the particular storage structure; and

storing, in the CMDB, the one or more configuration items as updated.

2. The computing system of claim 1, wherein the software function modifies the particular storage structure by:

(i) creating the particular storage structure, (ii) deleting the particular storage structure, (iii) modifying data stored in the particular storage structure, or (iv) associating the particular storage structure with another software function executable using the computing resources of the remote computing system.

3. The computing system of claim 1, wherein providing the instructions configured to cause the computing resources of the remote computing system to execute the software function comprises:

generating a hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) request that invokes execution of the software function by way of an application programming interface (API); and

transmitting the HTTP request to a uniform resource locator (URL) associated with the API.

4. The computing system of claim 1, wherein the remote computing system includes a database system, and wherein the storage structures comprise one or more of:

(i) database tables of the database system organized by rows, (ii) database tables of the database system organized by columns, (iii) key-value pairs stored in the database system, (iv) documents stored in the database system, or (v) graph structures stored in the database system and comprising nodes connected by edges.

5. The computing system of claim 1, wherein the remote computing system comprises a file storage system, and wherein the storage structures comprise containers configured to store therein data as one or more objects, wherein each object is addressable by a key value associated therewith.

6. The computing system of claim 1, wherein the remote computing system is configured to generate operational records that identify operations carried out on the storage structures, and wherein obtaining data that identifies the modification to the particular storage structure comprises:

transmitting, to the remote computing system, a request for a subset of the operational records associated with the particular storage structure; and

receiving, from the remote computing system, the subset of the operational records.

7. The computing system of claim 1, wherein the one or more configuration items also represent a mapping between:

(i) the storage structures, and (ii) one or more software functions executable by the remote computing system.

8. The computing system of claim 7, wherein the mapping is between:

(i) the particular storage structure, and (ii) the software function that modifies the particular storage structure.

9. The computing system of claim 7, wherein the mapping indicates, for a respective storage structures of the storage structures hosted by the remote computing system, that:

(i) the respective storage structure is used by a corresponding software function of the one or more software functions, or (ii) a modification to the respective storage structure triggers execution of the corresponding software function.

10. The computing system of claim 7, wherein the computing resources are assigned to execute the one or more software functions based on demand for execution thereof.

11. The computing system of claim 1, wherein the operations further comprise:

generating a uniform resource locator (URL) that addresses the software application and to which the remote computing system is to provide notifications of events occurring on the remote computing system, wherein the notification is received by the software application in response to a transmission from the remote computing system addressed to the URL.

12. The computing system of claim 1, wherein the operations further comprise:

determining an entry point for the remote computing system;

obtaining, from the remote computing system and by way of the entry point, additional data that represents attributes of the storage structures;

generating, based on the additional data, the one or more configuration items to represent the storage structures and the attributes thereof; and

storing, in the CMDB, the one or more configuration items.

13. The computing system of claim 12, wherein the entry point for the remote computing system comprises an identifier of one or more host computing devices associated with the storage structures and one or more resource names assigned to the storage structures.

14. A computer-implemented method comprising:

providing, by a software application and to a remote computing system, instructions configured to cause computing resources of the remote computing system to execute a software function that modifies a particular storage structure of storage structures hosted by the remote computing system, wherein the storage structures are represented by one or more configuration items stored in a configuration management database (CMDB), wherein each respective storage structure of the storage structures is replicated among two or more geographically-distributed server clusters of the remote computing system, wherein the one or more configuration items indicate, for each respective storage structure;

(i) a parent node representing the respective storage structure, and (ii) two or more child nodes representing the replication of the respective storage structure among the two or more geographically-distributed server clusters, wherein the parent node is connected to each of the two or more child nodes by respective edges;

receiving, by the software application and from the remote computing system, a notification that the particular storage structure has been modified;

in response to receiving the notification, obtaining, by the software application and from the remote computing system, data that identifies a modification to the particular storage structure;

updating, by the software application, the one or more configuration items based on the data to indicate the modification to the particular storage structure; and

storing, in the CMDB, the one or more configuration items as updated.

15. The computer-implemented method of claim 14, wherein the software function modifies the particular storage structure by:

(i) creating the particular storage structure, (ii) deleting the particular storage structure, (iii) modifying data stored in the particular storage structure, or (iv) associating the particular storage structure with another software function executable using the computing resources of the remote computing system.

16. The computer-implemented method of claim 14, wherein providing the instructions configured to cause the computing resources of the remote computing system to execute the software function comprises:

generating a hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) request that invokes execution of the software function by way of an application programming interface (API); and

transmitting the HTTP request to a uniform resource locator (URL) associated with the API.

17. The computer-implemented method of claim 14, further comprising:

generating a uniform resource locator (URL) that addresses the software application and to which the remote computing system is to provide notifications of events occurring on the remote computing system, wherein the notification is received by the software application in response to a transmission from the remote computing system addressed to the URL.

18. An article of manufacture including a non-transitory computer-readable medium, having stored thereon program instructions that, upon execution by a computing system, cause the computing system to perform operations comprising:

providing, to a remote computing system, instructions configured to cause computing resources of the remote computing system to execute a software function that modifies a particular storage structure of storage structures hosted by the remote computing system, wherein the storage structures are represented by one or more configuration items stored in a configuration management database (CMDB), wherein each respective storage structure of the storage structures is replicated among two or more geographically-distributed server clusters of the remote computing system, wherein the one or more configuration items indicate, for each respective storage structure;

(i) a parent node representing the respective storage structure, and (ii) two or more child nodes representing the replication of the respective storage structure among the two or more geographically-distributed server clusters, wherein the parent node is connected to each of the two or more child nodes by respective edges;

receiving, from the remote computing system, a notification that the particular storage structure has been modified;

in response to receiving the notification, obtaining, from the remote computing system, data that identifies a modification to the particular storage structure;

updating the one or more configuration items based on the data to indicate the modification to the particular storage structure; and

storing, in the CMDB, the one or more configuration items as updated.