Autonomously healing microservice-based applications

• US 10,656,929 B2
• Filed: 03/15/2016
• Issued: 05/19/2020
• Est. Priority Date: 08/11/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Jamjoom, Hani T., Rajagopalan, Shriram
• Primary Examiner(s): Bullock, Jr., Lewis A
• Assistant Examiner(s): Huynh, Tina
• Application Number:
  US15/070,562
• Publication Number:
  US 20170046146A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,526 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3612 by runtime analysis performance monitoring G06F11/3466
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/62 Uninstallation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/65 Updates security arrangements therefor G06F21/57
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/71 Version control security arrangements therefor G06F21/57; Configuration management

Abstract

An embodiment includes a method for autonomous healing of an application comprising a plurality of microservices. The method comprises the steps of detecting a performance degradation of at least a portion of the application; and responsive to detecting the performance degradation, downgrading at least one of the plurality of microservices within the application. The downgrading comprises deploying a prior version of the at least one of the plurality of microservices; and routing at least a portion of traffic to the prior version instead of a current version of the at least one of the plurality of microservices.

Claims

1. A method for autonomous healing of an application comprising a plurality of microservices, comprising the steps of:

detecting a performance degradation of at least a portion of the application, wherein the application is deployed in a production environment, and wherein the application deployed in the production environment comprises respective current versions of the plurality of microservices;

responsive to detecting the performance degradation in the production environment, autonomically downgrading at least one of the plurality of microservices within the application, the downgrading comprising;

deploying a prior version of the at least one of the plurality of microservices in the production environment; and

routing at least a portion of traffic to the prior version instead of a current version of the at least one of the plurality of microservices in the production environment;

determining whether the prior version remedies the performance degradation;

if the prior version does not remedy the performance degradation;

deploying a different version of the at least one of the plurality of microservices, the different version being neither the prior version nor the current version of the at least one of the plurality of microservices; and

routing at least a portion of traffic to the different version instead of the prior version of the at least one of the plurality of microservices, wherein the prior version and the different version are determined by performing a binary search within a region bounded by the current version and a global restore point.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein, within the downgrading step:

the deploying comprises deploying a different version of the at least one of the plurality of microservices alongside the prior version and the current version; and

the routing comprises routing the first portion of the traffic to the prior version, the second portion of the traffic to the current version, and a third portion of the traffic to the different version.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the routing comprises version-aware routing of the first and second portions of the traffic through respective first and second chains of microservices.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the version-aware routing is performed without modifying the application.

5. The method of claim 3, wherein the version-aware routing comprises using a software defined network (SDN) substrate to uniquely identify both a particular one of the plurality of microservices and a specific version of the particular one of the plurality of microservices.

6. The method of claim 3, wherein the version-aware routing comprises using a combination of host address and port number to uniquely identify both a particular one of the plurality of microservices and a specific version of the particular one of the plurality of microservices.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the host address comprises a host Internet Protocol (IP) address and the port number comprises an edge-switch port number.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein downgrading at least one of the plurality of microservices within the application comprises downgrading at least two microservices comprising:

a first one of the plurality of the microservices; and

at least a second one of the plurality of the microservices;

wherein the at least second one of the plurality of microservices depends from the first one of the plurality of microservices.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein downgrading the at least two microservices comprises deploying a prior version of the second one of the plurality of microservices which is compatible with the prior version of the first one of the plurality of microservices.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein downgrading the at least two microservices comprises deploying a latest version of the second one of the plurality of microservices which is compatible with the prior version of the first one of the plurality of microservices.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the at least downgrading at least one of the plurality of microservices within the application comprises downgrading at least two microservices comprising:

a given one of the plurality of the microservices; and

each one of the plurality of the microservices which depends from the given one of the plurality of microservices.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein the prior version and the different version are both within the region bounded by the current version and the global restore point.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the prior version and the different version are determined by proceeding sequentially from the current version in reverse chronological order.

14. The method of claim 1,

further comprising, responsive to detecting the performance degradation, determining whether the performance degradation is caused by infrastructure rather than the application;

and

wherein the downgrading is only performed when the performance degradation is not caused by infrastructure rather than application.

15. The method of claim 1,

further comprising, responsive to detecting the performance degradation, determining whether the performance degradation is transient;

and

wherein the downgrading is only performed when the performance degradation is not transient.

16. The method of claim 1, wherein downgrading at least one of the plurality of microservices restores a previously-deployed configuration of the application comprising the prior version of the at least one of the plurality of microservices.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein the previously-deployed configuration of the application further comprises the current version of at least another one of the plurality of microservices.

18. An apparatus comprising:

a memory; and

at least one processor coupled with the memory and operative;

to detect a performance degradation of at least a portion of an application, wherein the application is deployed in a production environment, and wherein the application deployed in the production environment comprises respective current versions of a plurality of microservices;

responsive to detecting the performance degradation, to autonomically downgrade at least one of the plurality of microservices within the application, the downgrading comprising;

deploying a prior version of the at least one of the plurality of microservices in the production environment; and

routing at least a portion of traffic to the prior version instead of a current version of the at least one of the plurality of microservices in the production environment;

to determine whether the prior version remedies the performance degradation;

if the prior version does not remedy the performance degradation;

to deploy a different version of the at least one of the plurality of microservices, the different version being neither the prior version nor the current version of the at least one of the plurality of microservices; and

to route at least a portion of traffic to the different version instead of the prior version of the at least one of the plurality of microservices, wherein the prior version and the different version are determined by performing a binary search within the region bounded by the current version and a global restore point.

19. A computer program product comprising a non-transitory machine-readable storage medium having machine-readable program code embodied therewith, said machine-readable program code comprising:

machine-readable program code configured;

to detect a performance degradation of at least a portion of an application, wherein the application is deployed in a production environment, and wherein the application deployed in the production environment comprises respective current versions of a plurality of microservices;

responsive to detecting the performance degradation, to autonomically downgrade at least one of the plurality of microservices within the application, the downgrading comprising;

deploying a prior version of the at least one of the plurality of microservices in the production environment; and

routing at least a portion of traffic to the prior version instead of a current version of the at least one of the plurality of microservices in the production environment;

determining whether the prior version remedies the performance degradation;

if the prior version does not remedy the performance degradation;

deploying a different version of the at least one of the plurality of microservices, the different version being neither the prior version nor the current version of the at least one of the plurality of microservices; and

routing at least a portion of traffic to the different version instead of the prior version of the at least one of the plurality of microservices, wherein the prior version and the different version are determined by performing a binary search within the region bounded by the current version and a global restore point.