Discovery of remote storage services and associated applications

• US 10,673,963 B1
• Filed: 01/18/2019
• Issued: 06/02/2020
• 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:
  US16/251,701
• Time in Patent Office: 501 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) disposed within a computational instance of a remote network management platform, wherein the computational instance is associated with a managed network, and wherein a remote storage system is configured to host storage structures on behalf of the managed network; and

a discovery application configured to perform operations comprising;

determining an entry point for the remote storage system;

obtaining, from the remote storage system and by way of the entry point, first data that identifies relationships among the storage structures;

generating, based on the first data, a mapping of the storage structures;

storing, in the CMDB, the mapping as one or more configuration items;

providing, 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;

receiving, from the remote storage system, a notification of a modification event associated with a particular storage structure of the storage structures;

in response to receiving the notification, obtaining, from the remote storage system and by way of the entry point, second data that identifies a modification to the particular storage structure;

modifying the mapping based on the second data to indicate the modification to the particular storage structure; and

storing the modified mapping in the CMDB by updating the one or more configuration items.

2. The computing system of claim 1, wherein each respective storage structure of the storage structures is replicated among two or more geographically-distributed server clusters, wherein the first data indicates, for each respective storage structure, the two or more geographically-distributed server clusters, and wherein generating the mapping comprises:

generating, 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.

3. The computing system of claim 1, wherein the first data further identifies relationships between (i) the storage structures and (ii) software functions executable using computing resources provided by the remote storage system in response to one or more trigger events associated with the storage structures.

4. The computing system of claim 3, wherein the computing resources are assigned to execute the software functions based on demand for execution thereof.

5. The computing system of claim 3, wherein the one or more trigger events comprise the modification events.

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

generating the instructions configured to cause the remote storage system to notify the discovery application of modification events associated with the storage structures by generating a uniform resource locator (URL) that addresses the discovery application, wherein the remote storage system is configured to provide notifications of the modification events to the URL.

7. The computing system of claim 1, wherein the remote storage system is configured to generate operational records that identify operations carried out on the storage structures, and wherein the modification events comprise a subset of the operations that performs at least one of (i) changing data stored by the storage structures, (ii) generating a new storage structure, (iii) deleting one of the storage structures, or (iv) associating one or more of the storage structures with a software function executable using computing resources provided by the remote storage system in response to one or more trigger events associated with the one or more of the storage structures.

8. The computing system of claim 1, wherein the entry point for the remote storage system comprises an identifier of one or more host computing devices associated with the storage structures and a resource name assigned to the storage structures.

9. The computing system of claim 1, wherein the remote storage system comprises a database system, and wherein the storage structures comprise one or more of (i) database tables organized by rows, (ii) database tables organized by columns, (iii) key-value pairs, (iv) documents, or (v) graph structures comprising nodes connected by edges.

10. The computing system of claim 1, wherein the remote storage 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.

11. The computing system of claim 1, wherein the first data further identifies, for each respective storage structure of the storage structures, a plurality of attributes associated with the respective storage structure, wherein the second data further identifies a change in one or more attributes of the plurality of attributes of the particular storage structure, and wherein the mapping is modified based on the second data to indicate the change in the one or more attributes of the particular storage structure.

12. A method comprising:

determining, by a discovery application, an entry point for a remote storage system configured to host storage structures on behalf of a managed network;

obtaining, by the discovery application, from the remote storage system, and by way of the entry point, first data that identifies relationships among the storage structures;

generating, by the discovery application and based on the first data, a mapping of the storage structures;

storing, in a configuration management database (CMDB) disposed within a computational instance of a remote network management platform, the mapping as one or more configuration items, wherein the computational instance is associated with the managed network;

providing, by the discovery application and 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;

receiving, by the discovery application and from the remote storage system, a notification of a modification event associated with a particular storage structure of the storage structures;

in response to receiving the notification, obtaining, by the discovery application, from the remote storage system, and by way of the entry point, second data that identifies a modification to the particular storage structure;

modifying, by the discovery application, the mapping based on the second data to indicate the modification to the particular storage structure; and

storing the modified mapping in the CMDB by updating the one or more configuration items.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein each respective storage structure of the storage structures is replicated among two or more geographically-distributed server clusters, wherein the first data indicates, for each respective storage structure, the two or more geographically-distributed server clusters, and wherein generating the mapping comprises:

generating, 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.

14. The method of claim 12, wherein the first data further identifies relationships between (i) the storage structures and (ii) software functions executable using computing resources provided by the remote storage system in response to one or more trigger events associated with the storage structures.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein the computing resources are assigned to execute the software functions based on demand for execution thereof.

16. The method of claim 14, wherein the one or more trigger events comprise the modification events.

17. 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:

determining an entry point for a remote storage system configured to host storage structures on behalf of a managed network;

obtaining, from the remote storage system and by way of the entry point, first data that identifies relationships among the storage structures;

generating, based on the first data, a mapping of the storage structures;

storing, in a configuration management database (CMDB) disposed within a computational instance of a remote network management platform, the mapping as one or more configuration items, wherein the computational instance is associated with the managed network;

providing, to the remote storage system, instructions configured to cause the remote storage system to notify the computing system of modification events associated with the storage structures;

receiving, from the remote storage system, a notification of a modification event associated with a particular storage structure of the storage structures;

in response to receiving the notification, obtaining, from the remote storage system and by way of the entry point, second data that identifies a modification to the particular storage structure;

modifying the mapping based on the second data to indicate the modification to the particular storage structure; and

storing the modified mapping in the CMDB by updating the one or more configuration items.

18. The article of manufacture of claim 17, wherein each respective storage structure of the storage structures is replicated among two or more geographically-distributed server clusters, wherein the first data indicates, for each respective storage structure, the two or more geographically-distributed server clusters, and wherein generating the mapping comprises:

generating, 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.

19. The article of manufacture of claim 17, wherein the first data further identifies relationships between (i) the storage structures and (ii) software functions executable using computing resources provided by the remote storage system in response to one or more trigger events associated with the storage structures.

20. The article of manufacture of claim 19, wherein the one or more trigger events comprise the modification events.