Method and system for establishing a deployment plan for an application

• US 20060080413A1
• Filed: 06/17/2004
• Published: 04/13/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 06/17/2004
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Oprea, Andrei, Peteanu, Razvan C.
• Application Number:
  US10/870,227
• Publication Number:
  US 20060080413A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/220
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/61 Installation

Abstract

A method and system for establishing a deployment plan for an application. The deployment plan represents the dependencies between the application'"'"'s elements and the physical and networking components of a deployment and provides a framework for the steps to be taken in order to realize the application deployment within a system for managing the deployment of the application. The deployment plan can be established using as input a user provided logical application structure for an application to be deployed and a chosen application deployment template comprising a logical deployment template and a network topology template.

Claims

1. A system for establishing a deployment plan comprising logical configuration requirements for the deployment of an application, the system receiving a logical application structure defining logical elements of the application, a logical deployment template defining nodes for supporting deployment of the logical elements and a network topology template defining configuration elements for resolving dependencies between the nodes, the system comprising:

an application mapping mechanism for mapping the logical elements identified in the logical application structure onto the nodes defined in the logical deployment template;

a pool identification mechanism for identifying hardware resources associated with a node that have the same configuration requirements to form a pool;

a logical deployment mechanism for generating a logical deployment that captures configuration requirements for each of the nodes including a network connection configuration;

a networking requirements mechanism for resolving the network connection configuration requirements in the logical deployment using the network topology template;

a plan mechanism for generating the deployment plan comprising configuration requirements for each of the nodes and network connections between the nodes; and

a server deployment mechanism for generating a server template that contains the configuration requirements for the hardware resources in a pool, the server template for the pool being included in the deployment plan.

2. The system of claim 1, said deployment plan comprising:

an identification of software components;

a logical structure associating said software components with said nodes; and

configuration elements.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein said deployment plan is an extensible markup language (XML) structure.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein said logical application structure is specific to the application.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein said logical deployment template is derived from a logical deployment characteristic set that is non-application specific.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein said network topology template is derived from a network characteristic set that is non-application specific.

7. A method for establishing a deployment plan comprising logical configuration requirements for the deployment of an application comprising steps for:

a) obtaining a logical application structure defining logical elements of the application, a logical deployment template defining nodes for supporting deployment of the logical elements and a network topology template defining configuration elements for resolving dependencies between the nodes;

b) mapping the logical elements identified in the logical application structure onto the nodes defined in the logical deployment template;

c) identifying hardware resources associated with a node that have the same configuration requirements and generating a server template that comprising the configuration requirements for the identified hardware resources;

d) generating a logical deployment that captures the configuration requirements for each of the nodes including a network connection configuration;

e) resolving the network connection configuration requirements in the logical deployment using the network topology template; and

f) generating the deployment plan containing configuration requirements for each of the nodes and network connections between the nodes and the server template.

8. The method of claim 7, said deployment plan comprising:

an identification of software components;

a logical structure associating said software components with said nodes; and

configuration elements.

9. The method of claim 7, wherein said deployment plan is an extensible markup language (XML) structure.

10. The method of claim 7, wherein said logical application structure is specific to the application.

11. The method of claim 7, wherein said logical deployment template is derived from a logical deployment characteristic set that is non-application specific.

12. The method of claim 7, wherein said network topology template is derived from a network characteristic set that is non-application specific.

13. A computer program product for establishing a deployment plan comprising logical configuration requirements for the deployment of an application, the computer program product comprising:

computer readable program code devices for;

a) obtaining a logical application structure defining logical elements of the application, a logical deployment template defining nodes for supporting deployment of the logical elements and a network topology template defining configuration elements for resolving dependencies between the nodes;

b) mapping the application elements identified in the logical application structure onto the nodes defined in the logical deployment template;

c) identifying hardware resources associated with a node that have the same configuration requirements and generating a server template comprising the configuration requirements for the identified hardware resources;

d) generating a logical deployment that captures the configuration requirements for each of the nodes including a network connection configuration;

e) resolving the network connection configuration requirements in the logical deployment using the network topology template; and

f) generating the deployment plan containing configuration requirements for each of the nodes and network connections between the nodes.

14. The computer program product of claim 13, said deployment plan comprising:

an identification of software components;

a logical structure associating said software components with said nodes; and

configuration elements.

15. The computer program product of claim 13, wherein said deployment plan is an extensible markup language (XML) structure.

16. The computer program product of claim 13, wherein said logical application structure is specific to the application.

17. The computer program product of claim 13, wherein said logical deployment template is derived from a logical deployment characteristic set that is non-application specific.

18. The computer program product of claim 13, wherein said network topology template is derived from a network characteristic set that is non-application specific.