Application governor providing application-level autonomic control within a distributed computing system

• US 20060173984A1
• Filed: 07/28/2005
• Published: 08/03/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 01/31/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Computer Associates Think Inc. (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Cassatt (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Inventors: Jackson, Jerry R., Emeis, Mark W.
• Granted Patent: US 7,478,097 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/223
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2209/505 Clust
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5072 Grid computing
• CPC Class Codes: G06N 5/046 Forward inferencing; Production systems

Abstract

A distributed computing system conforms to a multi-level, hierarchical organizational model. One or more control nodes provide for the efficient and automated allocation and management of computing functions and resources within the distributed computing system in accordance with the organization model. A user, such as a system administrator, interacts with the control nodes to logically define the hierarchical organization of distributed computing system. The control node includes an automation subsystem having one or more rule engines that provide autonomic control of the application nodes in accordance with a set of one or more rules. A pluggable, application-specific application governor is selected and installed within the control node to provide an application-independent interface through which the rule engines interact to control the deployment, execution and monitoring of the applications within the distributed computing system.

Claims

1. A distributed computing system comprising:

a plurality of application nodes interconnected via a communications network; and

a control node comprising;

an automation subsystem having one or more rule engines that provide autonomic control of the deployment, undeployment, start of execution, and termination of execution of a set of applications to the application nodes in accordance with a set of one or more rules; and

an application governor that performs actions with respect to the applications in response to action requests from the rules engine.

2. The distributed computing system of claim 1, wherein the rules engines comprises:

a first rules engine that applies a set of application-specific rules to produce action requests to the application governor to control deployment of the applications.

a second rules engine that is application neutral, where the second rules engine applies a set of application-independent rules to produce action requests to control the application nodes.

3. The distributed computing system of claim 1, further comprising:

a monitoring subsystem that collects the status data from the application nodes and communicates the status data to the automation subsystem, wherein the status data represents an actual state for the application nodes,

wherein at least one of the rules engines analyze the status data from the monitoring subsystem and applies the set of rules to produce the action requests to the application governor to control deployment of the applications.

4. The distributed computing system of claim 1, wherein in response to the action requests the application governor performs a set of operations that deploy, undeploy, start, or stop the applications.

5. The distributed computing system of claim 4, wherein the application governor contains operations to start or stop execution of the applications on one or more of the application nodes.

6. The distributed computing system of claim 4, wherein at least one of the rules engines invokes operations in the application governor to automatically control the deployment and execution of at least one of the applications when a set of preconditions trigger one of the rules.

7. The distributed computing system of claim 1,

wherein the application governor is a pluggable module that is specified to the set of applications, and

wherein the control node provides a framework to receive any of a plurality of pluggable application governors that can be installed and removed from the control node to provide autonomic control over different groups of applications within the distributed computing system.

8. The distributed computing system of claim 1, wherein the application governor accesses an application matrix that contains a logical definition of the applications.

9. The distributed computing system of claim 7, wherein the application matrix includes parameters for controlling the deploying of the applications within the distributed computing system.

10. The distributed computing system of claim 7,

wherein the automation subsystem accesses the application matrix and automatically updates the rule engines to autonomically control the deployment of the applications to the application nodes.

11. The distributed computing system of claim 10, wherein the automation subsystem accesses the application matrix and automatically updates the rule engines to monitor the execution of the applications when deployed to the application nodes.

12. The distributed computing system of claim 8, wherein the application matrix includes deployment constraints that define criteria for use by the rules engine when selecting a set of the application nodes to which to deploy the applications.

13. The distributed computing system of claim 11, wherein the application matrix includes elements that set a desired minimum or maximum numbers of the application nodes onto which the control node may deploy the application.

14. The distributed computing system of claim 1, wherein the rule engines are forward-chaining rule engines.

15. The distributed computing system of claim 1, wherein the automation subsystem includes a rule compiler that compiles the rules into one or more discrimination networks.

16. The distributed computing system of claim 1, wherein the control node further comprises:

a monitoring subsystem that collects the status data from the application nodes and communicates the status data to the automation subsystem, wherein the status data represents an actual state for the application nodes; and

a business logic tier that provides expected state data to the automation subsystem, wherein the expected state data represents an expected state for the application nodes,

wherein the rule engines analyze the status data from the monitoring subsystem and applies the set of rules to produce action requests to the business logic tier to control the application nodes to reduce any difference between the actual state and the expected state.

17. The distributed computing system of claim 16, wherein the monitoring subsystem comprises a set of modular information collectors that collect the status data from the application nodes.

18. The distributed computing system of claim 16, wherein the application nodes are organized into tiers, and wherein each of the information collectors collects the status data from the application nodes of different tiers.

19. The distributed computing system of claim 16, wherein the automation unit registers collection requests with the monitoring subsystem, and the monitoring subsystem includes a monitoring engine that invokes the collectors in response to the collection requests.

20. The distributed computing system of claim 16, wherein the business logic tier presents interfaces by which a user defines one or more goals for the expected state of the application nodes.

21. The distributed computing system of claim 1, wherein the rules are units of code that conform to a rule language.

22. The distributed computing system of claim 1, further comprising:

a database storing data that defines a model for a hierarchical organization of the distributed computing system, wherein the model specifies a fabric having a one or more domains, and wherein each domain has at least one tier that includes at least one of the application nodes,

wherein the rule engines produce the action requests to control the deployment of the application in accordance with the hierarchical organization of the distributed computing system defined by the model.

23. The distributed computing system of claim 22, wherein each tier represents a different computing function.

24. The distributed computing system of claim 1, wherein the application governor provides an application-independent interface to the rules engines, and performs application-specific operations in response to the action requests.

25. A method comprising:

receiving status data for a distributed computing system having a plurality of application nodes interconnected via a communications network, wherein the status data represents an actual state of the application nodes;

processing the status data with rules in a set of rule engines to determine operations for reducing any difference between an expected state and the actual state of the distributed computing system; and

directing an application governor to perform the operations to provide autonomic control over the deployment and execution of a set of applications within the distributed computing system in accordance with the rules.

26. The method of claim 25, further comprising installing the application governor as a pluggable module within a framework provided by a control node for the distributed computing system.

27. The method of claim 25, further comprising selecting the application governor from a plurality of pluggable application governors that can be installed and removed from a control node of the distributed computing system to provide autonomic control over different groups of applications.

28. The method of claim 25, wherein processing the status data comprises processing the rules with a plurality of forward-chaining rule engines that compile the rules into one or more discrimination networks.

29. The method of claim 25, further comprising collecting the status data from the application nodes with a plurality of modular information collectors.

30. The method of claim 25, further comprising:

aggregating the state data in accordance with a hierarchical model of deployment of the application nodes; and

processing the aggregated state data with the rule engines.

31. The method of claim 25, further comprising:

storing data that defines a model for a hierarchical organization of the distributed computing system, wherein the model specifies a fabric having a one or more domains, and wherein each domain has at least one tier that includes at least one of the application nodes,

automatically producing the operations with the rule engines to control the applications in accordance with a hierarchical organization defined by the model.

32. The method of claim 25, further comprising

accessing with the application governor an application matrix that contains a logical definition of the applications to retrieve one or more data elements;

and

taking at least one action with the application governor with respect to the applications based on the retrieved data elements.

33. The method of claim 25, wherein processing the status data comprises:

automatically incorporating application-specific rule attributes based on the application matrix into the rule engines; and

processing the set of application-specific rule attributes with the rules engines to determine the operations, wherein the rules engine are application independent.

34. A computer-readable medium comprising instructions that cause a programmable processor to:

install an application governor as a pluggable module within a framework provided by a control node for a distributed computing system, wherein the distributed computing system includes a plurality of application nodes interconnected via a communications network;

receiving status data representing an actual state of the application nodes;

processing the status data with rules in a set of rule engines to determine operations for reducing any difference between an expected state and the actual state of the distributed computing system; and

directing the application governor to perform the operations to provide autonomic control over deployment and execution of a set of applications within the distributed computing system in accordance with the rules.