On-Demand Access to Compute Resources

• US 20060230149A1
• Filed: 04/07/2006
• Published: 10/12/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 04/07/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: III Holdings 12, LLC (Intellectual Ventures LLC)
• Original Assignee: Cluster Resources, Inc. (Ala Services LLC)
• Inventors: Jackson, David B.
• Granted Patent: US 9,075,657 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/226
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2209/509 Offload
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5027 the resource being a machine, e.g. CPUs, Servers, Terminals
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/56 Packet switching systems
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/827 Aggregation of resource allocation or reservation requests
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/83 based on usage prediction
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1001 for accessing one among a plurality of replicated servers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1008 based on parameters of servers, e.g. available memory or workload monitoring of computer activity G06F11/30
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/40 Network security protocols

Abstract

Disclosed are systems, methods and computer-readable media for controlling and managing the identification and provisioning of resources within an on-demand center as well as the transfer of workload to the provisioned resources. One aspect involves creating a virtual private cluster within the on-demand center for the particular workload from a local environment. A method of managing resources between a local compute environment and an on-demand environment comprises detecting an event associated with a local compute environment and based on the detected event, identifying information about the local environment, establishing communication with an on-demand compute environment and transmitting the information about the local environment to the on-demand compute environment, provisioning resources within the on-demand compute environment to substantially duplicate the local environment and transferring workload from the local-environment to the on-demand compute environment. The event may be a threshold or a triggering event within or outside of the local environment. The transfer of workload and provisioning of the on-demand center may also be related to a profile of the workload or an analysis of backlog workload. Another aspect relates to transferring webserver traffic from a webserver to an on-demand center such that web traffic is served by the on-demand center.

Claims

1. A method of managing resources between a local compute environment and an on-demand environment, the method comprising:

detecting an event associated with a local compute environment;

based on the detected event, identifying information about the local environment;

establishing communication with an on-demand compute environment and transmitting the information about the local environment to the on-demand compute environment;

provisioning resources within the on-demand compute environment to substantially duplicate the local environment; and

transferring workload from the local-environment to the on-demand compute environment.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the event is at least one of the passing of a threshold or a triggering event.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the information about the local environment is related to at least one of:

hardware and an operating system.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein establishing communication with the on-demand compute environment and transmitting the information about the local environment to the on-demand compute environment is performed automatically.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the event is a one-click step performed by a user.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein provisioning resources within the on-demand compute environment to substantially duplicate the local environment further comprises:

if a particular resource cannot be duplicated in the on-demand compute environment, then identifying and selecting a substitute resource.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein identifying and selecting a substitute resource is accomplished either at the on-demand environment or via negotiation between a slave workload manager at the on-demand environment and a master workload manager on the local compute environment.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

identifying a type of workload to transfer to the on-demand environment, and wherein transferring workload from the local-environment to the on-demand compute environment further comprises only transferring the identified type of workload to the on-demand center.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein transferring the identified type of workload to the on-demand center is based upon different hardware and/or software capabilities between the on-demand environment and the local compute environment.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein provisioning resources within the on-demand compute environment further comprises creating a virtual private cluster in the on-demand compute environment.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the virtual private cluster further comprises an aggregate of compute resources in the on-demand compute environment having partitions and wherein only the partitioned resources are accessible by the local environment.

13. The method of claim 2, wherein generating at least one profile associated with workload that may be processed in a compute environment is performed in advance of receiving job requests on the local compute environment.

12. A method of managing resources between a local compute environment and an on-demand environment, the method comprising:

generating at least one profile associated with workload that may be processed in a compute environment;

selecting at the local compute environment a profile from the at least one profile;

communicating the selected profile from the local compute environment to the on-demand environment;

provisioning resources within the on-demand compute environment according to the selected profile; and

transferring workload from the local-environment to the on-demand compute environment.

14. The method of claim 12, wherein generating at least one profile associated with workload that may be processed in a compute environment is performed dynamically as job requests are received on the local compute environment.

15. The method of claim 12, wherein a plurality of profiles are generated.

16. The method of claim 12, wherein selecting at the local compute environment a profile from the at least one profile, communicating the selected profile from the local compute environment to the on-demand environment, provisioning resources within the on-demand compute environment according to the selected profile and transferring workload from the local-environment to the on-demand compute environment is all performed after one-click by an administrator.

17. The method of claim of claim 12, wherein any profile of the generated at least one profile may relate to configuring resources that are different from available resources within the local compute environment.

18. A method of integrating an on-demand compute environment into a local compute environment, the method comprising:

determining whether a backlog workload condition exists in the local compute environment;

if so, then analyzing the backlog workload;

communicating information associated with the analysis to the on-demand compute environment;

provisioning the on-demand compute environment according to the analyzed backlog workload; and

transferring the backlog workload to the provisioned on-demand compute environment.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein provisioning the on-demand compute environment further comprises creating a virtual private cluster within the on-demand compute environment.

21. The method of claim 18, wherein analyzing the backlog workload, communicating the information associated with analysis to the on-demand compute environment, provisioning the on-demand compute environment according to the analyzed backlog workload and transferring the backlog workload to the provisioned on-demand compute environment occurs in response to a one-click operation from an administrator.

22. The method of claim 18, wherein determining whether a backlog workload condition exists in the local compute environment is performed on the basis of an event.

23. The method of claim 22, wherein the event is a threshold being met.

20. The method of 18, wherein analyzing the workload comprises determining at least one resource type associated with the backlog workload for provisioning in the on-demand compute environment.

24. A method of managing resources between a webserver and an on-demand compute environment, the method comprising:

determining whether web traffic directed to the webserver should be at least partially served via the on-demand compute environment;

provisioning resources within the on-demand compute environment to enable it to respond to web traffic for the webserver;

establishing a routing of at least part of the web traffic from the webserver to the provisioned on-demand compute environment; and

communicating data between a client browser and the on-demand compute environment such that the use of the on-demand compute environment for the web traffic is transparent.

25. The method of claim 24, wherein determining whether web traffic directed to the webserver should be at least partially served via the on-demand compute environment is based on an event.

26. The method of claim 25, wherein the event is a threshold being met and wherein provisioning resources within the on-demand compute environment is performed automatically after the threshold is met.

27. The method of claim 25, wherein the event is an event external to the local compute environment.

28. The method of claim 24, wherein provisioning resources within the on-demand compute environment further comprises creating a virtual private cluster within the on-demand center for the web traffic from the webserver.