SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR SUPPORTING A VIRTUAL APPLIANCE

• US 20090300641A1
• Filed: 06/01/2009
• Published: 12/03/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 05/30/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Oracle International Corporation (Oracle Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Novell Incorporated (Open Text Corporation)
• Inventors: Bowen, Peter, Friedman, Nathaniel
• Granted Patent: US 8,544,016 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 718/104
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3664 Environments for testing or debugging software

Abstract

A system and method for supporting a virtual appliance is provided. In particular, a support engine may include an update server that can manage a workflow to update an appliance in response to detecting upstream updates to one or more software components that have been installed for the appliance. For example, the workflow may generally include managing a rebuild the appliance to install the upstream updates and further managing an integration test to verify that the rebuilt appliance behaves correctly with the upstream updates installed. In addition, the support engine may further include a support analysis manager that can analyze the software components that have been installed for the appliance in view of various heuristic rules to generate a support statement indicating whether support is available for the appliance.

Claims

1. A system for updating a virtual appliance, comprising:

an update server configured to generate a workflow to update one or more appliances in response to a repository metadata server detecting an upstream update to one or more origin repositories, wherein the update server is further configured to;

identify one or more software components associated with the upstream update to the one or more origin repositories; and

identify at least one appliance having earlier versions of the identified software components installed therein;

a build engine configured to rebuild an image corresponding to the identified appliance, wherein the rebuilt image includes the identified software components associated with the upstream update; and

a runtime environment configured to manage an integration test for the rebuilt image corresponding to the identified appliance.

2. The system of claim 1, further comprising an appliance repository configured to store the rebuilt image corresponding to the identified appliance in response to the integration test verifying that the rebuilt image functions correctly with the identified software components associated with the upstream update installed therein.

3. The system of claim 2, further comprising a development environment configured to:

provide a plurality of public appliances, wherein the plurality of public appliances include at least the rebuilt image corresponding to the identified appliance; and

clone the rebuilt image to create a base appliance derived from the rebuilt image, wherein the base appliance includes the identified software components associated with the upstream update installed therein.

4. The system of claim 2, wherein runtime activity that occurs during the integration test results in one or more changes to the rebuilt image, wherein the one or more changes are implemented to accommodate the upstream update.

5. The system of claim 4, wherein the build engine is further configured to rebuild a second image corresponding to the identified appliance, wherein the second rebuilt image includes the one or more changes implemented during the integration test, and wherein the runtime environment is further configured to manage a second integration test for the second rebuilt image corresponding to the identified appliance.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the update server is further configured to:

generate one or more updates corresponding to the software components associated with the upstream update installed for the rebuilt image; and

release the updates to one or more earlier versions of the identified appliance.

7. The system of claim 6, wherein the update server is configured to release the updates to the earlier versions of the identified appliance in response to a request received from the earlier versions of the identified appliance.

8. The system of claim 6, wherein the updates include one or more access control mechanisms that define one or more criteria controlling the release to the earlier versions of the identified appliance.

9. The system of claim 6, wherein the updates include one or more of a package 6r a post-installation script configured to install the software components associated with the upstream update to the earlier versions of the identified appliance.

10. A method for updating a virtual appliance, comprising:

generating a workflow to update one or more appliances at an update server in response to a repository metadata server detecting an upstream update to one or more origin repositories;

identifying one or more software components associated with the upstream update to the one or more origin repositories;

identifying at least one appliance having earlier versions of the identified software components installed therein;

invoking a build engine to rebuild an image corresponding to the identified appliance, wherein the rebuilt image includes the identified software components associated with the upstream update; and

invoking a runtime environment to manage an integration test for the rebuilt image corresponding to the identified appliance.

11. The method of claim 10, further comprising storing the rebuilt image corresponding to the identified appliance in an appliance repository, wherein the rebuilt image is stored in the appliance repository in response to the integration test verifying that the rebuilt image functions correctly with the identified software components associated with the upstream update installed therein.

12. The method of claim 11, further comprising:

providing a plurality of public appliances, wherein the plurality of public appliances include at least the rebuilt image corresponding to the identified appliance; and

cloning the rebuilt image to create a base appliance derived from the rebuilt image, wherein the base appliance includes the identified software components associated with the upstream update installed therein.

13. The method of claim 11, wherein runtime activity that occurs during the integration test results in one or more changes to the rebuilt image, wherein the one or more changes are implemented to accommodate the upstream update.

14. The method of claim 13, further comprising:

invoking the build engine to rebuild a second image corresponding to the identified appliance, wherein the second rebuilt image includes the one or more changes implemented during the integration test; and

invoking the runtime environment to manage a second integration test for the second rebuilt image corresponding to the identified appliance.

15. The method of claim 10, further comprising:

generating one or more updates corresponding to the software components associated with the upstream update installed for the rebuilt image; and

releasing the updates to one or more earlier versions of the identified appliance.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein the updates are released to the earlier versions of the identified appliance in response to a request received from the earlier versions of the identified appliance.

17. The method of claim 15, wherein the updates include one or more access control mechanisms that define one or more criteria controlling the release to the earlier versions of the identified appliance.

18. The method of claim 15, wherein the updates include one or more of a package or a post-installation script configured to install the software components associated with the upstream update to the earlier versions of the identified appliance.

19. A system for supporting a virtual appliance, comprising:

a support engine configured to analyze supportability and service support requests for an appliance, wherein the support engine is further configured to;

identify one or more software components installed for the appliance;

analyze the installed software components in view of one or more rules that express supportability guidelines for the installed software components; and

generate a support statement indicating whether or not support can be provided for the installed software components; and

a build engine configured to invoke the support engine in response to a request to build an image corresponding to the appliance.

20. The system of claim 19, wherein the one or more rules include heuristics that describe one or more of permitted changes, permitted modifications, or permitted variants for the installed software components.

21. The system of claim 19, wherein the support engine is further configured to:

retrieve metadata describing the installed software components; and

analyze the metadata describing the installed software components in view of the one or more rules, wherein the one or more rules express the supportability guidelines in terms of the metadata describing the installed software components.

22. The system of claim 19, wherein the support engine is further configured to:

receive a support request describing a problem associated with the appliance; and

reference the support statement to determine whether or not support can be provided for the problem associated with the appliance.

23. The system of claim 22, wherein the support request includes a snapshot of the appliance in a state associated with the problem.

24. The system of claim 23, wherein the support engine is further configured to generate a second support statement indicating whether or not support can be provided for the appliance in the problem state.

25. The system of claim 22, wherein the support engine is further configured to generate a response to the support request in response to determining that support can be provided for the problem associated with the appliance, wherein a provider of a virtualization environment that was used to create the appliance provides the support for the problem.

26. The system of claim 25, wherein the response includes forwarding the support request to a partner associated with the virtualization environment provider, wherein the partner provides the support for the problem.

27. The system of claim 22, wherein the support engine is further configured to deny the support request in response to determining that support cannot be provided for the problem associated with the appliance.

28. The system of claim 22, wherein the support engine is further configured to:

identify one or more changes that can be implemented for the appliance to render the problem associated with the appliance supportable;

generate a response to the support request that includes instructions for implementing the identified changes.

29. The system of claim 22, further comprising a virtualization environment configured to coordinate billing for the support request.

30. The system of claim 22, wherein the support engine is further configured to update a knowledge based that the support engine uses to analyze supportability and service support requests in response to resolving the support request.

32. The method of claim 30, wherein the one or more rules include heuristics that describe one or more of permitted changes, permitted modifications, or permitted variants for the installed software components.

33. The method of claim 30, further comprising:

retrieving metadata describing the installed software components; and

analyzing the metadata describing the installed software components in view of the one or more rules, wherein the one or more rules express the supportability guidelines in terms of the metadata describing the installed software components.

34. The method of claim 30, further comprising:

receiving a support request at the support engine, wherein support request describes a problem associated with the appliance; and

referencing the support statement to determine whether or not support can be provided for the problem associated with the appliance.

35. The method of claim 33, wherein the support request includes a snapshot of the appliance in a state associated with the problem.

36. The method of claim 34, further comprising generating a second support statement indicating whether or not support can be provided for the appliance in the problem state.

37. The method of claim 33, further comprising generating a response to the support request in response to determining that support can be provided for the problem associated with the appliance, wherein a provider of a virtualization environment that was used to create the appliance provides the support for the problem.

38. The method of claim 36, wherein the response includes forwarding the support request to a partner associated with the virtualization environment provider, wherein the partner provides the support for the problem.

39. The method of claim 33, further comprising denying the support request in response to determining that support cannot be provided for the problem associated with the appliance.

40. The method of claim 33, further comprising:

identifying one or more changes that can be implemented for the appliance to render the problem associated with the appliance supportable;

generating a response to the support request that includes instructions for implementing the identified changes.

41. The method of claim 33, further comprising coordinating billing for the support request.

42. The method of claim 33, further comprising updating a knowledge based that the support engine uses to analyze supportability and service support requests in response to resolving the support request.

31. A method for supporting a virtual appliance, comprising:

invoking a support engine in response to a build engine receiving a request to build an image corresponding to an appliance;

identifying one or more software components installed for the appliance using the support engine;

analyzing the installed software components in view of one or more rules that express supportability guidelines for the installed software components; and

generating a support statement indicating whether or not support can be provided for the installed software components.