SERVICE PROVIDER MANAGEMENT DEVICE, SERVICE PROVIDER MANAGEMENT PROGRAM, AND SERVICE PROVIDER MANAGEMENT METHOD

• US 20100313207A1
• Filed: 03/15/2010
• Published: 12/09/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 05/25/2009
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Hitachi, Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Hitachi, Ltd.
• Inventors: Kondo, Yuki, Tanaka, Shuichi, Mori, Yuichi, Oshima, Keishi, Jin, Yusuke, TANAKA, Tadashi
• Application Number:
  US12/723,849
• Publication Number:
  US 20100313207A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 719/313
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5038 considering the execution order of a plurality of tasks, e.g. taking priority or time dependency constraints into consideration scheduling strategies G06F9/4881 and subgroups
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5055 considering software capabilities, i.e. software resources associated or available to the machine

Abstract

For a distributed application execution environment where the execution of a business process is accomplished by combining services in a manner that suits the business process to be executed, technologies have been developed to allocate hardware resources necessary to execute services that constitute a business process. With the conventional technologies, however, when using existing hardware resources is not enough to satisfy a requested execution quality of a service, the service is executed with a quality lower than the requested level. The present invention makes it possible to purvey IT resources flexibly in a distributed processing environment such that the requested level of business process execution quality is met. The present invention flexibly changes the configuration of IT resources that execute services constituting a business process, so that a requested quality of the business process is met.

Claims

1. A service provider management device which provides given business process information processing to a client terminal over a network, comprising:

a storage unit which stores execution flow information, execution quality information, component management information, and IT resource quality information, the execution flow information being used to identify at least one service that constitutes the business process information processing and an execution flow of the at least one service, the execution quality information being used to identify an execution quality that is required for the business process information processing, the component management information being used to identify an IT resource capable of executing a component that implements the service, the IT resource quality information being used to identify an execution quality that is provided by the IT resource;

an execution flow management module which receives a request from the client terminal to provide the business process information processing, and refers to the storage unit to identify execution flow information of a service that constitutes the requested business process information processing and execution quality information of the requested business process information processing; and

a messaging processing module which, for each service that is identified by the execution flow information identified by the execution flow management module, reads the component management information to identify IT resources capable of executing the service;

reads the IT resource quality information to determine whether or not an IT resource that satisfies the required execution quality by itself is included among the identified IT resources;

when the IT resource that satisfies the required execution quality by itself is included, identifies the IT resource that satisfies the required execution quality by itself and requests the IT resource that satisfies the required execution quality by itself to execute the service; and

when the IT resource that satisfies the required execution quality by itself is not included, identifies a combination of IT resources that together satisfy the required execution quality and requests the IT resources forming the combination to execute the service.

2. A service provider management device according to claim 1, further comprising a component coordinating module which deploys the component,

wherein, when the IT resource that satisfies the required execution quality by itself is not included among the identified IT resources, the messaging processing module reads the component management information anew and, when an IT resource that satisfies the required execution quality by itself but is not currently capable of executing the component is found as a result, instructs the component coordinating module to deploy the component in the found IT resource.

3. A service provider management device according to claim 2, wherein, when the IT resource that satisfies the required execution quality by itself is not included among the identified IT resources and deploying the component enables no IT resource to satisfy the required execution quality by itself, the messaging processing module identifies a combination of IT resources that together satisfy the required execution quality and, when the identified IT resources that together satisfy the required execution quality include an IT resource in which the component is not deployed, instructs the component coordinating module to deploy the component in the IT resource in which the component is not deployed.

4. A service provider management device according to claim 2, wherein, before deploying the component that is instructed to be deployed in the IT resource, the component coordinating module modifies the component to an operation environment of the IT resource in which the component is to be deployed.

5. A service provider management device according to claim 2, wherein, when the IT resource in which the component is instructed to be deployed does not have necessary middle ware, the component coordinating module deployes the middleware in the IT resource in which the component is instructed to be deployed along with the component.

6. A service provider management device according to claim 1, wherein the execution quality required for the business process information processing contains information about operating rate.

7. A service provider management device according to claim 6, wherein, when the required execution quality contains the information about operating rate, the messaging processing module identifies a combination of IT resources capable of executing the service that has an integrated operating rate that meets the required execution quality when the IT resources capable of executing the service are run concurrently.

8. A service provider management device according to claim 1, wherein the execution quality required for the business process information processing contains information about response time.

9. A service provider management device according to claim 8, wherein, when the required execution quality contains the information about response time, the messaging processing module identifies which of IT resources capable of executing the service has a shortest response time and, when the response time of the identified IT resource does not meet the required execution quality, deployes the component in as many IT resources that do not have the component as a number determined by a value of a ratio of the response time of the identified IT resource to the required execution quality.

10. A service provider management device according to claim 1, wherein:

the execution flow management module receives information about whether or not there is a special request from the client terminal along with the request to provide the business process information processing; and

when there is the special request, the execution flow management module identifies execution quality information that is associated with the special request in identifying execution quality information of the requested business process information processing.

11. A program which causes a computer to execute a service provider management procedure for providing given business process information processing to a client terminal over a network, the program further causing the computer to function as:

control means; and

storage means which stores execution flow information, execution quality information, component management information, and IT resource quality information, the execution flow information being used to identify at least one service that constitutes the business process information processing and an execution flow of the at least one service, the execution quality information being used to identify an execution quality that is required for the business process information processing, the component management information being used to identify an IT resource capable of executing a component that implements the service, and the IT resource quality information being used to identify an execution quality that is provided by the IT resource, the program causing the control means to execute;

an execution flow management procedure for receiving a request from the client terminal to provide the business process information processing, and referring to the storage means to identify execution flow information of a service that constitutes the requested business process information processing and execution quality information of the requested business process information processing; and

a messaging processing procedure for, for each service that is identified by the execution flow information identified in the execution flow management procedure, reading the component management information to identify IT resources capable of executing the service;

reading the IT resource quality information to determine whether or not an IT resource that satisfies the required execution quality by itself is included among the identified IT resources;

when the IT resource that satisfies the required execution quality by itself is included, identifying the IT resource that satisfies the required execution quality by itself and requests the IT resource that satisfies the required execution quality by itself to execute the service; and

when the IT resource that satisfies the required execution quality by itself is not included, identifying a combination of IT resources that together satisfy the required execution quality and requests the IT resources forming the combination to execute the service.

12. A service provider management method performed by a service provider management device which provides given business process information processing to a client terminal over a network, the service provider management device comprising a storage unit which stores execution flow information, execution quality information, component management information, and IT resource quality information, the execution flow information being used to identify at least one service that constitutes the business process information processing and an execution flow of the at least one service, the execution quality information being used to identify an execution quality that is required for the business process information processing, the component management information being used to identify an IT resource capable of executing a component that implements the service, and the IT resource quality information being used to identify an execution quality that is provided by the IT resource, the service provider management method comprising:

an execution flow management step of receiving a request from the client terminal to provide the business process information processing, and referring to the storage unit to identify execution flow information of a service that constitutes the requested business process information processing and execution quality information of the requested business process information processing; and

a messaging processing step of, for each service that is identified by the execution flow information identified in the execution flow management step, reading the component management information to identify IT resources capable of executing the service;

reading the IT resource quality information to determine whether or not an IT resource that satisfies the required execution quality by itself is included among the identified IT resources;

when the IT resource that satisfies the required execution quality by itself is included, identifying the IT resource that satisfies the required execution quality by itself and requests the IT resource that satisfies the required execution quality by itself to execute the service; and

when the IT resource that satisfies the required execution quality by itself is not included, identifying a combination of IT resources that together satisfy the required execution quality and requests the IT resources forming the combination to execute the service.