CLOUD SERVICE INFORMATION OVERLAY

• US 20120130781A1
• Filed: 11/24/2010
• Published: 05/24/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 11/24/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Intel Corporation
• Original Assignee: Intel Corporation
• Inventors: Li, Hong
• Granted Patent: US 8,843,618 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/14.4
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0241 Advertisements

Abstract

In some embodiments, the invention involves collecting service health information from a plurality of cloud service provider associated with a customer. Once the service health information is collected, aggregating information from multiple providers, when necessary, and providing a service health report to the customer. The customer has agreements with both the service providers and information collector to receive a level of service health information regarding services provided. The information collector may have agreements with the service providers to retrieve or receive the requested service health information for the customers via a pre-agreed upon protocol. Other embodiments are described and claimed.

Claims

1. A computer implemented method, comprising:

receiving a service health information request from customer;

authenticating the customer and request;

retrieving service health information corresponding to a plurality of service providers, wherein each of the plurality of service providers provides a computing service to the customer over a network;

aggregating the retrieved service health information for the plurality of service providers into at least one service health report; and

providing the service health report to the customer.

2. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein either one or both of the receiving a request and authenticating the customer are inherent in a policy derived from a service level agreement with the customer.

3. The method as recited in claim 1, further comprising:

providing a recommendation to the customer regarding at least one of a modification of a computing service or a change of providers for a computing service, wherein the recommendation is based on an analysis of the aggregated service health information retrieved for the customer.

4. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein varying levels of service health information are retrieved for a customer based on a pre-determined policy.

5. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the customer request defines at least one of a collection and analysis period, a collection start time, a collection end time, and an indicator of types of service health information to be included in the service health report.

6. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the service health report includes an advertisement for at least one of a computing service and a service provider.

7. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein retrieving service health information further comprises:

requesting the service health information from each of the plurality of service providers; and

receiving the requested the service health information from each of the plurality of service providers.

8. The method as recited in claim 7, wherein receiving the requested service health information further comprises at least one of (a) receiving transmission of the requested information, and (b) retrieving the requested information from a data store also accessible to the service provider.

9. A computer implemented system for collecting and aggregating service health information, comprising:

a customer request component configured to receive collection requests from a plurality of customers;

a service health information collector is configured to retrieve service health information associated with at least one of a plurality of service providers, the at least one service provider providing one or more computing services to at least one of the plurality of customers;

a service health analysis and correlation engine configured to analyze the retrieved service health information and aggregate information received from multiple service providers and multiple computing services, when necessary; and

a service information router configured to provide the analyzed service health information to authorized customers.

10. The system as recited in claim 9, wherein the customer request component is further configured to authenticate requests from the plurality of customers based in part on a policy derived from a service level agreement with a customer.

11. The system as recited in claim 9, wherein the service health analysis and correlation engine is further configured to provide recommendations to a customer for at least one of a modification of computing services and a change of service provider, the recommendation based in part on an analysis of the retrieved service health information associated with the customer.

12. The system as recited in claim 9, wherein varying levels of service health information are retrieved for a customer based on a pre-determined policy.

13. The system as recited in claim 9, wherein the a customer request component is configured to accept requests for any of:

continuous collection, ad-hoc collection, collection on and off requests, historical data within a specified time period, and requests for a subset of available metrics.

14. The system as recited in claim 9, wherein the service information router is configured to provide an advertisement for at least one of a computing service and a service provider, to at least one customer.

15. The system as recited in claim 9, wherein the service health information collector is configured to retrieve service health information by sending a request to at least one of the plurality of service providers for service health information associated with a customer, and then receive the requested the service health information from the at least one of the plurality of service providers.

16. The system as recited in claim 15, wherein receiving the requested service health information further comprises at least one of (a) receiving transmission of the requested information, and (b) retrieving the requested information from a data store also accessible to the service provider.

17. A computer implemented system for providing service health data to customers, by a cloud service provider, comprising:

means for providing a cloud service to a plurality of customers, over a network;

means for collecting service health data corresponding to at least one cloud service provided to at least one customer;

means for providing the collected service health data to a cloud service health sensor unit, wherein the collected service health data is in a format capable of being accessed over the network by an authorized cloud health information provider for aggregation with other service health data corresponding to the at least one customer, but also corresponding to other cloud services used by the at least one customer.

18. The system as recited in claim 17, wherein the cloud service provider and the cloud health information provider are the same entity, for the at least one customer.

19. The system as recited in claim 18, wherein the cloud service provider and the cloud health information provider are different entities, for another customer of the plurality of customers.

20. The system as recited in claim 17, wherein cloud health data provided for a customer varies in periodicity of collection, granularity, robustness, and completeness based on at least one of:

a service level agreement between the cloud service provider and the customer, a customer'"'"'s request for data;

a service level agreement between the cloud service provider and the cloud health information provider, and a local service health information policy.

21. The system as recited in claim 20, wherein the provided cloud health data includes an advertisement for possible services available to the customer.

22. The system as recited in claim 17, further comprising:

the cloud service health sensor unit coupled to a storage device for storing collected service health data.

23. The system as recited in claim 22, wherein the storage device is accessible to at least one authorized cloud health information provider.

24. The system as recited in claim 23, wherein the storage device is accessible for storing service health data collected by a second cloud service provider.

27. The method as recited in claim 24, further comprising:

receiving an information request corresponding to the customer; and

modifying a level of the provided cloud health data based on the information request.

25. A computer implemented method, comprising:

collecting service health data corresponding to at least one cloud service provided to at least one customer over a network, the collection performed by a cloud service provider providing the at least one cloud service;

providing the collected service health data to a cloud service health sensor unit, wherein the collected service health data is in a format capable of being accessed over the network by an authorized cloud health information provider for aggregation with other service health data corresponding to the at least one customer, but also corresponding to other cloud services used by the at least one customer.

26. The method as recited in claim 25, wherein cloud health data provided for a customer varies in periodicity of collection, granularity, robustness, and completeness based on at least one of:

a service level agreement between the cloud service provider and the customer, a customer'"'"'s request for data;

a service level agreement between the cloud service provider and the cloud health information provider, and a local service health information policy.

28. A tangible computer readable storage medium having instructions stored thereon, the instructions when executed on a machine cause the machine to:

receive a service health information request from customer;

authenticate the customer and request;

retrieve service health information corresponding to a plurality of service providers, wherein each of the plurality of service providers provides a computing service to the customer over a network;

aggregate the retrieved service health information for the plurality of service providers into at least one service health report; and

provide the service health report to the customer.

29. The medium as recited in claim 28, wherein either one or both of the receiving a request and authenticating the customer are inherent in a policy derived from a service level agreement with the customer.

30. The medium as recited in claim 28, wherein the customer request defines at least one of a collection and analysis period, a collection start time, a collection end time, and an indicator of types of service health information to be included in the service health report.

31. The medium as recited in claim 28, wherein retrieving service health information further comprises instructions to:

request the service health information from each of the plurality of service providers; and

receive the requested the service health information from each of the plurality of service providers.

32. A tangible computer readable storage medium having instructions stored thereon, the instructions when executed on a machine cause the machine to:

collect service health data corresponding to at least one cloud service provided to at least one customer over a network, the collection performed by a cloud service provider providing the at least one cloud service;

provide the collected service health data to a cloud service health sensor unit, wherein the collected service health data is in a format capable of being accessed over the network by an authorized cloud health information provider for aggregation with other service health data corresponding to the at least one customer, but also corresponding to other cloud services used by the at least one customer.

33. The medium as recited in claim 32, wherein cloud health data provided for a customer varies in periodicity of collection, granularity, robustness, and completeness based on at least one of:

a service level agreement between the cloud service provider and the customer, a customer'"'"'s request for data;

a service level agreement between the cloud service provider and the cloud health information provider, and a local service health information policy.

34. The medium as recited in claim 32, further comprising instructions to:

receive an information request corresponding to the customer; and

modify a level of the provided cloud health data based on the information request.