METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR IMPLEMENTING VIRTUAL PROXY TO SUPPORT HETEROGENOUS SYSTEMS MANAGEMENT

• US 20120311572A1
• Filed: 05/31/2011
• Published: 12/06/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 05/31/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Neverfail
• Original Assignee: Clydesdale Bank PLC (National Australia Bank Limited)
• Inventors: Falls, Patrick Terence
• Granted Patent: US 8,875,132 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 718/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/455 Emulation; Interpretation; Software simulation, e.g. virtualisation or emulation of application or operating system execution engines
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45533 Hypervisors; Virtual machine monitors
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/54 Interprogram communication
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/561 Adding application-functional data or data for application control, e.g. adding metadata
• CPC Class Codes: Y02D 10/00 Energy efficient computing, e.g. low power processors, power management or thermal management

Abstract

A computer system apparatus includes a first virtual machine hosted by a first physical machine. A target machine is communicatively coupled to the first virtual machine. The target machine is one of another physical machine and another virtual machine. The first virtual machine serves as a virtual proxy for the target machine.

Claims

1. A computer system apparatus, comprising:

a) a first virtual machine hosted by a first physical machine;

b) a target machine communicatively coupled to the first virtual machine, wherein the target machine is one of another physical machine and another virtual machine, wherein the first virtual machine serves as a virtual proxy for the target machine.

2. The apparatus of claim 1 further comprising:

c) a virtual proxy code executing on the first virtual machine, wherein the virtual proxy code determines whether to communicate a request from a requester to the target machine.

3. The apparatus of claim 2, wherein the first virtual machine communicates a response to the requester without communicating the request to the target machine.

4. The apparatus of claim 2 wherein the first virtual machine forwards the request to the target machine for execution.

5. The apparatus of claim 4 wherein the target machine transforms the request into a target machine compatible request prior to execution on the target machine.

6. The apparatus of claim 4 wherein upon receipt of a response from the target machine, the first virtual machine forwards the response to the requester.

7. The apparatus of claim 6 wherein the virtual proxy caches the response as a cached response.

8. The apparatus of claim 7 wherein in response to a subsequent request, the virtual proxy responds with the cached response.

9. The apparatus of claim 2 wherein the virtual proxy transforms the request into a target machine compatible request prior to communication to the target machine.

10. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the target machine includes packet-filtering software to allow the target machine to communicate only with the first virtual machine.

11. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the first virtual machine serves as the virtual proxy for each of a plurality of target machines.

12. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the target machine is executing a virtual proxy agent.

13. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the target machine is a second physical machine.

14. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the target machine is a second virtual machine.

17. The apparatus of claim 1 where the request is a system configuration request.

15. The apparatus of claim 15 wherein the second virtual machine is hosted by a second physical machine.

16. The apparatus of claim 15 wherein the second virtual machine is hosted by the first physical machine.