Middleware Services Framework for On-Premises and Cloud Deployment

• US 20120324069A1
• Filed: 06/17/2011
• Published: 12/20/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 06/17/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Nori, Anil K., Shukla, Dharma, Christensen, Yann, Sedukhin, Igor, Krishnaprasad, Murali
• Granted Patent: US 9,336,060 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/222
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1482 by means of middleware or OS functionality
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5066 Algorithms for mapping a plurality of inter-dependent sub-tasks onto a plurality of physical CPUs mappping at compile time, see G06F8/451
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0806 for initial configuration or provisioning, e.g. plug-and-play
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/10 in which an application is distributed across nodes in the network software deployment G06F8/60; multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/46

Abstract

A framework and middleware services for developing, deploying and managing composite applications is disclosed. The middleware services may be deployed on-premises or in the cloud. The framework includes a rich collection of middleware services, an application model to compose services into a composite application, a high-density multi-tenant scalable container to host the composition logic, and unified lifecycle management of the composite application and its constituent services.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

defining a composite application using an application model;

creating an application manifest that identifies a plurality of service groups associated with the composite application, each of the service groups associated with one or more services;

deploying the services on one or more middleware containers;

managing the composite application by controlling the services on the middleware containers;

monitoring an operation of the services; and

reporting on a performance of a monitored operation.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein deploying the services comprises:

deploying the services to on-premises equipment or to a cloud service or to both.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

optimizing the composite application based upon a monitored operation of the service.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the composite application contains both stateless services and stateful services, the method further comprising:

partitioning a first service to scale the composite application; and

replicating a second service to maintain availability of the composite application.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the application manifest identifies services selected from a group of predefined middleware services.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the application manifest further identifies services defined by custom application logic.

7. A method for hosting a composite application, comprising:

importing an application manifest defining a plurality of stateful and stateless services and relationships between the services, the services configured to cooperatively operate to provide the composite application;

deploying the services on an middleware container service at runtime; and

dynamically scaling the services on the middleware container service.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the middleware container service is a shared hardware pool providing high-density, multi-tenant hosting of the services.

9. The method of claim 7, further comprising:

providing access to external services defined in the application manifest, wherein the external services are not hosted on the middleware container service.

10. The method of claim 7, wherein the middleware container service uses a stateful fabric to dynamically scale the services to provide a high level of availability for the composite application.

11. The method of claim 7, further comprising:

providing address resolution by dynamically mapping logical service names to physical endpoints associated with the services; and

routing requests to the service endpoints.

12. The method of claim 7, further comprising:

managing a lifecycle of the composite application by activating service components on-demand and dynamically configuring service component configurations.

13. The method of claim 7, further comprising:

isolating services for a first tenant from services for a second tenant on a same container.

14. The method of claim 7, further comprising:

deploying services for a plurality of tenants on the middleware container service; and

managing the services running on the middleware container service on a tenant-by-tenant basis.

15. A method for managing a composite application, comprising:

importing an application manifest into a middleware platform management store, the application manifest defining a plurality of services and relationships between the services, the services configured to cooperatively operate to provide the composite application;

identifying the services defined in the application manifest using an application manager;

deploying the services on an middleware container service; and

managing an end-to-end lifecycle of the composite application using the application manager.

16. The method of claim 15, further comprising:

provisioning the services on the middleware container service.

17. The method of claim 15, wherein deploying the services further comprises:

deploying the services a web container.

18. The method of claim 15, wherein the application manager providing access to external services that are not hosted on the middleware container service.

19. The method of claim 15, wherein the application manifest comprises one or more policies for one or more services, the policies selected from the group consisting of an isolation policy, a partition policy, a replication policy, and a density policy.

20. The method of claim 15, further comprising:

monitoring one or more Service Level Agreements (SLA) associated with the composite application using the application manager.