AUTOMATED SCALING OF AN APPLICATION AND ITS SUPPORT COMPONENTS

• US 20130054776A1
• Filed: 08/23/2011
• Published: 02/28/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 08/23/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Red Hat, Inc. (International Business Machines Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Red Hat, Inc. (International Business Machines Corporation)
• Inventors: Kunze, Tobias, Ranganathan, Ram
• Granted Patent: US 8,706,852 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/224
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2209/508 Monitor
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5061 Partitioning or combining of resources

Abstract

An execution environment provides a plurality of components that support execution of an application, wherein the plurality of components and the application are hosted by a plurality of nodes arranged in one or more clusters. The execution environment monitors runtime behavior of the application and the plurality of components, and generates a scaling event based on a comparison of the runtime behavior to one or more scaling policies. The execution environment automatically scales at least one of the application or a component of the plurality of components if the scaling event does not violate a constraint, wherein the scaling comprises adding a new node to at least one cluster of the one or more clusters or removing a node from at least one cluster of the one or more clusters based on the scaling event.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

providing a plurality of components that support execution of an application, wherein the plurality of components and the application are hosted by a plurality of nodes arranged in one or more clusters;

monitoring runtime behavior of the application and the plurality of components;

generating a scaling event based on a comparison of the runtime behavior to one or more scaling policies; and

automatically scaling at least one of the application or a component of the plurality of components based on the scaling event, wherein the scaling comprises adding a new node to at least one cluster of the one or more clusters or removing a node from at least one cluster of the one or more clusters based on the scaling event.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein monitoring the runtime behavior comprises:

gathering metrics associated with resource utilization and performance of each of the application and the plurality of components; and

storing the metrics.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

managing connections between the plurality of components and between the application and the plurality of components; and

updating at least one of the connections after performing the scaling.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein connections are managed as publish-subscribe services, wherein a first endpoint of a connection is a publisher of the connection and a second endpoint of the connection is a subscriber of the connection, the method further comprising:

monitoring an address of the first endpoint; and

reporting changes in the address of the first endpoint to the second endpoint to maintain the connection.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

generating a plurality of provisioning groups, wherein each provisioning group comprises at least one of the application or a component of the plurality of components, and wherein each provisioning group further comprises a distinct cluster of nodes to host the provisioning group.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the scaling event is associated with a first provisioning group and is generated based upon a comparison of runtime behavior for the first provisioning group to a scaling policy of the first provisioning group, and wherein the new node is added to a first cluster of nodes for the first provisioning group.

7. The method of claim 6, further comprising:

generating an additional scaling event associated with a second provisioning group based upon a comparison of additional runtime behavior for the second provisioning group to an additional scaling policy of the second provisioning group; and

performing conflict resolution between the scaling event and the additional scaling event if processing both scaling events will cause at least one of the scaling events to violate a constraint.

8. The method of claim 5, further comprising:

modifying the plurality of provisioning groups during runtime of the application by removing a component or the application from a first provisioning group and adding the component or the application to a second provisioning group.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein each node is a virtual machine, and wherein adding the new node to the at least one cluster comprises:

instructing an underlying infrastructure to allocate a new virtual machine;

loading at least one of the application or a component of the plurality of components onto the new virtual machine; and

adjusting a load balancing of the at least one cluster to utilize the new node.

10. A computer readable storage medium including instructions that, when executed by a processing device, cause the processing device to perform a method comprising:

providing one or more components that support execution of an application, wherein the one or more components and the application are hosted by a plurality of nodes arranged in one or more clusters;

monitoring runtime behavior of at least one of the application or the one or more components;

generating a scaling event based on a comparison of the runtime behavior to one or more scaling policies; and

automatically scaling at least one of the application or a component of the one or more components based on the scaling event, wherein the scaling comprises adding a new node to at least one cluster of the one or more clusters or removing a node from at least one cluster of the one or more clusters based on the scaling event.

11. The computer readable storage medium of claim 10, wherein monitoring the runtime behavior comprises:

gathering metrics associated with resource utilization and performance of each of the application and the one or more components; and

storing the metrics.

12. The computer readable storage medium of claim 10, the method further comprising:

managing connections between the one or more components and between the application and the one or more components; and

updating at least one of the connections after performing the scaling.

13. The computer readable storage medium of claim 12, wherein connections are managed as publish-subscribe services, wherein a first endpoint of a connection is a publisher of the connection and a second endpoint of the connection is a subscriber of the connection, the method further comprising:

monitoring an address of the first endpoint; and

reporting changes in the address of the first endpoint to the second endpoint to maintain the connection.

14. The computer readable storage medium of claim 10, the method further comprising:

generating a plurality of provisioning groups, wherein each provisioning group comprises at least one of the application or a component of the one or more components, and wherein each provisioning group further comprises a distinct cluster of nodes to host the provisioning group.

15. The computer readable storage medium of claim 14, wherein the scaling event is associated with a first provisioning group and is generated based upon a comparison of runtime behavior for the first provisioning group to a scaling policy of the first provisioning group, and wherein the new node is added to a first cluster of nodes for the first provisioning group.

16. The computer readable storage medium of claim 15, the method further comprising:

generating an additional scaling event associated with a second provisioning group based upon a comparison of additional runtime behavior for the second provisioning group to an additional scaling policy of the second provisioning group; and

performing conflict resolution between the scaling event and the additional scaling event if processing both scaling events will cause at least one of the scaling events to violate a constraint.

17. The computer readable storage medium of claim 14, the method further comprising:

modifying the plurality of provisioning groups during runtime of the application by removing a component or the application from a first provisioning group and adding the component or the application to a second provisioning group.

18. The computer readable storage medium of claim 10, wherein each node is a virtual machine, and wherein adding the new node to the at least one cluster comprises:

instructing an underlying infrastructure to allocate a new virtual machine;

loading at least one of the application or a component of the one or more components onto the new virtual machine; and

adjusting a load balancing of the at least one cluster to utilize the new node.

19. A computing apparatus comprising:

a memory to store instructions for providing a platform as a service (PaaS); and

a computing device, coupled to the memory, wherein the computing device is configured to;

provide a component that supports execution of an application, wherein the component is hosted by a plurality of nodes arranged in a cluster;

monitoring runtime behavior of the component;

generating a scaling event based on a comparison of the runtime behavior to one or more scaling policies; and

automatically scaling the component based on the scaling event, wherein the scaling comprises adding a new node to the cluster or removing a node from the cluster based on the scaling event.

20. The computing apparatus of claim 19, wherein monitoring the runtime behavior comprises:

gathering metrics associated with resource utilization and performance of the component; and

storing the metrics.