HIGH-DENSITY MULTI-TENANT DISTRIBUTED CACHE AS A SERVICE

• US 20130097680A1
• Filed: 10/17/2011
• Published: 04/18/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 10/17/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Veeramachaneni, Jithendra K., S., Hari Krishnan, Bendapudi, Perraju, Yadav, Amit Kumar, Peri, Jagan M., Kakkar, Jatin
• Granted Patent: US 10,200,493 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 726/6
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/335 for accessing specific resources, e.g. using Kerberos tickets
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2212/314 In storage network, e.g. network attached cache
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5096 wherein the managed service relates to distributed or central networked applications
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/0807 using tickets, e.g. Kerberos cryptographic mechanisms or cryptographic arrangements for entity authentication using tickets or tokens H04L9/3213
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1001 for accessing one among a plurality of replicated servers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/288 Distributed intermediate devices, i.e. intermediate devices for interaction with other intermediate devices on the same level
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/568 Storing data temporarily at an intermediate stage, e.g. caching

Abstract

A multi-tenant, elastically scalable cache as a service is disclosed. Embodiments of the cache service eliminate the need for applications to manage their own cache tier. The multi-tenant cache service is implemented by maintaining/creating multiple named caches in a cache cluster and mapping each tenant'"'"'s cache to a named cache in the cluster. Strict quotas are enforced on cache sizes This allows caches with different replication attributes to co-exist on the same cache server, allows migration of a cache from one cluster to another for load balancing purposes, and allows a cache to inflate/deflate to meet business needs. A network load balancer is used to route cache items to servers.

Claims

1. A system for providing a cache service, comprising:

a network load balancer providing an interface to client applications;

a plurality of cache clusters coupled to the network load balancer, the cache clusters comprising;

a plurality of gateway nodes; and

a plurality of cache servers coupled to the gateway nodes.

2. The system of claim 1, further comprising:

a plurality of named caches on the cache servers, wherein tenant caches are mapped to individual ones of the named caches.

3. The system of claim 1, further comprising:

a plurality of cache partitions on the cache servers, wherein tenant caches are mapped to individual ones of the named caches.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the gateway nodes operate to receive data requests from client applications and to authenticate the data requests using security tokens.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the gateway nodes operate to monitor the location of user data on the cache servers and to retrieve user data in response to data requests from client applications.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein a plurality of tenant caches are hosted on the cache servers, each of the tenant caches having a predefined size, and each of the tenant caches isolated from the other tenant caches.

7. A method for provisioning a cache service, comprising:

receiving a request from a user for a tenant cache having a selected cache size;

identifying a cache cluster to host the tenant cache, the cache cluster comprising a plurality of gateway nodes and a plurality of cache servers;

reserving space for the tenant cache on the cache cluster;

provisioning a security token for the tenant cache;

provisioning an address for the tenant cache; and

providing the security token and address for the tenant cache to the user.

8. The method of claim 7, further comprising:

identifying the cache cluster to host the tenant cache based upon a user-requested cache size and user-requested location.

9. The method of claim 7, further comprising:

provisioning the security token using an access control service.

10. The method of claim 7, further comprising:

establishing a tenant cache quota based upon a user-requested cache size.

11. The method of claim 7, further comprising:

establishing a tenant bandwidth that identifies a maximum number of transactions or size of transactions for a selected period.

12. The method of claim 7, wherein the cache clusters comprising rings of cache servers;

and reserving space for the tenant cache on a cache server on a selected ring.

13. The method of claim 7, further comprising:

monitoring, at the gateway nodes, locations of user data within a cache cluster.

14. A method for providing cache services to a plurality of users, comprising:

receiving a data request for a tenant cache, the data request comprising a security token and a cache service address;

authenticating the data request using the security token;

determining if the tenant cache has exceeded a cache quota;

providing access to the tenant cache, if the cache quota has not been exceeded; and

monitoring usage of the tenant cache.

15. The method of claim 14, further comprising:

blocking access to the tenant cache if a cache bandwidth is exceeded during use.

16. The method of claim 14, further comprising:

blocking access to the tenant cache if the cache quota is exceeded during use.

17. The method of claim 14, further comprising:

determining, at a gateway node, the location of requested data in the data request; and

retrieving, by the gateway node, the requested data from the location.

18. The method of claim 14, further comprising:

limiting access to the tenant cache to authorized users; and

limiting sizes of other tenants'"'"' caches to maintain available space for the tenant cache.

19. The method of claim 14, further comprising:

communicating with an access control service to authenticate the data request using the security token.

20. The method of claim 14, further comprising:

replicating the tenant cache across partitions in a cache cluster.