Managing Capacity in a Data Center by Suspending Tenants

• US 20130117453A1
• Filed: 11/09/2011
• Published: 05/09/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 11/09/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Tobkes, Robert, Miller, Andrew Robert, Tkatch, Alexander M., Shutt, David R., Cooke, Bryan David, Bjerke, Marshall Scot, Phillips, Jonathan Wayne
• Granted Patent: US 8,843,609 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/226
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/00 Information retrieval; Database structures therefor; File system structures therefor
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/60 Software deployment
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/00 Arrangements for program control, e.g. control units program control for peripheral devices G06F13/10
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/445 Program loading or initiating bootstrapping G06F9/4401; security arrangements for program loading or initiating G06F21/57
• 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 9/4843 by program, e.g. task dispatcher, supervisor, operating system
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/505 considering the load
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5072 Grid computing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5077 Logical partitioning of resources; Management or configuration of virtualized resources specific details on emulation or internal functioning of virtual machines G06F9/455
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5083 Techniques for rebalancing the load in a distributed system
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/70 Admission control; Resource allocation
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/40 Support for services or applications
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/01 Protocols
• 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
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1001 for accessing one among a plurality of replicated servers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1008 based on parameters of servers, e.g. available memory or workload monitoring of computer activity G06F11/30
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1027 Persistence of sessions during load balancing
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1031 Controlling of the operation of servers by a load balancer, e.g. adding or removing servers that serve requests
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/535 Tracking the activity of the user network monitoring arrangements H04L43/00; recording of computer activity G06F11/34
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/329 in the application layer [OSI layer 7]

Abstract

A tenant comprising one or more users receives services from a cloud computing system (“CCS”). The CCS determines when a tenant is not using any services, and if so, the CCS initiates a tenant suspension process. The tenant suspension process involves suspending various asynchronous computing processes for the tenant, which execute otherwise execute even if no users of the tenant are currently accessing the CCS. After a period of non-use of the CCS, the tenant is suspended. The tenant is returned to an active state automatically when a user of the tenant logs-on to receive services.

Claims

1. A method for conserving computing resources in a cloud computing system comprising:

initiating at least one administrative computing process for a tenant in the cloud computing system;

determining that no user of the tenant has used the cloud computing system within a period of time;

waiting for the at least one administrative computing process for the tenant in the cloud computing system to complete;

indicating the tenant as suspended in the cloud computing system;

receiving a log-on request from a user of the tenant;

determining that the tenant is suspended; and

allowing the at least one administrative computing process for the tenant to be reinstated.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

updating a tenant state table from indicating an active state associated with the tenant to indicating a suspended state associated with the tenant.

3. The method of claim 2, further comprising:

accessing a tenant identifier table from memory using a user identifier provided by the user to ascertain a tenant identifier, and where determining that the tenant is suspended comprises using the tenant identifier to access the tenant identifier table to ascertain a tenant state indicator.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein determining that no user of the tenant has used the system within a period of time comprises:

periodically accessing a user history log; and

determining that a time since last user of the tenant has logged-off from the cloud computing system exceeds a defined limit.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein determining that no user of the tenant has used the system within a period of time comprises:

accessing a timer associated with the tenant, the timer indicating the duration since a last user of the tenant has logged-off; and

determining that the timer is greater than a predetermined value.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the at least one administrative process comprises

a process determining a level of memory storage utilized by stored data associated with the tenant.

7. The method of claim 6 further comprising:

performing a memory backup of the stored data prior to indicating the tenant as suspended in the cloud computing system.

8. The method of claim 2 further comprising:

modifying a tenant state indication associated with the tenant state table to indicate that the tenant is in the active state.

9. A computer readable storage medium storing computer-executable instructions thereon which when executed by a computer cause the computer to:

initiate an asynchronous computing process for a tenant in a cloud computing system;

determine that no user of the tenant has used the cloud computing system within a period of time;

wait for the asynchronous computing process for the tenant in the cloud computing system to complete execution;

indicate the tenant in a tenant state table as being in a suspended state in the cloud computing system;

receive a log-on request from a user of the tenant;

determine that the tenant is indicated as in the suspended state in the tenant state table; and

allow the at least one asynchronous computing process for the tenant to execute.

10. The computer readable storage medium of claim 9, further storing instructions that when executed cause the computer to:

retrieve the tenant state table from memory and update the tenant state table in response to the user of the tenant logging-on to the cloud computing system to indicate the tenant as being in an active state.

11. The computer readable storage medium of claim 9, further storing instructions that when executed cause the computer to:

periodically access a user history log;

determine a time duration since when a last user of the tenant has logged-off from the cloud computing system exceeds a time limit, wherein the time duration is dynamically determined based on a cloud computing system load; and

in response to determining the time duration since the last user of the tenant has logged-off from the cloud computing system exceeds the time limit, updating the tenant state table stored in memory to indicate the tenant as being in a suspended state.

12. The computer readable storage medium of claim 9, further storing instructions that when executed cause the computer to:

access a timer associated with the tenant, the timer indicating a duration since a last user of the tenant has logged-off from the cloud computing system;

determine that the timer is greater than a predetermined value; and

in response to determining that the timer is greater than a predetermined value, updating a tenant state table from memory to indicate the tenant as being in a suspended state.

13. The computer readable storage medium of claim 12, further storing instructions that when executed cause the computer to:

perform a memory backup of stored data of the tenant prior to indicating the tenant as being in a suspended state.

14. The computer readable storage medium of claim 9, further storing instructions that when executed cause the computer to:

access a user history log to determine that no user of the tenant has used the cloud computing system since a period of time.

15. A system for conserving computing resources comprising:

a processor configured to

initiate at least one administrative computing process for a tenant in a cloud computing system,

determine that no user of the tenant has used the cloud computing system within a period of time,

wait for the at least one administrative computing process for the tenant in the cloud computing system to complete,

indicate the tenant as suspended in a tenant state table stored in the cloud computing system;

receive a log-on request from a user of the tenant,

determine that the tenant is suspended by retrieving a tenant state table stored in the cloud computing system,

allow the at least one administrative computing process for the tenant to be reinstated in response to the log-on request from the user, and

indicate the tenant as active in the tenant state table.

16. The system of claim 15, wherein the cloud computing system comprises the processor and the one administrative computing process for the tenant in the cloud computing system executes on the processor.

17. The system of claim 16, further comprising:

a backup database system for storing data for the tenant, and the at least one administrative computing process is a process for copying the data into the backup database system.

18. The system of claim 16, wherein the at least one administrative computing process comprises a process for determining a data storage level associated with the tenant.

19. The system of claim 16, further comprising:

a memory configured to store a tenant state table indicating whether the tenant is in an active state or in a suspended state, and wherein the processor is further configured to retrieve the tenant state table from the memory and update the tenant state table in response to a user of the tenant logging-on to the cloud computing system.

20. The system of claim 16, further comprising:

a memory configured to store a user history log comprising log-on and logoff times for users, wherein the processor is further configured to access the user history log to determine that no user of the tenant has since used the cloud computing system within a period of time.