Tagging Physical Resources in a Cloud Computing Environment

• US 20130212576A1
• Filed: 02/09/2012
• Published: 08/15/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 02/09/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Citrix Systems, Inc. (Cloud Software Group)
• Original Assignee: Citrix Systems, Inc. (Cloud Software Group)
• Inventors: Huang, Alex, Vittal, Chiradeep, Chan, William
• Granted Patent: US 9,038,083 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 718/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/45562 Creating, deleting, cloning virtual machine instances
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/4557 Distribution of virtual machine instances; Migration and load balancing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/45595 Network integration; Enabling network access in virtual machine instances
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2209/5015 Service provider selection
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/452 Remote windowing, e.g. X-Window System, desktop virtualisation protocols for virtual reality H04L67/131
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45533 Hypervisors; Virtual machine monitors
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45537 Provision of facilities of other operating environments, e.g. WINE I/O emulation G06F13/105
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45558 Hypervisor-specific management and integration aspects
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5055 considering software capabilities, i.e. software resources associated or available to the machine
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5072 Grid computing

Abstract

A cloud system may create physical resource tags to store relationships between cloud computing offerings, such as computing service offerings, storage offerings, and network offerings, and the specific physical resources in the cloud computing environment. Cloud computing offerings may be presented to cloud customers, the offerings corresponding to various combinations of computing services, storage, networking, and other hardware or software resources. After a customer selects one or more cloud computing offerings, a cloud resource manager or other component within the cloud infrastructure may retrieve a set of tags and determine a set of physical hardware resources associated with the selected offerings. The physical hardware resources associated with the selected offerings may be subsequently used to provision and create the new virtual machine and its operating environment.

Claims

1. One or more non-transitory computer-readable media, storing computer-executable instructions that, when executed by a processor, cause a computing device to:

receive a request to create a virtual machine in a cloud computing environment;

receive a selection of an offering associated with the request, the selected offering comprising at least one of a service offering and a network offering;

retrieve from a storage a first tag associated with the selected offering;

identify one or more physical resources within the cloud computing environment associated with the first tag; and

create a first virtual machine corresponding to the request, wherein the first virtual machine is configured to use the one or more physical resources associated with the first tag.

2. The computer-readable media of claim 1, wherein the cloud computing environment includes a plurality of computer servers, wherein the first tag is associated with a subset of the plurality of computer servers, and wherein creating the first virtual machine comprises provisioning the first virtual machine on one of the subset of the plurality of computer servers associated with the first tag.

3. The computer-readable media of claim 1, wherein cloud computing environment includes a plurality of physical networking resources, wherein the first tag is associated with a subset of the plurality of physical networking resources, and wherein creating the first virtual machine comprises configuring one of the subset of the plurality of physical networking resources to provide networking services for the first virtual machine.

4. The computer-readable media of claim 1, storing further computer-executable instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the computing device to:

display, after receiving the request, a plurality of offerings for creating a new virtual machine, the plurality of offerings comprising a first offering associated with a first tag and second offering associated with a second different tag.

5. The computer-readable media of claim 4, wherein first offering corresponds to a first value of a first physical resource attribute and the second offering corresponds to a second different value for the first physical resource attribute.

6. The computer-readable media of claim 4, wherein the first offering and the second offering are priced differently based on the different first and second values for the first physical resource attribute.

7. The computer-readable media of claim 1, storing further computer-executable instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the computing device to:

determine, after receiving the request, at least one physical resource within the cloud computing environment having at least a threshold level of current resource capacity;

identify a first set of tags associated with the at least one physical resource having at least the threshold level of current resource capacity;

retrieve a first set of offerings for creating a new virtual machine, wherein the first set of offerings is associated with the first set of tags; and

display the first set of offerings.

8. The computer-readable media of claim 7, wherein a second set of offerings for creating a new virtual machine is not associated with the first of set of tags, and wherein the second set of offerings is not displayed with the first set of offerings.

9. A method comprising:

receiving, at a first cloud infrastructure computing device, a request to create a virtual machine in a cloud computing environment;

receiving, at the first cloud infrastructure computing device, a selection of an offering associated with the request, the selected offering comprising at least one of a service offering and a network offering;

retrieving from a storage a first tag associated with the selected offering;

identifying one or more physical resources within the cloud computing environment associated with the first tag; and

creating, by the first cloud infrastructure computing device, a first virtual machine corresponding to the request, wherein the first virtual machine is configured to use the one or more physical resources associated with the first tag.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the cloud computing environment includes a plurality of computer servers, wherein the first tag is associated with a subset of the plurality of computer servers, and wherein creating the first virtual machine comprises provisioning the first virtual machine on one of the subset of the plurality of computer servers associated with the first tag.

11. The method of claim 9, wherein cloud computing environment includes a plurality of physical networking resources, wherein the first tag is associated with a subset of the plurality of physical networking resources, and wherein creating the first virtual machine comprises configuring one of the subset of the plurality of physical networking resources to provide networking services for the first virtual machine.

12. The method of claim 9, further comprising:

after receiving the request, displaying a plurality of offerings for creating a new virtual machine, the plurality of offerings comprising a first offering associated with a first tag and second offering associated with a second different tag.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein first offering corresponds to a first value of a first physical resource attribute and the second offering corresponds to a second different value for the first physical resource attribute.

14. The method of claim 12, wherein the first offering and the second offering are priced differently based on the different first and second values for the first physical resource attribute.

15. The method of claim 9, further comprising:

after receiving the request, determining at least one physical resource within the cloud computing environment having at least a threshold level of current resource capacity;

identifying a first set of tags associated with the at least one physical resource having at least the threshold level of current resource capacity;

retrieving a first set of offerings for creating a new virtual machine, wherein the first set of offerings is associated with the first set of tags; and

displaying the first set of offerings.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein a second set of offerings for creating a new virtual machine is not associated with the first of set of tags, and wherein the second set of offerings is not displayed with the first set of offerings.

17. An apparatus comprising:

a processor controlling at least some operations of the apparatus; and

a memory storing computer executable instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the apparatus to;

receive a request to create a virtual machine in a cloud computing environment;

receive a selection of an offering associated with the request, the selected offering comprising at least one of a service offering and a network offering;

retrieve from a storage a first tag associated with the selected offering;

identify one or more physical resources within the cloud computing environment associated with the first tag; and

create a first virtual machine corresponding to the request, wherein the first virtual machine is configured to use the one or more physical resources associated with the first tag.

18. The apparatus of claim 17, wherein the cloud computing environment includes a plurality of computer servers, wherein the first tag is associated with a subset of the plurality of computer servers, and wherein creating the first virtual machine comprises provisioning the first virtual machine on one of the subset of the plurality of computer servers associated with the first tag.

19. The apparatus of claim 17, wherein cloud computing environment includes a plurality of physical networking resources, wherein the first tag is associated with a subset of the plurality of physical networking resources, and wherein creating the first virtual machine comprises configuring one of the subset of the plurality of physical networking resources to provide networking services for the first virtual machine.

20. The apparatus of claim 17, the memory storing further computer executable instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the apparatus to:

display, after receiving the request, a plurality of offerings for creating a new virtual machine, the plurality of offerings comprising a first offering associated with a first tag and second offering associated with a second different tag.

21. The apparatus of claim 20, wherein first offering corresponds to a first value of a first physical resource attribute and the second offering corresponds to a second different value for the first physical resource attribute.

22. The apparatus of claim 20, wherein the first offering and the second offering are priced differently based on the different first and second values for the first physical resource attribute.

23. The apparatus of claim 17, the memory storing further computer executable instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the apparatus to:

determine, after receiving the request, at least one physical resource within the cloud computing environment having at least a threshold level of current resource capacity;

identify a first set of tags associated with the at least one physical resource having at least the threshold level of current resource capacity;

retrieve a first set of offerings for creating a new virtual machine, wherein the first set of offerings is associated with the first set of tags; and

display the first set of offerings.

24. The apparatus of claim 23, wherein a second set of offerings for creating a new virtual machine is not associated with the first of set of tags, and wherein the second set of offerings is not displayed with the first set of offerings.