SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR ADAPTIVE APPLICATION PROVISIONING

• US 20130297802A1
• Filed: 05/03/2013
• Published: 11/07/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 05/04/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Citrix Systems, Inc. (Cloud Software Group)
• Original Assignee: Citrix Systems, Inc. (Cloud Software Group)
• Inventors: Laribi, Youcef, Suganthi, Josephine, Singh, Ratnesh, Kondamuru, Ravia
• Granted Patent: US 9,769,085 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/226
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3006 where the computing system is distributed, e.g. networked systems, clusters, multiprocessor systems multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/46; allocation of resources G06F9/50
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/301 where the computing system is a virtual computing platform, e.g. logically partitioned systems virtual machines G06F9/45533; logical partitioning of resources G06F9/5077
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3442 for planning or managing the needed capacity
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/6418 Hybrid transport
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/80 Actions related to the user profile or the type of traffic

Abstract

The present application is directed towards systems and methods for adaptive application provisioning for cloud services. An appliance deployed in a network as a gateway may be able to transparently monitor application activity in a cloud computing environment provided by one or more servers, including servers executed by virtual machines, bare-metal or non-virtual servers, or other computing devices. In some embodiments, the appliance may monitor one or more network metrics, including bandwidth usage, latency, congestion, or other issues; and/or may monitor application health or server or virtual machine statistics, including memory and processor usage, bandwidth usage, latency, or other metrics. Responsive to one or more metrics exceeding a threshold, the appliance may automatically provision or start, or deprovision or shut down, one or more virtual or physical machines from a cloud service provider, and may provide configuration information to the provisioned or started machines as needed.

Claims

1. A method for automatically scaling a number of instances of an application provisioned via a cloud service provider, the method comprising:

(a) identifying, by a device intermediary to a plurality of a clients and a cloud service provider executing a plurality of instances of an application provisioned by the device via the cloud service provider, one or more policies for scaling a number of instances of the application via the cloud service provider, the policy identifying one or more metrics and a threshold for each of the one or more metrics;

(b) monitoring, by the device, each of the one or more metrics for the plurality of instances of the application executing via the cloud service provider;

(c) determining, by the device, that each metric of the one or more metrics exceeds each metric'"'"'s threshold identified by the policy; and

(d) transmitting, by the device automatically responsive to the determination, a request to the cloud service provider to one of provision or deprovision one or more instances of the application via the cloud service provider in accordance with the policy.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein step (a) further comprises establishing, by the device, one or more instances of the plurality of instances of the application as one of a virtual or physical machine executing on one or more servers of the cloud service provider.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more policies specify to one of scale up or scale down the number of instances of the application responsive to each metric of the one or more metrics exceeding each metric'"'"'s threshold.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein step (a) further comprising identifying, by the device, a time interval that identifies a duration of time which the policy is not evaluated once a provision or deprovision request is made to the cloud service provider.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein step (b) further comprises monitoring, by the device, each metric of the one or more metrics at time intervals specified by the policy.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein step (b) further comprises monitoring, by the device, the one or more metrics identifying a load across the plurality of instances of the application.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein step (c) further comprises determining, by the device, that each of the one or more metric exceeds each metric'"'"'s threshold for a predetermined time period specified by the policy.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein step (d) further comprises transmitting, by the device, the request to provision the instance of the application via the cloud service provider and the device receiving one or more internet protocol (IP) addresses of one or more machines executing the requested one or more instances of the application.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein step (d) further comprises providing, by the device to the cloud service provider configuration information to provision the requested instance of the application.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein step (d) further comprising transmitting, by the device, the request to the cloud service provider in accordance with a cloud profile configured on the device, the cloud profile identifying the cloud service provider.

11. A system for automatically scaling a number of instances of an application provisioned via a cloud service provider, the system comprising:

a device intermediary to a plurality of a clients and a cloud service provider executing a plurality of instances of an application provisioned by the device via the cloud service provider;

a policy engine comprising one or more policies for scaling a number of instances of the application via the cloud service provider, the policy identifying one or more metrics and a threshold for each of the one or more metrics;

a monitor of the device configured to monitor each of the one or more metrics for the plurality of instances of the application executing via the cloud service provider;

wherein the device is configured to determine that each metric of the one or more metrics exceeds each metric'"'"'s threshold identified by the policy and to transmit automatically responsive to the determination a request to the cloud service provider to one of provision or deprovision one or more instances of the application via the cloud service provider in accordance with the policy.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the device is configured to establish one or more instances of the plurality of instances of the application as one of a virtual or physical machine executing on one or more servers of the cloud service provider.

13. The system of claim 11, wherein the policy specifies to one of scale up or scale down the number of instances of the application responsive to each metric of the one or more metrics exceeding each metric'"'"'s threshold.

14. The system of claim 11, wherein the policy engine comprises a time interval that identifies a duration of time which the policy is not evaluated once a provision or deprovision request is made to the cloud service provider.

15. The system of claim 11, wherein the monitor is configured to monitor each metric of the one or more metrics at time intervals specified by the policy.

16. The system of claim 11, wherein the monitor is configured to monitor the one or more metrics identifying a load across the plurality of instances of the application.

17. The system of claim 11, wherein the device is configured to determine that that each of the one or more metric exceeds each metric'"'"'s threshold for a predetermined time period specified by the policy.

18. The system of claim 11, wherein the device is configured to determine the request to provision the instance of the application via the cloud service provider and to receive one or more internet protocol (IP) addresses of one or more machines executing the requested one or more instances of the application.

19. The system of claim 11, wherein the device is configured to provide to the cloud service provider configuration information to provision the requested instance of the application.

20. The system of claim 11, wherein the device is configured to transmit the request to the cloud service provider in accordance with a cloud profile configured on the device, the cloud profile identifying the cloud service provider.