CLOUD PLATFORM ARCHITECTURE

• US 20140130038A1
• Filed: 01/06/2014
• Published: 05/08/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 04/26/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Pivotal Software, Inc. (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: VMware, Inc. (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Inventors: LUCOVSKY, Mark, COLLISON, Derek, SPIVAK, Vadim, CHEN, Gerald C., LADDAD, Ramnivas
• Granted Patent: US 9,250,887 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 717/176
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/61 Installation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45533 Hypervisors; Virtual machine monitors
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5055 considering software capabilities, i.e. software resources associated or available to the machine

Abstract

A cloud computing environment provides the ability to deploy a web application that has been developed using one of a plurality of application frameworks and is configured to execute within one of a plurality of runtime environments. The cloud computing environment receives the web application in a package compatible with the runtime environment and dynamically binds available services by appropriately inserting service provisioning data (e.g., service network address, login credentials, etc.) into the package. The cloud computing environment then packages an instance of the runtime environment, a start script and the package into a web application deployment package, which is then transmitted to an application (e.g., container virtual machine, etc.). The application container unpacks the web application deployment package, installs the runtime environment, loads the web application package into the runtime environment and starts the start script, thereby deploying the web application in the application container.

Claims

1. A method for deploying a web application in a hosting environment, wherein the web application is developed using one of a plurality of application frameworks and is configured to execute within one of a plurality of runtime environments, the method, by operation of a computer processor, comprising the steps of:

receiving the web application in the form of a package compatible with the runtime environment;

determining a selection of available services accessible by the hosting environment to bind to the web application, the available services being more than one available service;

receiving service provisioning data for at least one of the available services, wherein the service provisioning data for each of the at least one available service comprises network addressing information relating to the corresponding available service;

inserting the received service provisioning data into the package in accordance with a data organization structure imposed by the application framework on the package, thereby binding the available service to the web application;

generating a start script for starting the runtime environment and launching the web application;

packaging the runtime environment, start script and package into a web application deployment package;

fetching the web application deployment package for an application container indicating availability to deploy the web application;

unpacking the web application deployment package into the application container, thereby installing the runtime environment and loading the package into the runtime environment;

executing the start script in the application container to start the runtime environment and launch the web application; and

notifying a router, upon a successful launch of the web application, of network address information for the application container, thereby enabling the router to route web browser requests for the web application to the application container.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein service provisioning data for each of the at least one available service further comprises login credentials to log into the corresponding available service, wherein the at least one available service is a plurality of the available resources.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein service provisioning data for each of the at least one available service is received from a shim component configured to communicate with the corresponding available service.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the package is a WAR file, the web application deployment package is a tar file and the application container is a virtual machine.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of generating a stop script file for stopping the launched web application.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising the steps of receiving a request to launch the web application and broadcasting a request for an available application container to deploy the web application.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the receiving, determining, receiving inserting, generating and packaging steps are executed by a cloud controller process in the hosting environment, and the fetching, unpacking, executing and notifying steps are executed by a deployment agent process running in the application container.

8. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium including instructions that, when executed on a computer processor, causes the computer processor to prepare a web application for deployment in a hosting environment, wherein the web application is developed using one of a plurality of application frameworks and is configured to execute within one of a plurality of runtime environments, by performing the steps of:

receiving the web application in the form of a package compatible with the runtime environment;

determining a selection of available services accessible by the hosting environment to bind to the web application, the available services being more than one available service;

receiving service provisioning data for each of at least one of the available services, wherein the service provisioning data comprises network addressing information relating to the corresponding available service;

inserting the received service provisioning data for each of the at least one available service into the package in accordance with a data organization structure imposed by the application framework on the package, thereby binding the available service to the web application;

generating a start script for starting the runtime environment and launching the web application; and

packaging the runtime environment, start script and package into a web application deployment package.

9. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 8, wherein service provisioning data for each of the at least one available service further comprises login credentials to log into the corresponding available service, wherein the at least one available service is a plurality of the available resources.

10. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 8, wherein service provisioning data for each of the at least one available service is received from a shim component configured to communicate with the corresponding available service.

11. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 8, wherein the package is a WAR file and the web application deployment package is a tape archive file.

12. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 8, wherein the computer processor is a virtual processor of a virtual machine running a cloud controller component of the hosting environment.

13. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 8, further including instructions that, when executed on a computer processor, causes the computer processor to deploy a web application in the hosting environment by performing the steps of:

fetching the web application deployment package for an application container indicating availability to deploy the web application;

unpacking the web application deployment package into the application container, thereby installing the runtime environment and loading the package into the runtime environment;

executing the start script in the application container to start the runtime environment and launch the web application; and

notifying a router, upon a successful launch of the web application, of network address information for the application container, thereby enabling the router to route web browser requests for the web application to the application container.

14. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 13, wherein the application container is a second virtual machine and the computer processor is a virtual processor of the second virtual machine, and wherein the fetching, unpacking, executing and notifying steps are performed by a deployment agent process running in the second virtual machine.