MIGRATION TO MANAGED CLOUDS

• US 20140149591A1
• Filed: 11/29/2012
• Published: 05/29/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 11/29/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Bhattacharya, Kamal, Markley, Matthew A., Pfitzmann, Birgit M., Schlatter, Marcel, Widmayer, Gerhard, Zhang, Xiaolan, Graf, Florian, Thio, Hsiao Choong
• Granted Patent: US 9,692,632 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/226
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5072 Grid computing
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1001 for accessing one among a plurality of replicated servers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1097 for distributed storage of data in networks, e.g. transport arrangements for network file system [NFS], storage area networks [SAN] or network attached storage [NAS]

Abstract

A foreign instance is transferred from a customer environment to a target infrastructure-as-a-service cloud environment as an image. The foreign instance is adjusted to standards of the infrastructure-as-a-service cloud environment to obtain an adjusted instance. The adjusted instance is registered into a management system of the infrastructure-as-a-service cloud environment.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

transferring a foreign instance from a customer environment to a target infrastructure-as-a-service cloud environment as an image;

adjusting said foreign instance to standards of said infrastructure-as-a-service cloud environment to obtain an adjusted instance; and

registering said adjusted instance into a management system of said infrastructure-as-a-service cloud environment.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein said adjusting comprises adjusting said foreign instance while running.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein in said registering step, said management system comprises an operational support system and a business support system, and wherein said registering comprises registering said adjusted instance into said operational support system and said business support system of said infrastructure-as-a-service cloud environment.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein said registering comprises:

running at least a portion of a provisioning flow for a standard catalog image of said infrastructure-as-a-service cloud environment, said standard catalog image being selected for similarity to said foreign image; and

swapping said image of said foreign instance for said standard catalog image.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein said swapping comprises swapping after said provisioning flow.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein said registering comprises:

running at least a portion of a provisioning flow for a standard catalog image of said infrastructure-as-a-service cloud environment, said standard catalog image being selected for similarity to said foreign image; and

picking up said image of said foreign instance, during said provisioning flow.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein:

said infrastructure-as-a-service cloud environment comprises a managed-infrastructure-as-a-service cloud environment;

said transferring comprises transferring to said managed-infrastructure-as-a-service cloud environment;

said adjusting comprises adjusting to standards of said managed-infrastructure-as-a-service cloud environment; and

said registering into said management system comprises registering into a management system of said managed-infrastructure-as-a-service cloud environment.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein, in said adjusting step, said standards comprise at least one of:

security standards;

infrastructure standards;

patch managements standards; and

infrastructure management system standards.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising analyzing said foreign instance for suitability for transfer to said target infrastructure-as-a-service cloud environment, wherein said transferring is responsive to said analyzing yielding an affirmative result.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein said foreign instance comprises one of a plurality of foreign instances, further comprising treating said plurality of foreign instances as a whole in said analyzing step.

11. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

carrying out testing; and

carrying out at least one of remediation and back-out if said testing fails.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein:

said testing comprises;

a baseline test prior to said transferring step; and

a user-acceptance test after said registering step, said user acceptance test having at least one test case; and

said baseline test validates that the foreign instance initially passed said at least one test case of said user-acceptance test.

13. The method of claim 11, wherein said foreign instance comprises one of a plurality of foreign instances, further comprising treating said plurality of foreign instances as a whole in said testing step.

14. The method of claim 1, further comprising providing a system, wherein the system comprises distinct software modules, each of the distinct software modules being embodied on a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium, and wherein the distinct software modules comprise a transfer core component module, an adjustment component module, and a registration component module;

wherein;

said transferring is carried out by said transfer core component module executing on at least one hardware processor within said infrastructure-as-a-service cloud environment;

said adjusting is carried out by said adjustment component module executing on said at least one hardware processor within said infrastructure-as-a-service cloud environment; and

said registering is carried out by said registration component module executing on said at least one hardware processor within said infrastructure-as-a-service cloud environment.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein said transferring further comprises said transfer core component module obtaining said foreign instance from a transfer agent in a customer environment and locating said foreign instance within a cloud landing zone of said infrastructure-as-a-service cloud environment.

16. The method of claim 15, further comprising instantiating said adjusted instance into a cloud production zone of said infrastructure-as-a-service cloud environment.

17. The method of claim 1, wherein said infrastructure-as-a-service cloud environment comprises a cloud landing zone, a cloud production zone, and a cloud management zone, wherein:

said transferring comprises transferring said foreign instance into said cloud landing zone under control of said cloud management zone; and

said adjusting is carried out on said foreign instance in said cloud landing zone under control of said cloud management zone;

further comprising instantiating said adjusted instance into said cloud production zone;

wherein in said registering step, said management system forms at least a portion of said cloud management zone.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein:

in said instantiating step, said cloud production zone comprises cloud production zone computer hardware of a first type and cloud production zone hypervisors of a first type running on said cloud production zone computer hardware of said first type; and

in said transferring and adjustment steps, said cloud landing zone comprises cloud landing zone computer hardware of said first type and cloud landing zone hypervisors of said first type running on said cloud landing zone computer hardware of said first type;

further comprising;

imposing fewer standards on instances managed within said cloud landing zone than on instances managed within said cloud production zone; and

separating said cloud landing zone from said cloud production zone via at least one of physical and logical techniques so as to avoid impact of said cloud landing zone on security of said cloud production zone.