Scalable Services Deployment

• US 20140173594A1
• Filed: 12/14/2012
• Published: 06/19/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 12/14/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Ng, Samuel, Hegde, Rajesh Kutpadi, Kucer, Anton, Swenson, Jake Carver, Bomfim, Rodrigo Maialle, Kudli, Prasanna
• Granted Patent: US 9,189,285 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 718/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/4557 Distribution of virtual machine instances; Migration and load balancing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45533 Hypervisors; Virtual machine monitors
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45558 Hypervisor-specific management and integration aspects
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/4856 resumption being on a different machine, e.g. task migration, virtual machine migration G06F9/5088 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/505 considering the load
• 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: H04N 21/4516 involving client characteristics, e.g. Set-Top-Box type, software version or amount of memory available
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/6125 involving transmission via Internet transmission by internet of broadcast information H04H60/82

Abstract

Embodiments provide an abstraction on top of virtual machine allocation APIs to expose scalable services. The services are higher level components that expose a particular set of functionalities. A deployment manager handles matching and managing virtual machine allocations in order to meet the customer demands for the managed services. A deployment service exposes a “service” as a unit of resource allocation in a distributed computing environment or cloud computing service. Client components interact with the deployment service to request new service instances to meet customer demand.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method, comprising:

receiving a service package on a distributed computing service, the service package comprising a virtual machine image capable of being deployed on the distributed computing service;

allocating a package instance to a virtual machine on the distributed computing service, the package instance representing an instance of the service package; and

creating a service instance in response to a user requesting access to a service described in the service package, the service instance associated with the package instance allocated to the virtual machine.

2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising:

providing endpoint information and connection credentials to the user for access to the service instance.

3. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving the service package via a REST API from a customer;

allocating the package instance in response to instructions from the customer via the REST API; and

creating the service instance in response to instructions from the customer via the REST API.

4. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising:

allocating additional package instances to additional virtual machines on the distributed computing service to maintain a customer bandwidth requirement.

5. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising:

creating additional service instances in response to additional user requests for access to the service described in the service package, each service instance associated with the package instance allocated to the virtual machine.

6. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the image comprises one or more of an operating system image, virtual hard drive file, distributed computing service package, and image configuration information.

7. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising:

monitoring a status of the package instance using heartbeat messages from the virtual machine.

8. In a computing environment where resources are distributed, a service deployment system comprising:

one or more processors performing the functions of;

a manager that operates on REST API requests to manage services for users;

a provider that operates to provision services by deploying service instances on virtual machines in the computing environment;

a communication manager operating to provide communication between the provider and the virtual machines; and

a resource manager operating to deploy virtual machine images to support the service instances.

9. The computing environment of claim 8, further comprising:

a host on each virtual machine, the host operating to provide bidirectional communication between the virtual machine and the provider.

10. The computing environment of claim 8, the manager operating to receive a service package on a distributed computing service, the service package comprising a virtual machine image capable of being deployed on the computing environment.

11. The computing environment of claim 10, the provider operating to allocate a package instance to a virtual machine on the computing environment, the package instance representing an instance of the service package.

12. The computing environment of claim 11, the provider operating to create a service instance in response to a user requesting access to a service described in the service package, the service instance associated with the package instance allocated to the virtual machine.

13. The computing environment of claim 11, the manager operating to provide heartbeat messages from a package instance on the virtual machine to users monitoring a status of the package instance.

14. The computing environment of claim 8, the manager operating to provide endpoint information and connection credentials to users for access to the service instances.

15. A computer-readable storage medium storing computer-executable instructions that when executed by at least one processor cause the at least one processor to perform a method for providing streaming media services, the method comprising:

receiving a user request to subscribe to a streaming media service;

receiving a bandwidth level for the streaming media service from the user;

deploying a service instance on a virtual machine, the service instance configured to provide the streaming media service at the bandwidth level; and

exposing a service instance service endpoint for the user to provide access to the streaming media service to clients.

16. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 15, wherein the method further comprising:

receiving requests to subscriber to a streaming media service from additional users;

deploying additional service instances on the virtual machine, each of the additional service instances configured to provide a streaming media service requested by an additional user.

17. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 15, wherein the method further comprising:

in response to client demand levels, deploying one or more additional service instances for the streaming media service on one or more additional virtual machines to maintain the bandwidth level requested by the user.

18. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 15, wherein the method further comprising:

monitoring a health status of virtual machines; and

deploying an additional service instance on a new virtual machine in response to failure of another virtual machine, the additional service instance supporting the same streaming media service at the bandwidth level provided by the failed virtual machine.

19. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 15, wherein the method further comprising:

updating the virtual machine without interrupting service availability for the streaming media.

20. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 15, wherein the method further comprising:

pre-allocating a service instance supporting the streaming media service on a pre-allocated virtual machine prior to receiving the user request for the streaming media service; and

configuring the pre-allocated virtual machine to provide the streaming media service at the bandwidth level in response to the user request.