CREATING AND DEBUGGING RESOURCE INSTANCES IN A CLOUD COMPUTING SYSTEM

• US 20140201372A1
• Filed: 01/16/2013
• Published: 07/17/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 01/16/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Oracle International Corporation (Oracle Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Oracle International Corporation (Oracle Corporation)
• Inventors: Carter, Frederick H., Bauer, Jonathan Asher, Vambenepe, Guillaume Nicolas
• Granted Patent: US 9,667,746 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/226
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/70 Admission control; Resource allocation
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/10 in which an application is distributed across nodes in the network software deployment G06F8/60; multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/46
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/34 involving the movement of software or configuration parameters network booting or remote initial program loading [RIPL] G06F9/4416
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/75 Indicating network or usage conditions on the user display

Abstract

Tools are provided to assist users of cloud computing systems to create, monitor, and debug the resource instances they need. Specifically, resource instances are created in a cloud computing system based on a blueprint that is provided to a blueprint processor. The blueprint declaratively defines the resources that the user needs to have created in the cloud. Based on the information contained in blueprint, the blueprint processor causes the cloud to orchestrate the creation of resource instances, doing so in parallel when possible, and to configure those resource instances as specified in blueprint. Techniques are described for generating a timeline to convey status during the deployment process, and for performing debugging operations.

Claims

3-1. The method of claim 3 wherein, for one or more resource instances of the plurality of resource instances, characters indicating the deployment status of the resource instance are displayed at the same horizontal position across all outputted lines of characters, thereby forming a column, for each of the one or more resource instances, that displays the deployment status of the corresponding resource instance over time.

9. A method comprising:

deploying a blueprint by causing creation, within a cloud system, of a plurality of resource instances that correspond to a plurality of cloud resource objects that are defined within the blueprint;

during deployment of the blueprint, executing a debugging operation that performs at least one of;

evaluates a path or expression that appears in the blueprint;

or

sets a value of an attribute associated with one of the plurality of cloud resource objects;

wherein the method is performed by one or more computing devices.

10. The method of claim 9 wherein:

deploying the blueprint is performed by a blueprint processor; and

the method further comprises, prior to executing the debugging operation, causing the blueprint processor to cease performing operations for deploying the blueprint.

11. The method of claim 10 wherein causing the blueprint processor to cease performing operations for deploying the blueprint includes causing the blueprint processor to cease performing operations for deploying the blueprint based on a pause point command.

12. The method of claim 10 wherein causing the blueprint processor to cease performing operations for deploying the blueprint includes causing the blueprint processor to cease performing operations for deploying the blueprint based on a breakpoint specified within the blueprint.

13. The method of claim 9 wherein the debugging operation evaluates a path expression that appears in the blueprint.

14. The method of claim 9 wherein the debugging operation evaluates an expression that appears in the blueprint.

15. The method of claim 9 wherein the debugging operation sets a value of an attribute associated with one of the plurality of cloud resource objects.

16. The method of claim 9 wherein:

deploying the blueprint is performed by a blueprint processor;

the debugging operation is performed using an interactive cloud explorer; and

the method further includes using the interactive cloud explorer to perform a particular operation on a particular resource instance that is already created in the cloud system;

the particular operation is one of;

evaluating a path expression associated with the particular resource instance;

executing an expression, associated with the particular resource instance, that is written in a language supported by the blueprint processor;

or

setting the value of an attribute of the particular resource instance.

17. The method of claim 16 wherein the particular operation is evaluating a path expression print associated with the particular resource instance.

18. The method of claim 16 wherein the particular operation is setting the value of an attribute associated with the particular resource instance.

19. A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing instructions which, when executed by one or more processors, cause performance of a method comprising:

during deployment of a blueprint that defines a plurality of cloud resource objects, outputting status information about the current deployment status of each of a plurality of resource instances that correspond to, and are being created based on, the plurality of resource objects defined in the blueprint; and

during deployment of the blueprint, forming a timeline that depicts the status of each of the plurality of resource instances at each of a plurality of points in time by repeating the step of outputting status information at each of the plurality of points in time.

20. A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing instructions which, when executed by one or more processors, cause performance of a method comprising:

deploying a blueprint by causing creation, within a cloud system, of a plurality of resource instances that correspond to a plurality of cloud resource objects that are defined within the blueprint;

during deployment of the blueprint, executing a debugging operation that performs at least one of;

evaluates a path or expression that appears in the blueprint;

or

sets a value of an attribute associated with one of the plurality of cloud resource objects.