Dynamic Configuration of Virtual Appliances

• US 20140208316A1
• Filed: 11/06/2013
• Published: 07/24/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 11/07/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Incorporated (International Business Machines Corporation)
• Inventors: Ciano, Giuseppe, De Santis, Marco, Simeoni, Maurizio
• Granted Patent: US 9,703,540 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 718/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/61 Installation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/455 Emulation; Interpretation; Software simulation, e.g. virtualisation or emulation of application or operating system execution engines
• 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

Abstract

A solution is proposed for deploying a virtual appliance onto a data processing system. A corresponding method comprises instantiating the virtual appliance with a basic configuration onto the data processing system, determining a value of each one of to set of environmental features of a virtual data processing environment associated with the virtual appliance, and downloading a set of local software programs corresponding to the values of at least part of the environmental features onto the virtual appliance.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

instantiating a virtual appliance with a basic configuration onto a data processing system,

determining a value of each one of a set of environmental features of a virtual data processing environment associated with the virtual appliance, and

downloading a set of local software programs corresponding to the values of at least part of the environmental features onto the virtual appliance.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the downloading a set of local software programs comprises installing each local software program onto the virtual appliance.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the virtual appliance in the basic configuration comprises a deployment agent, the method further comprising running the deployment agent in response to the instantiation of the virtual appliance, the deployment agent causing the determination of the values of the environmental features and the downloading of the local software programs.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the determining a value of each one of a set of environmental features comprises receiving the value of each environmental feature from a deployment server.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the receiving the value of each environmental feature from a deployment server comprises:

submitting an environment query to the deployment server, the environment query including an indication or the virtual appliance, and

receiving the value of each environmental feature from the deployment server in response to the environment query.

6. The method of claim from 1, further comprising:

repeating the determining the value of each environmental feature, and

repeating the downloading the local software programs corresponding to the values of at least part of the environmental features in response to any change thereof.

7. The method of claim 6, further comprising removing each local software program corresponding to a previous value of an environmental feature in response to the change thereof.

8. The method of claim from 1, wherein each one of said at least part of the environmental features comprises an indication of a connection to an external software program, the determining a value of each one of a set of environmental features comprising:

determining the virtual data processing environment associated with the virtual appliance,

discovering any instance of each external software program available in the virtual data processing environment, and

determining the local software programs corresponding to a selected instance of each external software program.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the discovering any instance of each external software program available in the virtual data processing environment comprises:

discovering a level of each external software program.

10. The method of claim 8, wherein the downloading a set of local software programs comprises configuring each local software program for connecting to the corresponding external software program.

11. The method of claim 8 wherein the determining the virtual data processing environment comprises receiving an indication of the virtual data processing environment in response to the environment query.

12. The method of claim 8, wherein the determining the local software programs corresponding to a selected instance of each external software program comprises:

submitting a downloading query to a downloading server, the downloading query including an indication of the instance of the external software program, and

receiving an indication of the local software programs from the downloading server in response to the downloading query.

13. An apparatus, comprising:

a data processing system;

a non-transitory, computer readable memory coupled to the data processing system; and

logic, stored on the computer readable memory and executed on the data processing system, for;

instantiating a virtual appliance with a basic configuration onto the data processing system,

determining a value of each one of a set of environmental features of a virtual data processing environment associated with the virtual appliance, and

downloading a set of local software programs corresponding to the values of at least part of the environmental features onto the virtual appliance.

14. The apparatus of claim 13, wherein the logic fir downloading a set of local software programs comprises logic for installing each local software program onto the virtual appliance.

15. The apparatus of claim 13, wherein the virtual appliance in the basic configuration comprises a deployment agent, the logic further comprising logic for running the deployment agent in response to the instantiation of the virtual appliance, the deployment agent causing the determination of the values of the environmental features and the downloading of the local software programs.

16. The apparatus of claim 13, wherein the logic for determining a value of each one of a set of environmental features comprised logic for receiving the value of each environmental feature from a deployment server.

17. A computer programming product, comprising:

a non-transitory, computer readable memory; and

logic, stored on the non-transitory, computer readable memory for execution on a processor, for;

instantiating a virtual appliance with a basic configuration onto a data processing system,

determining a value of each one of a set of environmental features of a virtual data processing environment associated with the virtual appliance, and

downloading a set of local software programs corresponding to the values of at least part of the environmental features onto the virtual appliance.

18. The computer programming product of claim 17, wherein the logic for downloading a set of local software programs comprises logic for installing each local software program onto the virtual appliance.

19. The computer programming product of claim 17, wherein the virtual appliance in the basic configuration comprises a deployment agent, the logic further comprising logic for running the deployment agent in response to the instantiation of the virtual appliance, the deployment agent causing the determination of the values of the environmental features and the downloading of the local software programs.

20. The computer programming product of claim 17, wherein the logic for determining a value of each one of a set of environmental features comprises logic for receiving the value of each environmental feature from a deployment server.