SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR HAND-OFFS IN CLOUD ENVIRONMENTS

• US 20150326648A1
• Filed: 07/20/2015
• Published: 11/12/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 11/18/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: CA, Inc. (d/b/a CA Technologies) (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: CA, Inc. (d/b/a CA Technologies) (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Inventors: Diwakar, Kiran Prakash
• Granted Patent: US 10,051,042 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5072 Grid computing
• 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

Abstract

A system, method, and computer-readable storage medium for handling hand-offs in a cloud computing environment is provided. The method includes identifying, at a cloud governance module of a server device, a plurality of applications executing on a plurality of servers belonging to a plurality of cloud computing service providers. The method includes determining, based upon information in a policy module, to hand-off an execution of at least one identified application executing on a first cloud computing service provider platform to a second cloud computing service provider, determining whether the second cloud computing service provider satisfies one or more governance policies associated with the at least one identified application, and handing-off the execution of the at least one identified application to a second cloud computing provider platform based upon the second cloud computing provider being compliant with the one or more governance policies associated with the at least one identified application.

Claims

1-20. -20. (canceled)

21. A method to handle a transition among cloud computing service providers in a cloud computing environment, the method comprising:

evaluating, by a computer device, a plurality of cloud computing service providers to determine that a cloud computing service provider of the plurality of cloud computing service providers satisfies a computer security, computer audit compliance, computer application support, or computer application hand-off management policy; and

responsive to the determination that the cloud computing service provider satisfies the policy, causing, using the computer device, initiation of execution of a computer application at a platform of the cloud computing service provider that satisfies the policy.

22. The method of claim 21, wherein causing initiation of execution of the computer application comprises switching to the computer application at the platform of the cloud computing service provider that satisfies the policy from a same or comparable computer application at another cloud computing service provider.

23. The method of claim 22, wherein the switching comprises transferring to the cloud computing service provider a current state associated with the execution of the same or comparable computer application at the other cloud computing service provider.

24. The method of claim 21, wherein causing initiation of execution of the computer application comprises handing-off a same or comparable computer application at another cloud computing service provider to the platform of the cloud computing service provider that satisfies the policy.

25. The method of claim 24, wherein the handing-off comprises transferring to the cloud computing service provider a current state associated with the execution of the same or comparable computer application at the other cloud computing service provider.

26. The method of claim 21, wherein the policy is one of a plurality of policies, each policy associated with a different computer application.

27. The method of claim 21, wherein the evaluating comprises at least one selected from:

receiving, at the computer device, a first notification from a cloud computing service provider of an inability to support executing the computer application at a future instance of time and responsive to the first notification, performing the determination that a cloud computing service provider satisfies the policy;

receiving, at the computer device, a second notification from a system administrator regarding an availability of a better computer application support capability and responsive to the second notification, performing the determination that a cloud computing service provider satisfies the policy; and

/or

receiving, at the computer device, a third notification from a security device regarding a security breach detected at a cloud computing service provider and responsive to the third notification, performing the determination that a cloud computing service provider satisfies the policy.

28. The method of claim 21, wherein the performing the determination that a cloud computing service provider satisfies the policy comprises searching for a resource for use by the computer application.

29. The method of claim 21, wherein responsive to the computer application being detected to be dormant, the causing initiation of execution of the computer application at the platform of the cloud computing service provider that satisfies the policy is carried out using a set of parameters associated with the computer application.

30. The method of claim 21, wherein causing initiation of execution of the computer application at the platform of the cloud computing service provider comprises handing-off the computer application from the first cloud computing service provider to second cloud computer service provider in real-time such that a current state of the execution of the computer application at the first cloud computing service provider is used by the second cloud computing service provider platform to continue the execution of the computer application after the handing-off is completed.

31. A method to handle a transition among cloud computing service providers in a cloud computing environment, the method comprising:

monitoring a computer application executing on a platform of a first cloud computing service provider;

determining, at a computer device, whether a second cloud computing service provider satisfies a policy associated with the computer application; and

initiating, using the computer device, the execution of the same or comparable computer application at a platform of the second cloud computing service provider based upon the second cloud computing service provider being compliant with the policy associated with the computer application, wherein the initiating comprises sending a current state associated with the execution of the computer application to the second cloud computing service platform.

32. The method of claim 31, wherein the initiating further comprises starting the execution of the computer application at the second cloud computing service provider without a disruption in the execution of the computer application at the first cloud computing service provider.

33. The method of claim 31, wherein the determining comprises at least one selected from:

receiving, at the computer device, a first notification from the first cloud computing service provider of an inability to support executing the computer application at a future instance of time and responsive to the first notification, determining whether the second cloud computing service provider satisfies the policy;

receiving, at the computer device, a second notification from a system administrator regarding an availability of a better computer application support capability and responsive to the second notification, determining whether the second cloud computing service provider satisfies the policy; and

/or

receiving, at the computer device, a third notification from a security device regarding a security breach detected at the first cloud computing service provider and responsive to the third notification, determining whether the second cloud computing service provider satisfies the policy.

34. The method of claim 31, wherein the determining whether the second cloud computing service provider satisfies the policy associated with the computer application further comprises:

determining an existence of the policy;

creating a new policy responsive to the policy being determined to be non-existent; and

updating the existing policy.

35. The method of claim 31, wherein the determining whether the second cloud computing service provider satisfies the policy associated with the computer application comprises searching for a resource for use by the computer application.

36. The method of claim 31, wherein the initiating further comprising handing-off the computer application to the second cloud computing service provider in real-time such that the current state of the execution of the computer application is used by the second cloud computing service provider platform to continue the execution of the computer application after the handing-off is completed.

37. The method of claim 31, wherein responsive to the computer application being detected to be dormant, the initiating is carried out using a set of parameters associated with the computer application.

38. The method of claim 31, wherein the policy comprises a policy associated with one or more selected from:

network security, a network protocol, computer application support, network hardware support, user authentication, an operating system requirement, computer audit compliance, user and cloud computing service provider profile management, type of application supported by the first and the second cloud computing service providers, a storage parameter, and/or network operability.

39. The method of claim 31, wherein the second cloud computing service provider is selected based upon satisfying optimum performance metric conditions required for the execution of the computer application.

40. A non-transitory tangible computer-readable storage medium having one or more computer-readable instructions thereon to handle a transition among cloud computing service providers in a cloud computing environment, which when executed by a processor cause the processor to:

evaluate, by a computer device, a plurality of cloud computing service providers to determine that a cloud computing service provider of the plurality of cloud computing service providers satisfies a computer security, computer audit compliance, computer application support, or computer application hand-off management policy; and

responsive to the determination that the cloud computing service provider satisfies the policy, cause, using the computer device, initiation of execution of a computer application at a platform of the cloud computing service provider that satisfies the policy.