PROVISIONING A SERVICE

• US 20170230257A1
• Filed: 09/29/2014
• Published: 08/10/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 09/29/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Hewlett Packard Enterprise Development LP (Hewlett-Packard Enterprise Company)
• Original Assignee: Hewlett Packard Enterprise Development LP (Hewlett-Packard Enterprise Company)
• Inventors: Bruun, Peter Michael
• Granted Patent: US 11,356,340 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/45562 Creating, deleting, cloning virtual machine instances
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/44505 Configuring for program initiating, e.g. using registry, configuration files
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45558 Hypervisor-specific management and integration aspects
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/485 Task life-cycle, e.g. stopping, restarting, resuming execution G06F9/4881 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5005 to service a request
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/40 using virtualisation of network functions or resources, e.g. SDN or NFV entities
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5048 Automatic or semi-automatic definitions, e.g. definition templates
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5054 Automatic deployment of services triggered by the service manager, e.g. service implementation by automatic configuration of network components
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/51 Discovery or management thereof, e.g. service location protocol [SLP] or web services
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/56 Provisioning of proxy services store-and-forward switching systems in data switching networks H04L12/54

Abstract

Examples of an apparatus and method for provisioning a service are described. Descriptors are described that represent the service. These are accessed and used to determine a reference required to implement the service. The reference indicates a type of entity and an entity to be passed to a function. The descriptor for the service is instantiated to obtain an instance of the service. This includes obtaining an instance of the type of entity indicated by the reference.

Claims

1. A method for provisioning a service, comprising:

accessing a descriptor for the service;

identifying, using the descriptor, one or more references required to implement the service,

each reference being a definition of a parameter and indicating;

a type of entity to be used as a value of the parameter, and

an expression for obtaining said entity; and

instantiating the descriptor for the service to obtain a set of instances associated with the service, including;

evaluating the expression of the reference to obtain an instance of the type of entity indicated by the reference.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the expression comprises an indication of an instance to be passed to a function for obtaining the instance of the type of entity indicated by the reference and evaluating the expression comprises performing the function, the function determining how to map from the passed instance to the instance of the type of entity indicated by the reference.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein evaluating the expression of the reference to obtain an instance of the type of entity indicated by the reference comprises:

determining a parent-child instantiation path to map from the passed instance to the instance of the type of entity indicated by the reference, and

instantiating one or more descriptors based on the parent-child instantiation path.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein instantiating the one or more descriptors based on the parent-child instantiation path comprises:

determining whether instances exist for at least of portion of the parent-child instantiation path; and

using any determined pre-existing instances to instantiate the descriptors.

5. The method of claim 3, wherein determining a parent-child instantiation path comprises:

using a scoring function to determine a descriptor for a child entity that matches the determined child entity type.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein

the service uses network function virtualization and the entities comprise virtual network functions, and

wherein instantiating the descriptor to generate an instance of the service comprises:

assigning physical resources to implement at least one generated instance, said physical resources comprising one or more of computing, storage and networking resources.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein obtaining an instance of the type of entity indicated by the reference comprises:

determining if an instance of the type of entity indicated by the reference exists;

responsive to an instance of the type of entity indicated by the reference existing, using the existing instance to instantiate the descriptor for the service; and

responsive to an instance of the type of entity indicated by the reference not existing, generating an instance of the type of entity indicated by the reference and using the generated instance to instantiate the descriptor for the service.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein generating an instance of the type of entity indicated by the reference comprises:

determining if the proposed instance has a parent entity that is not yet instantiated; and

responsive to a positive determination, instantiating the parent entity before generating the instance.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein provisioning a service comprises modifying a pre-existing service and the method comprising:

determining, from a descriptor associated with the service, whether a parameter to be modified is mutable;

responsive to the parameter being mutable, modifying a value of the parameter on an instance associated with the pre-existing service while said service is active; and

responsive to the parameter not being mutable, re-instantiating one or more of an instance of the service and an instance of an associated entity with the value of the parameter.

10. Apparatus for configuring a service comprising:

an interface arranged to receive a command to provision a service;

a service controller communicatively coupled to the interface, a descriptor data store and an instance data store, the service controller being arranged to;

parse the command and obtain a descriptor for the service from a descriptor data store,

decompose the service based on the descriptor to determine one or more references required to implement the service,

obtain an instance of the service to provision the service based on the obtained descriptor and to manage the instance in the instance data store,

the service controller being further arranged to, for a given reference;

use a first instance of an entity indicated in the reference to obtain a second instance of a type of entity indicated in the reference, the second instance being used as a parameter value for a third instance of an entity having the reference.

11. The apparatus of claim 10 comprising:

an interface arranged to instruct an assignment of physical resources to at least one instance to activate the service, said physical resources comprising one or more of computing, storage and networking resources.

12. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein the service controller is arranged to retrieve a value associated with one or more of the command and an instance in the instance data store and to assign said value to one or more parameters associated with the descriptor of the service to instantiate the service.

13. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium comprising a set of computer-readable instructions stored thereon, which, when executed by a processing system, cause the processing system to:

obtain a parent descriptor data structure;

determine types for a set of child entities indicated in the parent descriptor data structure;

obtain type descriptor data structures for the determined types;

obtain child descriptor data structures to implement the determined types;

determine a set of references from one or more of the parent descriptor data structure and the determined child descriptor data structures, each reference indicating at least a type of entity instance to be used as a value and an instance to be passed as a parameter; and

instantiate the obtained descriptor data structures to obtain a set of instances, this instruction causing the processor system to;

obtain the instance to be passed as a parameter and pass said instance to a function to obtain an instance associated with the type indicated in the reference.

14. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 13, comprising an instruction to cause the processing system to:

determine whether an instance associated with the type indicated in the reference exists, and

generate the instance in the case that the instance does not exist.

15. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 14, wherein the instructions cause the processing system to determine whether an instance exists by searching an instance data store for an instance identifier that matches a pattern indicated in the type descriptor data structure.