Rule engine for virtualized desktop allocation system

• US 8,141,075 B1
• Filed: 05/08/2006
• Issued: 03/20/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 05/08/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Vmware LLC (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: VMware, Inc. (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Inventors: Anderson, Jennifer-Ann M., Chawla, Puneet, Chen, Gerald C., Qurashi, Junaid, Lin, Patrick
• Primary Examiner(s): An, Meng
• Assistant Examiner(s): Kumabe, Blake
• Application Number:
  US11/430,683
• Time in Patent Office: 2,143 Days
• Field of Search: 718/1
• US Class Current: 718/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45558 Hypervisor-specific management and integration aspects
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5083 Techniques for rebalancing the load in a distributed system
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5088 involving task migration

Abstract

A plurality of virtual machines (VMs) is established and maintained by virtualization software on one or more physical servers. Desktop management software operates to provide the VMs to remote users as virtualized desktops. The desktop management software includes a rule engine that can be used to automate the policies of the organization. The rule engine manages the data center by controlling virtual infrastructure operations, such as power-on, power-off, suspension, and migration operations. The rule engine uses an event-condition-action paradigm, wherein an event causes a virtual infrastructure operation, possibly contingent on a condition. The rule engine provides for time-based scheduling of events in addition to system-based operations, which are triggered by events such as user logon and user logoff. The rule engine may also include the ability to automate the process of changing the properties of the virtual machines in a timely fashion.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method for automating provisioning policies for dynamically allocating resources to one or more virtual desktops, comprising:

under control of desktop management software programmed to automatically control provisioning of virtual desktops to one or more users;

determining an occurrence of an event related to at least one of;

a user request of a virtual desktop;

a user request of a renewal of a desktop lease;

an administrator login;

an administrator logout; and

/or a policy, resource requirement, or time specification that affects provisioning of the one or more virtual desktops to the one or more users;

from a stored plurality of rules, each of the stored plurality of rules having a rule definition comprising an indication of an event relating to provisioning and/or use of the one or more virtual desktops, an indication of a corresponding virtual infrastructure operation used to allocate resources to the one or more virtual desktops, and an indication of a condition to be satisfied in order to cause the corresponding virtual infrastructure operation to be performed, selecting a rule corresponding to the determined event based upon the rule definitions of one or more of the stored plurality of rules;

evaluating the condition indicated in the rule definition of the selected rule based upon a current state of the virtual infrastructure; and

when the evaluated condition is satisfied, causing the corresponding virtual infrastructure operation to be performed on one or more virtual machines, thereby affecting resources of the one or more virtual desktops.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the determined event is a system-driven event.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the determined event is a scheduled event.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the scheduled event is generated by a time based event generator.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the condition indicated in the rule definition of the selected rule is a compound condition.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the evaluated condition is a plurality of conditions.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the evaluating the indicated condition indicates that the condition is satisfied.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the virtual infrastructure operation that is caused to be performed is one of a plurality of virtual infrastructure operations specified by the selected rule and is based on evaluating one or more corresponding conditions indicated by the rule definition of the selected rule.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the indicated condition is evaluated based on the state of software entities in the system.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the indicated condition is set to a default value, and the evaluating the indicated condition indicates that the condition is satisfied.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the default value is null.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein the determined event comprises a user login and/or a user logout.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein the determined event comprises a user requesting a desktop.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein the determined event comprises a user requesting a renewal of desktop lease.

15. The method of claim 1, wherein the determined event comprises an administrator login and/or an administrator logout.

16. The method of claim 1, wherein the corresponding virtual infrastructure operation caused to be performed comprises allocating resources to one or more virtualized desktops.

17. The method of claim 1, wherein the corresponding virtual infrastructure operation caused to be performed comprises changing the state of one or more virtualized desktops.

18. The method of claim 1, wherein the corresponding virtual infrastructure operation caused to be performed comprises changing the properties of one or more host systems running the virtualized desktops.

19. The method of claim 1, wherein the corresponding virtual infrastructure operation caused to be performed comprises powering on, powering off, suspending, and/or resuming one or more virtualized desktops.

20. The method of claim 1, wherein the corresponding virtual infrastructure operation caused to be performed comprises migration of one or more virtual machines.

21. The method of claim 1, wherein the corresponding virtual infrastructure operation caused to be performed comprises creating and/or deleting one or more virtual machines.

22. The method of claim 1, wherein the corresponding virtual infrastructure operation caused to be performed comprises cloning one or more virtualized desktops.

23. The method of claim 1, wherein the corresponding virtual infrastructure operation caused to be performed comprises taking a snapshot of one or more virtualized desktops.

24. The method of claim 1, wherein the corresponding virtual infrastructure operation caused to be performed comprises adding to and/or removing a host from the cluster of physical hosts used for hosting one or more virtualized desktops.

25. The method of claim 1, wherein the corresponding virtual infrastructure operation is performed on one virtualized desktop.

26. The method of claim 1, wherein the corresponding virtual infrastructure operation is performed on a plurality of virtualized desktops.

27. The method of claim 26, wherein the plurality of virtualized desktops is a logical group of virtualized desktops.

28. The method of claim 27, wherein the logical group of virtualized desktops is defined by an administrator.

29. The method of claim 1, wherein one or more of the plurality of rules are specified as being either active or inactive, and the corresponding virtual infrastructure operation of the selected rule is caused to be performed only if the selected rule is active.

30. The method of claim 1, wherein one or more of the plurality of rules are specified as being either registered or unregistered, and the corresponding virtual infrastructure operation of the selected rule is caused to be performed only if the selected rule is registered.

31. The method of claim 1, wherein one or more of the plurality of rules are specified as being either binding or non-binding.

32. The method of claim 31, wherein, if the selected rule is binding and a conflicting rule exists, the corresponding virtual infrastructure operation of the selected rule is caused to be performed in accordance with the selected rule.

33. The method of claim 31, wherein, if the selected rule is non-binding and a conflicting rule exists, the corresponding virtual infrastructure operation of the selected rule is not caused to be performed.

34. The method of claim 1, wherein the selected rule has a specified priority level.

35. The method of claim 34, wherein, if a conflicting rule exists and the conflicting rule has a lower priority than the selected rule, the corresponding virtual infrastructure operation of the selected rule is caused to be performed in accordance with the selected rule.

36. The method of claim 34, wherein, if a conflicting rule exists and the conflicting rule has a higher priority than the selected rule, the corresponding virtual infrastructure operation of the selected rule is not caused to be performed.

37. A computer-readable medium containing content that controls a processor, when executed, to perform a method in desktop management software programmed to automatically control provisioning of virtual desktops to one or more users, comprising:

under control of the desktop management software, determining an occurrence of an event related to at least one of;

a user request of a virtual desktop;

a user request of a renewal of a desktop lease;

an administrator login;

an administrator logout; and

/or a policy, resource requirement, or time specification that affects provisioning of the one or more virtual desktops to the one or more users;

from data storage comprising one or more stored rules, each stored rule comprising a rule definition having an indication of an event relating to provisioning and/or use of the one or more virtual desktops and one or more indications of virtual infrastructure operations used to allocate resources to the one or more virtual desktops, each indicated virtual infrastructure operation having one or more associated conditions to be satisfied to cause the associated virtual infrastructure operation to be performed, determining a rule that corresponds to the determined event based upon the rule definitions of one or more of the stored rules;

evaluating the one or more conditions associated with the one or more indicated virtual infrastructure operations of the determined the rule based upon a current state of the virtual infrastructure; and

based on the result of the evaluation of the one or more conditions, causing at least one of the one or more virtual infrastructure operations of the determined rule to be performed on one or more virtual machines, thereby affecting one or more virtual desktops.

38. The computer-readable tangible medium of claim 37 wherein the computer-readable tangible medium is a memory in a computer system and the contents are instructions stored in the memory.

39. The computer-readable tangible medium of claim 37 wherein the evaluated one or more conditions comprise at least one compound condition that incorporates logical operators and/or control flow statements.

40. The computer-readable tangible medium of claim 37 wherein the at least one of the one or more virtual infrastructure operations are caused to be performed when the result of the evaluation indicates that the one or more conditions are satisfied.

41. The computer-readable tangible medium of claim 37 wherein the evaluating the one or more conditions is based upon a current state of the virtualization infrastructure.

42. The computer-readable tangible medium of claim 37 wherein the determined event is a time-based event or a system-based event.

43. A computing system for automatically provisioning policies for a plurality of virtual desktops in a virtualization infrastructure, comprising:

a memory;

a computer processor;

a desktop management software component, stored in the memory and configured, when executed on the computer processor, to automatically control provisioning of virtual desktops to one or more users; and

a rule engine software component, accessed by the desktop management software component and configured to;

store a plurality of rule definitions that each correspond to an event relating to provisioning and/or use of the one or more virtual desktops, each definition indicating a virtual infrastructure operation to be performed when an associated condition is satisfied;

detect an occurrence of a time-based or a system-based event related to at least one of;

a user request of a virtual desktop;

a user request of a desktop lease;

an administrator login;

an administrator logout; and

/or a policy, resource requirement, or time specification that affects provisioning and/or use of the one or more virtual desktops;

determine a rule definition corresponding to the detected event occurrence;

evaluate the condition associated with the determined rule definition based upon a current state of the virtual infrastructure;

when the condition is satisfied, cause the virtual infrastructure operation indicated by the determined rule definition to be performed; and

when the condition is not satisfied, not cause the virtual infrastructure operation indicated by the determined rule definition to be performed.

44. The system of claim 43 where the virtual infrastructure operation is an operation that causes one of more of:

allocation of resources to one or more virtual machines, changes the state of one or more virtual machines, changes software running on one or more virtual machines, change properties of one or more virtual machines, and/or changes properties of one or more hosts running one or more virtual machines.