Systems and methods for management of virtual appliances in cloud-based network

• US 8,239,509 B2
• Filed: 05/28/2008
• Issued: 08/07/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 05/28/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Red Hat, Inc. (International Business Machines Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Red Hat, Inc. (International Business Machines Corporation)
• Inventors: Ferris, James Michael, Huff, David P.
• Primary Examiner(s): STRANGE, AARON N
• Application Number:
  US12/128,233
• Publication Number:
  US 20090300149A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,532 Days
• Field of Search: 709/222, 709/223, 709/224, 345/1.1, 711/100, 718/1, 718/100, 726/24, 717/171
• US Class Current: 709/223
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 15/177 Initialisation or configuration control processor initialisation G06F9/4405
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/45575 Starting, stopping, suspending or resuming virtual machine instances
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5077 Logical partitioning of resources; Management or configuration of virtualized resources specific details on emulation or internal functioning of virtual machines G06F9/455
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5051 Service on demand, e.g. definition and deployment of services in real time
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5096 wherein the managed service relates to distributed or central networked applications
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/826 Involving periods of time

Abstract

Embodiments relate to systems and methods for instantiating and operating a virtual appliance monitor in a cloud. A network cloud environment can include a set of instantiated virtual appliances supported in the cloud. A cloud management system can control and organize the resource servers and other resources necessary to build the virtual appliances. In addition to the set of virtual appliances, the cloud management system can instantiate a virtual appliance monitor that communicates with the set of virtual appliances, to monitor their execution state, software complement, and other operational details. In implementations the virtual appliance monitor can be migrated from a physical on-premise platform. The virtual appliance store can store information related to the execution state of the virtual appliances to an off-cloud appliance data store. The instantiation and operation of the virtual appliance monitor can be metered for subscription-based usage charges.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

instantiating, by a cloud management server device managing a network cloud, a virtual appliance monitor in the network cloud, wherein the virtual appliance monitor is instantiated separately from a set of virtual appliances operating in the network cloud and configured to monitor each virtual appliance of the set of virtual appliances;

receiving, by the virtual appliance monitor, appliance state information representing an execution state of a virtual appliance of the set of virtual appliances instantiated in the network cloud, wherein the virtual appliance comprises a set of applications and a reduced operating system configured to support the set of applications;

determining, by the virtual appliance monitor, that the execution state of the virtual appliance is caused by at least one of the set of applications being an old version;

generating, by the virtual appliance monitor, a control action that directs a version update of the at least one of the set of applications; and

providing, by the virtual appliance monitor, the control action to the virtual appliance to cause the at least one of the set of applications to be updated to a current version.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising storing the appliance state information to an appliance data store external to the network cloud.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the instantiating of the virtual appliance monitor comprises migrating an on-premise appliance monitor to the virtual appliance monitor in the network cloud.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the appliance state information comprises at least one of an appliance ID, version data for a software appliance, an execution state of a software appliance, and an I/O state of a software appliance.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising generating a second control action comprising at least one of a termination instruction, a restart instruction, and a resource configuration instruction.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the set of virtual appliances comprises a plurality of sets of virtual appliances.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the first network cloud comprises a plurality of clouds, the virtual appliance monitor monitoring the plurality of sets of virtual appliances in the plurality of clouds.

8. A system comprising:

a network interface device communicably coupled to a set of virtual appliances instantiated in a network cloud;

a processor configured to execute a cloud management server device to manage the network cloud; and

a virtual appliance monitor instantiated by the cloud management server device and communicably coupled to the set of virtual appliances via the network interface device, the virtual appliance monitor instantiated separately from the set of virtual appliances and configured to;

monitor each virtual appliance of the set of virtual appliances, wherein the each virtual appliance of the set of virtual appliances comprises a set of applications and a reduced operating system configured to support the set of applications;

receive appliance state information representing an execution state of at least one virtual appliance of the set of virtual appliances instantiated in the first network cloud;

determine that the execution state of the at least one virtual appliance is caused by at least one of the set of applications being an old version;

generate a control action that directs a version update of the at least one of the set of applications; and

provide the control action to the virtual appliance to cause the at least one of the set of applications to be updated to a current version.

9. The system of claim 8, wherein the virtual appliance monitor is configured to store the appliance state information to an appliance data store external to the network cloud.

10. The system of claim 8, wherein the instantiating of the virtual appliance monitor comprises migrating an on-premise appliance monitor to the virtual appliance monitor in the network cloud.

11. The system of claim 8, wherein the appliance state information comprises at least one of an appliance ID, version data for a software appliance, an execution state of a software appliance, and an I/O state of a software appliance.

12. The system of claim 8, wherein the virtual appliance monitor is further configured to generate a second control action comprising at least one of a termination instruction, a restart instruction, and a resource configuration instruction.

13. The system of claim 8, wherein the set of virtual appliances comprises a plurality of sets of virtual appliances.

14. The system of claim 13, wherein the network cloud comprises a plurality of clouds, and wherein the virtual appliance monitor further configured to monitor the plurality of sets of virtual appliances in the plurality of clouds.

15. A method comprising:

instantiating, by a cloud management server device managing a network cloud, a virtual appliance monitor in the network cloud, wherein the virtual appliance monitor is instantiated separately from a set of virtual appliances operating in the network cloud and configured to monitor each virtual appliance of the set of virtual appliances;

receiving, by the virtual appliance monitor, appliance state information representing an execution state of a virtual appliance of the set of virtual appliances instantiated in the network cloud, wherein the virtual appliance comprises a set of applications and a reduced operating system configured to support the set of applications;

storing, by the virtual appliance monitor, the appliance state information to at least one of an appliance state table, an external appliance store within the network cloud, and an external appliance store outside of the network cloud; and

terminating, by the cloud management server device, the virtual appliance monitor and the set of virtual appliances monitored by the virtual appliance monitor when a subscription period for the virtual appliance monitor and set of virtual appliance monitors expires.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein the virtual appliance monitor is instantiated on at least one of a subscription basis or a usage basis.

17. The method of claim 16, further comprising recording, by the cloud management server device, at least one of an execution time, a duration, an input/output bandwidth to account for the at least one of the subscription basis or the usage basis of the virtual appliance monitor.

18. The method of claim 15, wherein the instantiating of the virtual appliance monitor comprises migrating an on-premise appliance monitor to the virtual appliance monitor in the network cloud.

19. The method of claim 15, wherein the appliance state information comprises at least one of an appliance ID, version data for a software appliance, an execution state of a software appliance, and an I/O state of a software appliance.

20. The method of claim 15, further comprising generating, by the virtual appliance monitor a control action directed to at least one virtual appliance of the set of virtual appliances based on the appliance state information of the at least one virtual appliance, wherein the control action comprises at least one of a termination instruction, a restart instruction, and a resource configuration instruction.

21. The method of claim 15, wherein the set of virtual appliances comprises a plurality of sets of virtual appliances.

22. The method of claim 15, wherein the network cloud comprises a plurality of clouds, the virtual appliance monitor monitoring the plurality of sets of virtual appliances in the plurality of clouds.