Provisioning virtual resources using name resolution

• US 8,336,047 B2
• Filed: 08/25/2008
• Issued: 12/18/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 08/25/2008
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Van Hensbergen, Eric
• Primary Examiner(s): TO, JENNIFER N
• Application Number:
  US12/197,363
• Publication Number:
  US 20100050173A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,576 Days
• Field of Search: 718/1
• US Class Current: 718/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5072 Grid computing
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/4511 using domain name system [DNS]

Abstract

A data string including a resource identifier and one or more resource attributes is parsed at a name resolution module and provided to a computing resource provisioning system. The computer resource provisioning system provisions a resource that corresponds to the resource identifier and that has the at least one. A handle is returned to provide access to the resource at a client system.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

receiving an instruction at an interface to a computing resource provisioning system to provision a resource, wherein provisioning is performed during execution of the instruction at a client system coupled to the interface, wherein the instruction triggers a name resolution request, wherein the name resolution request includes a data string that is provided to a resolver, the resolver having regular expression rules to identify at least a first portion of the data string, wherein the resolver is configured to forward at least a second portion of the data string that is not identified by the resolver to a resolution handler and to return a result from the resolution handler that maps a virtual resource to a user-identified name;

the data string including a resource identifier of a resource that does not exist prior to execution of the instruction at the client system and one or more resource attributes;

parsing the data string to extract the resource identifier and the one or more resource attributes;

providing the resource identifier and the one or more resource attributes to the computing resource provisioning system, wherein the computer resource provisioning system provisions the resource that corresponds to the resource identifier and that has the one or more resource attributes by creating a virtual resource having the one or more attributes on an on-demand basis in a cloud computing system, wherein creating the virtual resource is in response to a request to create the virtual resource having the one or more attributes sent to the computing resource provisioning system independent of a graphical user interface; and

returning a handle to provide access to the resource during execution of the instruction at the client system coupled to the interface.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the virtual resource is associated with at least one available physical resource of the cloud computing system, the available physical resource having the one or more resource attributes, and wherein the cloud computing system comprises multiple networked computer systems that are accessible to subscribers on an on-demand basis.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the resource is a logical processing resource that is associated with at least one physical processing unit at a multi-processing unit computer system.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the resource is a logical memory resource that is associated with at least one physical storage device.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

providing at least one of a user identifier or an account identifier to the computing resource provisioning system, and wherein the handle includes the user identifier or the account identifier.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the computing resource provisioning system is configured to dynamically assign physical computing resources of a networked multi-computer system in response to provisioning requests.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the resource identifier and the one or more resource attributes are provided to the computing resource provisioning system via an application programming interface (API) of the computing resource provisioning system, and further comprising:

receiving a domain name system (DNS) address to access the resource; and

storing the DNS address; and

retrieving the DNS address in response to a lookup operation that includes the handle.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the virtual resource has a name substantially similar to the resource identifier.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

creating an entry in a resource database; and

storing the handle for the virtual resource in the entry.

10. A method comprising:

provisioning a virtual resource of a cloud computing system in response to a command triggering a name resolution request, wherein the command references a resource that does not exist prior to execution of the command at a client system, and wherein provisioning is performed during runtime execution of the command at the client computer system, wherein the name resolution request includes a data string that is provided to a resolver, the resolver having regular expression rules to identify at least a first portion of the data string, wherein the resolver is configured to forward at least a second portion of the data string that is not identified by the resolver to a resolution handler and to return a result from the resolution handler that maps the virtual resource to a user-identified name; and

creating the virtual resource having the one or more attributes on an on-demand basis in a cloud computing system, wherein creating the virtual resource is in response to a request to create the virtual resource having the one or more attributes that is sent independent of a graphical user interface, and wherein the virtual resource that is created is accessible during runtime execution of the command at the client computer system.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein provisioning the virtual resource includes providing a name of the virtual resource and an attribute of the virtual resource to an interface to the cloud computing system in response to the name resolution request.

12. The method of claim 10, further comprising:

resolving the name resolution request by returning a handle to the virtual resource.

13. The method of claim 10, wherein the cloud computing system comprises multiple processors that are logically mapped to virtual processing resources that are accessible to users on an on-demand basis.

14. A system comprising:

a memory;

a processor coupled to the memory;

a command interface to receive a user command to provision a resource, wherein provisioning is performed during execution of the user command at a client system, wherein the user command triggers a name resolution request, wherein the name resolution request includes a data string argument that is provided to a resolver, the resolver having regular expression rules to identify at least a first portion of the data string argument, wherein the resolver is configured to forward at least a second portion of the data string argument that is not identified by the resolver to a resolution handler and to return a result from the resolution handler that maps a virtual resource to a user-identified name;

the data string including a resource identifier of a resource that does not exist prior to execution of the user command at the client system and one or more resource attributes;

a name resolution module to parse the data string argument to extract the resource identifier of the resource that does not exist prior to execution of the user command at the client system and one or more resource attributes; and

a provisioning system interface to send a request to a provisioning system independent of a graphical user interface to create the resource having the at-least one or more resource attributes on an on-demand basis in a cloud computing system and to return a handle to the resource to the name resolution module, wherein the resource that is created is accessible during execution of the user command at the client computer system.

15. The system of claim 14, wherein the provisioning system interface is further executable by the processor to receive a domain name system (DNS) address from the provisioning system to enable access to the resource, and further comprising a resource table including at least one table entry to associate the handle with the DNS address.

16. The system of claim 15, wherein the name resolution module is executable by the processor to perform a lookup operation at the resource table using the resource identifier.

17. The system of claim 16, wherein the provisioning system interface is further configured to send a request to modify an existing resource that is associated with the resource identifier when the one or more resource attributes indicates a different number of processing units than are associated with the existing resource.

18. A computer program product comprising:

a non-transitory computer readable medium having stored thereon instructions executable by a processor to;

receive an instruction and a data string at an interface to a computing resource provisioning system to provision a resource, wherein provisioning is performed during execution of the instruction at a client system coupled to the interface, the instruction triggering a name resolution request, wherein the name resolution request includes a data string that is provided to a resolver, the resolver having regular expression rules to identify at least a first portion of the data string, wherein the resolver is configured to forward at least a second portion of the data string that is not identified by the resolver to a resolution handler and to return a result from the resolution handler that maps a virtual resource to a user-identified name;

the data string including a resource identifier of a resource that does not exist prior to execution of the instruction at the client system and one or more resource attributes;

parse the data string to extract the resource identifier and the one or more resource attributes;

provide the resource identifier and the one or more resource attributes to the computing resource provisioning system, wherein the computer resource provisioning system provisions the resource that corresponds to the resource identifier and that has the one or more resource attributes by creating a virtual resource having the one or more attributes on an on-demand basis in a cloud computing system, wherein creating the virtual resource is in response to a request to create the virtual resource having the one or more attributes sent to the computing resource provisioning system independent of a graphical user interface; and

return a handle to provide access to the resource during execution of the instruction at the client system coupled to the interface.

19. The computer program product of claim 18, wherein the request the cloud computing system includes at least one command to an application program interface (API) of the computing resource provisioning system for an on-demand computing resource system, the on-demand computing resource system including at least one set of networked computers at a data center having processing resources that are available to remote users as virtual resources that are provisioned on an on-demand basis.