Deploying environments for testing by providing instantaneous availability of prebuilt environments

• US 8,732,665 B2
• Filed: 06/28/2011
• Issued: 05/20/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 06/28/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Vedula, Ravi S., Caver, Michael Frank, Cipra, Jason Scott, Deschamps, Felix Antonio, Dotson, Andrew Ryan, McClellan, Michael Dean, Muramoto, Jason Lawrence
• Primary Examiner(s): Wong, Don
• Assistant Examiner(s): Rivera, Anibal
• Application Number:
  US13/171,387
• Publication Number:
  US 20130007710A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,057 Days
• US Class Current: 717/124
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5061 Partitioning or combining of resources
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/12 Discovery or management of network topologies
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/22 comprising specially adapted graphical user interfaces [GUI]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/50 Testing arrangements

Abstract

Environments for testing are deployed. A library of different topology groupings is provided. An interface is presented to a user for receiving environment definitions. Elements from the library of different topology groupings are automatically provided to the user for creating a test environment according to the received environment definitions. The platform delivers fully configured instantaneous topology deployments of all flavors for product development and testing efforts. The topology deployment service platform is used to create reliable topologies of varying layers of complexity, varying machine providers, different roles, different product builds, integration with partners and varying product configurations. The ability to launch and create multiple test and development environments trivially in an automated reliable fashion allows complicated customer scenarios and configurations to be deployed.

Claims

1. A method for deploying environments for testing, comprising:

providing a library of different topology groupings;

presenting an interface to a user for receiving environment definitions;

automatically providing to the user elements from the library of different topology groupings for creating a test environment according to the received environment definitions; and

performing an update to the library of different topology groupings, the update comprising;

identifying an environment missing from the library of different topology groupings;

accessing a template compiler to obtain a template for building a new environment corresponding to the identified environment missing from the library of different topology groupings; and

building the new environment using instructions provided by the template obtained from the template compiler.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the providing the library of different topology groupings comprises providing instantaneous availability of a predetermined stock of topology building blocks available for creating topologies, a predetermined stock of prebuilt topology environments and a suite of services for pre-building resources using the predetermined stock of topology building blocks.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the automatically providing to the user elements from the library of different topology groupings further comprises providing virtual machines, physical machines and IP addresses for creating a topology according to the environment definitions provided by the user.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the providing the library of different topology groupings further comprises automatically building, checking and monitoring the different topology.

5. The method of claim 1 further comprising verifying that a needed number of topologies are available again when the building the new environment succeeds and initiating tools for repairing the new environment being built when the process fails.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the initiating tools for repairing the new environment being built when the process fails comprises identifying lost or orphaned resources, and handing the identified lost or orphaned resources to a predetermined recovery subsystem for automatic recovery of the identified lost or orphaned resources.

7. The method of claim 1 further comprising managing the checking in and checking out of virtual machines, capturing a snapshot of a configuration for virtual machines checked out and reverting failed virtual machines using the captured snapshot.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the providing a library of different topology groupings further comprises providing a common language and development mechanism for representing the different topology groupings in the library.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the presenting an interface to a user further comprises providing a client webpage front end for providing a management user interface for users to check-out and check-in topologies from the library of different topology groupings.

10. A system having a processor for deploying environments for testing, comprising:

a resource picker for providing a library of different topology groupings and configured to manage resources and to implement check-in and check-out of the resources;

a primer for providing a suite of services for using resources to create topology building blocks for the library of different topology groupings; and

a client webpage interface for enabling users to provide environment definitions for creating a desired topology from the library of different topology groupings;

wherein, upon receiving the environment definitions through the client webpage interface, the primer automatically providing to the user elements from the library of different topology groupings for creating a test environment according to the received environment definitions, wherein the primer automatically builds, checks and monitors the different topology groupings in the library and performs an update to the library of different topology groupings after automatically providing to the user elements from the library of different topology groupings and wherein the primer performs the update to the library of different topology groupings by comparing pool configurations of an environment that is needed and an environment the resource picker indicates as being currently available, accessing a template compiler to obtain a template for building a new environment based on the comparison, and building the new environment using instructions provided by the template obtained from the template compiler.

11. The system of claim 10, wherein the primer verifies that a needed number of topologies are available again when the building the new environment succeeds and initiates tools for repairing the new environment being built when the process fails.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the tools initiated by the primer comprise:

an OML (Orphaned Machine Locator) tool for identifying a lost or orphaned deployment resource, and for handing a lost or orphaned deployment resource off to an appropriate subsystem for automatic recovery;

an OCR (Orphaned Client Recovery) tool for managing recovery of orphaned physical resources, for re-imaging a physical resource in an unknown or lost state, for re-adding the physical resource to the library, and for sending a SOAP request to a registered web service that hard power cycles the physical machine remotely; and

an ALIS (All Labs Integration Services) system capturing a snapshot of a configuration of a virtual machine and reverting the virtual machine to the captured snapshot.

13. The system of claim 10 further comprising a template authority device for providing a common language and development platform representing configurations as re-usable building blocks.

14. The system of claim 13, wherein the template authority device further comprises a template compiler, dictionaries/intention files, task chains and a topology cop, wherein the task chains comprise logical groups of tasks tied together in a topology fragment, the intention files define a topology with references to the task chains and other variables, the template compiler and topology cop provide checks to ensure accuracy of the resultant topology by validating compiled topology environments.

15. The system of claim 10 further comprising a topology builder configured for building topologies, wherein the primer queries the resource picker for a machine to transform and creates a work order for the topology builder instructing the topology builder to transform a resource into a desired state, wherein the topology builder transforms the machine according to the steps in the work order.

16. The system of claim 15, wherein the primer monitors the resource picker and the topology builder for predetermined symptoms and initiates the OML tool and the OCR tool, wherein the OML tool detects the symptom and takes the machine back for re-provisioning and the OCR tool cleans the machine'"'"'s records using resource picker and topology builder.

17. A computer readable storage device having stored therein data representing instructions executable by a computer to implement a method for deploying environments for testing, comprising:

providing a library of different topology groupings;

presenting an interface to a user for receiving environment definitions;

automatically providing to the user elements from the library of different topology groupings for creating a test environment according to the received environment definitions; and

performing an update to the library of different topology groupings, the update comprising;

identifying an environment missing from the library of different topology groupings;

accessing a template compiler to obtain a template for building a new environment corresponding to the identified environment missing from the library of different topology groupings; and

building the new environment using instructions provided by the template obtained from the template compiler.