Elastic management of compute resources between a web server and an on-demand compute environment

• US 8,782,120 B2
• Filed: 05/02/2011
• Issued: 07/15/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 04/07/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: III Holdings 12, LLC (Intellectual Ventures LLC)
• Original Assignee: Adaptive Computing Enterprises, Inc. (Ala Services LLC)
• Inventors: Jackson, David B.
• Primary Examiner(s): Shiferaw, Eleni
• Assistant Examiner(s): GIDDINS, NELSON S
• Application Number:
  US13/099,114
• Publication Number:
  US 20110258248A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,170 Days
• Field of Search: 709/202, 709/223, 709/226, 709/209
• US Class Current: 709/202
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1001 for accessing one among a plurality of replicated servers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1008 based on parameters of servers, e.g. available memory or workload monitoring of computer activity G06F11/30

Abstract

Disclosed are systems, methods and non-transitory computer-readable storage media for managing resources between a web server and an on-demand compute environment. A system configured to practice the method receives, at the on-demand compute environment, an indication that web traffic directed to a web server should at least be partially served via the on-demand compute environment, provisions compute resources within the on-demand compute environment to respond to web traffic for the web server based on the indication to yield a provisioned on-demand compute environment. The system serves web traffic at the provisioned on-demand compute environment based on an established routing of the web traffic from the web server to the provisioned on-demand compute environment such that the use of the provisioned on-demand compute environment for the web traffic is transparent. After serving the web traffic via the provisioned resources, the system can release the provisioned compute resources for other uses.

Claims

1. A method of redirecting web traffic to an on-demand compute environment, the method comprising:

determining that an increase of projected web traffic has exceeded a threshold and should be at least partially served via the on-demand compute environment, wherein the on-demand compute environment has a separate workload manager from a workload manager that manages a web server;

assigning an agent to manage redirection of a portion of the projected web traffic to be served via the on-demand compute environment, wherein the agent does not process the projected web traffic as would the web server;

determining whether content is able to be mirrored in the on-demand compute environment to yield a determination, wherein;

when the determination indicates that the content is able to be mirrored, provisioning compute resources within the on-demand compute environment by mirroring the content from the web server to enable the on-demand compute environment to respond to the portion of the projected web traffic to yield provisioned compute resources;

when the determination indicates that the content is not able to be mirrored, identifying, selecting and provisioning substitute content via negotiation between the on-demand workload manager and the separate workload manager to yield substitute provisioned compute resources;

intercepting, via the agent, the portion of the projected web traffic comprising multiple web access requests to the web server;

redirecting, via the agent, the portion of the projected web traffic to be served by the provisioned compute resources and the substitute provisioned compute resources such that the redirecting is transparent to users initiating the portion of the projected web traffic; and

in response to determining the projected web traffic has decreased below a certain threshold, automatically transferring web requests to the web server and un-provisioning one of the provisioned compute resources and the substitute provisioned compute resources in the on-demand compute environment.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein redirecting the portion of the web traffic further comprises mapping a uniform resource locator to an IP address associated with at least one node in the provisioned compute resources.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the agent comprises a plurality of entities.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the indication is based on an event.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the event is a threshold being met and wherein provisioning the compute resources within the on-demand compute environment is performed automatically after the threshold is met.

6. The method of claim 4, wherein the event is external to the web server.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising, after the provisioned compute resources serve the web traffic request, releasing the provisioned compute resources for uses other than serving the web traffic request.

8. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing instructions to manage web traffic directed to a web server, the instructions comprising:

determining that an increase of projected web traffic has exceeded a threshold and should be at least partially served via the on- demand compute environment, wherein the on-demand compute environment has a separate workload manager from a workload manager that manages a

web server;

assigning an agent to manage redirection of a portion of the projected web traffic to be served via the on-demand compute environment, wherein the agent does not process the projected web traffic as would the web server;

determining whether content is able to be mirrored in the on-demand compute environment to yield a determination, wherein;

when the determination indicates that the content is able to be mirrored, provisioning compute resources within the on-demand compute environment by mirroring the content from the web server to enable the on-demand compute environment to respond to the portion of the projected web traffic to yield provisioned compute resources;

when the determination indicates that the content is not able to be mirrored, identifying, selecting and provisioning substitute content via negotiation between the on-demand workload manager and the separate workload manager to yield substitute provisioned compute resources;

intercepting, via the agent, the portion of the projected web traffic comprising multiple web access requests to the web server;

redirecting, via the agent, the portion of the projected web traffic to be served by the provisioned compute resources and the substitute provisioned compute resources such that the redirecting is transparent to users initiating the portion of the projected web traffic; and

in response to determining the projected web traffic has decreased below a certain threshold, automatically transferring web requests to the web server and un-provisioning one of the provisioned compute resources and the substitute provisioned compute resources in the on-demand compute environment.

9. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 8, wherein redirecting the portion of the web traffic further comprises mapping a uniform resource locator to an IP address associated with at least one node in the provisioned compute resources.

10. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 8, wherein the agent comprises a plurality of entities.

11. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 8, wherein the indication is based on an event.

12. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 11, wherein the event is a threshold being met and wherein provisioning the compute resources within the on-demand compute environment is performed automatically after the threshold is met.

13. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 12, wherein the event is external to the web server.

14. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 8, the instructions further comprising releasing the provisioned compute resources for uses other than serving the web traffic request after serving the web traffic request at the provisioned compute resources.

15. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 8, wherein provisioning the compute resources within the on-demand compute environment further comprises elastically provisioning multiple compute nodes simultaneously in the on-demand compute environment that represent instances of the web server.

16. A system for redirecting web traffic to an on-demand compute environment, the system comprising:

a processor; and

a computer-readable storage medium stores instructions which when executed by

the processors cause the processor to perform operations comprising;

determining that an increase of projected web traffic has exceeded a threshold and should be at least partially served via the on-demand compute environment,

wherein the on-demand compute environment has a separate workload manager from a workload manager that manages a web server;

assigning an agent to manage redirection of a portion of the projected web traffic to be served via the on-demand compute environment, wherein the agent does not process the projected web traffic as would the web server;

determining whether content is able to be mirrored in the on-demand compute environment to yield a determination, wherein;

when the determination indicates that the content is able to be mirrored, provisioning compute resources within the on-demand compute environment by mirroring the content from the web server to enable the on-demand compute environment to respond to the portion of the projected web traffic to yield provisioned compute resources;

when the determination indicates that the content is not able to be mirrored, identifying, selecting and provisioning substitute content via negotiation between the on-demand workload manager and the separate workload manager to yield substitute provisioned compute resources;

wherein the agent intercepts the portion of the projected web traffic comprising multiple web access requests to the web server and redirects the portion of the projected web traffic to be served by the provisioned compute resources and the substitute provisioned compute resources such that the redirecting is transparent to users initiating the portion of the projected web traffic; and

in response to determining the projected web traffic has decreased below a certain threshold, automatically transferring web requests to the web server and un-provisioning one of the provisioned compute resources and the substitute provisioned compute resources in the on-demand compute environment.

17. The system of claim 16, wherein the agent further maps a uniform resource locator to an IP address associated with at least one node in the provisioned compute resources.

18. The system of claim 16, wherein the agent comprises a plurality of entities.

19. The system of claim 16, wherein the indication is based on an event.

20. The system of claim 16, which the computer-readable medium stores instructions which cause the processor to perform a further operation comprising:

releasing the provisioned compute resources for uses other than serving the web traffic after serving the web traffic request by the provisioned compute resources.