Launching service applications using a virtual network management system

• US 8,954,858 B2
• Filed: 09/10/2012
• Issued: 02/10/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 07/06/2001
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Juniper Networks Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Juniper Networks Incorporated
• Inventors: Hasan, Taqi, Ganesan, Elango
• Primary Examiner(s): Bashore, William
• Assistant Examiner(s): Rodriguez, Daniel
• Application Number:
  US13/608,964
• Publication Number:
  US 20130007624A1
• Time in Patent Office: 883 Days
• Field of Search: 715/736
• US Class Current: 715/736
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/048 Interaction techniques based on graphical user interfaces [GUI]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0213 Standardised network management protocols, e.g. simple network management protocol [SNMP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/044 comprising hierarchical management structures
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/046 comprising network management agents or mobile agents therefor
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0806 for initial configuration or provisioning, e.g. plug-and-play
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/082 the condition being updates or upgrades of network functionality
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0856 by backing up or archiving configuration information
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0883 Semiautomatic configuration, e.g. proposals from system
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0893 Assignment of logical groups to network elements
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0894 Policy-based network configuration management
• 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 41/40 using virtualisation of network functions or resources, e.g. SDN or NFV entities
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/02 based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/34 involving the movement of software or configuration parameters network booting or remote initial program loading [RIPL] G06F9/4416
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/51 Discovery or management thereof, e.g. service location protocol [SLP] or web services
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/55 Push-based network services
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/329 in the application layer [OSI layer 7]

Abstract

A network service administration system including a plurality of service objects, a plurality of address objects; and a service configuration application for a multifunction appliance running on a client computer coupled to the appliance via a network. The service configuration application includes an interface allowing subscribers to configure at least a subset of application content services provided by the appliance and including a rule set implementing rules in ones of said application content services in said subset based on changes to configurations of any other of said application content services. Each of said service objects may comprise an individual network service definition.

Claims

1. A method for configuring a data center that has a plurality of geographically distributed facilities that provide network services to a plurality of different company subscribers, the method comprising:

executing applications for the subscribers on a plurality of subscriber-specific application servers distributed throughout the data center,

executing, on a centralized virtualized system within the data center, a plurality of services applications to provide the network services for the subscribers, each of the service applications associated with a respective one of the subscribers and configured to process packets for the respective one of the subscribers;

presenting, with the network management system, a user interface via a computer network,

wherein the user interface presents a hierarchy of topology objects that represents a virtual topology of the data center for an individual one of the company subscribers,

wherein the user interface present a filtered view of the topology objects that presents, in a hierarchical layout, only a portion of configuration data that is used by the data center for providing network services to the individual company subscriber,

wherein the portion of the topology objects presented by the filtered view of the user interface comprises;

a global data center object that represents the data center,

a set of service objects that represent the network services that are provided by the data center to the respective individual company subscribers by the centralized virtualized system,

a set of device objects that represent the physical application servers for the respective subscriber within the data center, and

a set of facility objects that represent the distributed facilities of the data center;

responsive to input from the user interface, automatically launching and executing a new service application for one of the subscribers within the centralized virtualized system in accordance with the virtual topology, wherein executing the new service application in accordance with the virtual topology comprises automatically executing the new service application within a subscriber context of one of the service topology objects by using, with the new service application, data associated with the one of the service topology objects for the respective one of the subscribers and data associated with any of the topology objects within the hierarchy of topology objects that are subordinate to the one of the service topology objects.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein said services objects include a virtual private network.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the service objects include a router.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the service objects include a subscriber firewall.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the service objects include a load balancing application that load balances the services across the devices of the data center.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the service objects include a web cache.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the service objects include a secure sockets layer accelerator service.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving a configuration change to a first one of the network services; and

in response to the configuration change to the first one of the network services, modifying one of the service objects associated with at least one rule in the corresponding set of rules that defines the configuration of the first one of the network services.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein presenting the interface comprises presenting a web-based interface that presents the filtered view.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising maintaining a topology database that stored data defining relationships between the topology objects.

11. The method of claim 1, further comprising launching a subscriber application on one of the application servers and executing the subscriber application within a device context of one of the device topology objects by using data associated with the one of the device topology objects and data associated with any of the topology objects that are subordinate to the one of the device topology objects within the hierarchy of topology objects.

12. The method of claim 1,

wherein the portion of the topology objects further comprise a set of log server objects that represent log servers to store logs of events generated by the data center, and

wherein the method further comprises launching an application that operates within a log server context of one of the log server topology objects by using data associated with the one of the log server topology objects.