Cloud management using a component health model

• US 8,996,932 B2
• Filed: 01/09/2013
• Issued: 03/31/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 01/09/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Inventors: Singh, Abhishek, Raghavan, Srikanth, Mani, Ajay, Syed, Saad
• Primary Examiner(s): CHU, GABRIEL L
• Application Number:
  US13/737,469
• Publication Number:
  US 20140195853A1
• Time in Patent Office: 811 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 714/57
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/2294 by remote test

Abstract

Embodiments are directed to establishing a model for testing cloud components and to preventing cascading failures in cloud components. In one scenario, a computer system models identified cloud components (including cloud hardware components and/or cloud software components) as health entities. Each health entity is configured to provide state information about the cloud component. The computer system establishes declarative safety conditions which declaratively describe cloud computing conditions that are to be maintained at the identified cloud components. The computer system then tests against the declarative safety conditions to determine which cloud components are or are becoming problematic. Upon determining that an error has occurred, the computer system notifies users of the error and the component at which the error occurred. Guarded interfaces are established to ensure that actions taken to fix the error do not cause further failures.

Claims

1. A computer system comprising the following:

one or more processors;

system memory;

one or more computer-readable storage media having stored thereon computer-executable instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, causes the computing system to perform a method for establishing a model for testing cloud components, the method comprising the following;

an act of modeling one or more identified cloud components including at least one of cloud hardware components and cloud software components as health entities, wherein the health entities are configured to provide state information about the cloud component;

an act of establishing one or more declarative safety conditions which declaratively describe cloud computing conditions that are to be maintained at the identified cloud components;

an act of testing against at least one of the one or more declarative safety conditions to determine which cloud components are or are becoming problematic; and

an act of presenting a user interface with a health indicator comprising an arrow that points in specific direction to reflect a health trend associated with the corresponding one of the cloud components and wherein the arrow has a size that is increased or decreased to reflect a relative amount of time associated with the health trend of the corresponding one of the cloud components.

2. The computer system of claim 1, wherein the state information comprises one or more of the following:

an indication of the last time the one of the cloud components was updated, an indication of recent computing events, an indication of recent computing errors, and an indication of component dependencies.

3. The computer system of claim 1, wherein the health indicator further includes a health bar that reflects a relative magnitude of total health of the corresponding one of the components.

4. The computer system of claim 1, wherein the modeling results in a health model for cloud management components that manage cloud hardware.

5. The computer system of claim 4, wherein the health model identifies the health of cloud components at a plurality of hierarchical levels including a cluster level, a data center level and a cloud level.

6. The computer system of claim 5, further comprising presenting a graphical representation of the health model, including one or more of the cloud components at each hierarchical level.

7. The computer system of claim 6, further comprising identifying one or more cloud component problems using the graphical representation of the health model.

8. The computer system of claim 7, wherein the identified problem is mapped to one or more known, potential failures.

9. The computer system of claim 8, wherein the identified problem is further mapped to one or more of the most likely cloud components to experience that failure.

10. The computer system of claim 7, wherein the includes one or more controls for each cloud component, at each of the hierarchical levels.

11. A computer system comprising the following:

one or more processors;

system memory;

one or more computer-readable storage media having stored thereon computer-executable instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, causes the computing system to perform a method for preventing cascading failures in cloud components, the method comprising the following;

an act of establishing one or more declarative safety conditions which declaratively describe cloud computing conditions that are to be maintained at one or more cloud components including at least one of hardware components and software components;

an act of detecting that at least one of the declarative safety conditions is no longer being met, indicating that an error has occurred at one or more components of a specified cloud;

an act of determining, based on which safety condition is no longer being met, where the error occurred within the specified cloud;

an act of presenting an arrow that points in a specific direction to reflect a health trend associated with the one or more components and wherein the arrow has a size that is increased or decreased to reflect a relative amount of time associated with the health trend of the corresponding one or more components; and

an act if providing a guarded interface that is configured to prevent a recovery action to correct the error from being performed based on detected dependency information, such that the guarded interface is designed to prevent the recovery action from being performed on a first set of one or more components in response to determining that a second set of one or more components depend on the first set of the one or more components associated with the error.

12. The computer system of claim 11, wherein a notification is automatically sent to other nodes in the cloud identifying the one or more cloud components that experienced an error.

13. The computer system of claim 11, wherein each cloud component includes a health indicator that indicates the trending health for each corresponding cloud component.

14. The computer system of claim 13, wherein the health indicator is used to identify at least one of the one or more cloud components that is near failure.

15. The computer system of claim 14, wherein if the health indicator reaches a specified level at an identified component, error detection is automatically initiated to determine the error occurred at the identified component.

16. A computer system comprising the following:

one or more processors;

system memory;

one or more computer-readable storage media having stored thereon computer-executable instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, causes the computing system to perform a method for establishing a model for testing cloud components, the method comprising the following;

an act of modeling one or more identified cloud components including at least one of cloud hardware components and cloud software components as health entities, wherein the health entities are configured to provide state information about the cloud component, the modeling resulting in a health model for cloud management components that manage cloud hardware, the health model identifying the health of cloud components at a plurality of hierarchical levels including a cluster level, a data center level and a cloud level;

an act of establishing one or more declarative safety conditions which declaratively describe cloud computing conditions that are to be maintained at the identified cloud components;

an act of testing against at least one of the one or more declarative safety conditions to determine which cloud components are or are becoming problematic; and

an act of presenting a graphical user interface (GUI) that shows a health indicator comprising a graphical representation of a health status of at least some of the one or more of the cloud components at each hierarchical level, the health indicator comprising;

a health bar that reflects a relative magnitude of total health associated with a corresponding one of the cloud components, and

an arrow that points in a specific direction to reflect a health trend associated with the corresponding one of the cloud components and wherein the arrow has a size that is increased or decreased to dynamically reflect a relative amount of time associated with the health trend.