Application installation management by selectively reuse or terminate virtual machines based on a process status

• US 8,997,093 B2
• Filed: 04/17/2012
• Issued: 03/31/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 04/17/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: SAP SE
• Original Assignee: SAP SE
• Inventors: Dimitrov, Vencislav
• Primary Examiner(s): Zhe, Mengyao
• Assistant Examiner(s): Zhao, Bing
• Application Number:
  US13/449,088
• Publication Number:
  US 20130275969A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,078 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 718/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/45575 Starting, stopping, suspending or resuming virtual machine instances
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/61 Installation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45558 Hypervisor-specific management and integration aspects

Abstract

Example systems and methods of managing installation of applications are described. In one implementation, a repository stores data associated with multiple application instances. An orchestrator analyzes application instances running on multiple provisioned virtual machines and identifies at least one unused virtual machine among the multiple provisioned virtual machines. The orchestrator terminates processes running on the unused virtual machine and clears data associated with the unused virtual machine. The cleared virtual machine is added to a virtual machine pool for use by another application instance.

Claims

1. A system comprising:

a repository configured to store data associated with a plurality of application instances; and

an orchestrator, including one or more processors, coupled to the repository, the orchestrator configured to;

analyze application instances running on a plurality of provisioned virtual machines;

determine a status of each of the applications instances based on information received from a process running on each of the plurality of provisioned virtual machines;

identify an unused virtual machine in the plurality of provisioned virtual machines based on the status of application instances on the unused virtual machine being inactive;

terminate the inactive application instances on the unused virtual machine;

clear data associated with the unused virtual machine;

based on the unused virtual machine being successfully cleared, add the cleared virtual machine to a virtual machine pool, the cleared virtual machine available for use by a different application instance; and

based on the unused virtual machine being unsuccessfully cleared, terminate the unused virtual machine, the unused virtual machine being unsuccessfully cleared based on at least one user process remaining active on the unused virtual machine.

2. The system of claim 1, the orchestrator further configured to notify a load balancer that the unused virtual machine is available to start a new application instance.

3. The system of claim 1, the orchestrator including a deployment module configured to communicate a plurality of application components within the system.

4. The system of claim 1, the orchestrator including a domain manager configured to access status information associated with the plurality of application instances.

5. The system of claim 1, the orchestrator including a domain manager configured to start and stop the plurality of application instances.

6. The system of claim 1, the orchestrator further configured to start a particular application on the cleared virtual machine.

7. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium including instructions that, when executed by at least one processor of a machine, cause the machine to perform operations comprising:

analyzing a plurality of application instances running on a plurality of provisioned virtual machines;

determining a status of each of the application instances based on information received from a process running on each of the plurality of provisioned virtual machines;

identifying an unused virtual machine among the plurality of provisioned virtual machines based on the status of application instances on the unused virtual machine being inactive;

terminating the inactive application instances on the unused virtual machine;

clearing data associated with the unused virtual machine;

based on the unused virtual machine being successfully cleared, adding the cleared virtual machine to a virtual machine pool, the cleared virtual machine available for use by one of the plurality of application instances; and

based on the unused virtual machine being unsuccessfully cleared, terminating the unused virtual machine, the unused virtual machine being unsuccessfully cleared based on at least one user process remaining active on the unused virtual machine.

8. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 7, wherein the operations further comprise calculating a provisioning plan for provisioning a particular application instance on the cleared virtual machine.

9. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 7, wherein the operations further comprise notifying a load balancer that the unused virtual machine is available to start a new application instance.

10. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 7, wherein the operations further comprise accessing status information associated with the plurality of application instances.

11. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 7, wherein the operations further comprise selecting the cleared virtual machine from the virtual pool responsive to receiving a request to start an instance of a particular application.

12. A method comprising:

analyzing a plurality of application instances running on a plurality of provisioned virtual machines;

determining a status of each of the application instances based on information received from a process running on each of the plurality of provisioned virtual machines;

identifying an unused virtual machine among the plurality of provisioned virtual machines based on the status of application instances on the unused virtual machine being inactive;

terminate the inactive application instances on the unused virtual machine;

clearing data associated with the unused virtual machine;

based on the unused virtual machine being successfully cleared, adding the cleared virtual machine to a virtual machine pool, the cleared virtual machine available for use by one of the plurality of application instances; and

based on the unused virtual machine being unsuccessfully cleared, terminating the unused virtual machine, the unused virtual machine being unsuccessfully cleared based on at least one user process remaining active on the unused virtual machine.

13. The method of claim 12, further comprising notifying a load balancer that the unused virtual machine is available to start a new application instance.

14. The method of claim 12, further comprising calculating a provisioning plan for provisioning a particular application instance on the cleared virtual machine.

15. The method of claim 12, the analyzing of the plurality of application instances includes accessing status information associated with the plurality of application instances.

16. The method of claim 12, further comprising selecting the cleared virtual machine from the virtual pool responsive to receiving a request to start an instance of a particular application.

17. The method of claim 16, further comprising starting the requested instance of the particular application on the cleared virtual machine.