Cloud infrastructure services

• US 9,106,584 B2
• Filed: 09/26/2011
• Issued: 08/11/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 09/26/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property I LP (AT&T, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property I LP (AT&T, Inc.)
• Inventors: Mao, Yun, Fernandez, Maria, Liu, Changbin, Van Der Merwe, Jacobus
• Primary Examiner(s): Mofiz, Apu
• Assistant Examiner(s): NGUYEN, THU N
• Application Number:
  US13/245,720
• Publication Number:
  US 20130080480A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,415 Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/182 Distributed file systems
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/40 using virtualisation of network functions or resources, e.g. SDN or NFV entities
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5009 Determining service level performance parameters or violations of service level contracts, e.g. violations of agreed response time or mean time between failures [MTBF]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/10 in which an application is distributed across nodes in the network software deployment G06F8/60; multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/46

Abstract

An aspect of the disclosed technology is a general-purpose platform that may be used to provide resilient cloud services. Tasks may be written as procedures in general-purpose programming languages that directly manipulate resources via control interfaces. In one implementation, resource states, such as router configurations and virtual machine states, associated with a cloud customer that provides communications services, may be abstracted into tables in a relational or semi-structured database. State changes that have been written to the database tables are automatically propagated by the database to appropriate customer physical devices, such as network elements, thereby implementing various customer network operations.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

replicating, at a logical layer of a memory device, a first state associated with a physical device, wherein the first state is stored at the physical device as a physical layer, and wherein replicating the first state associated with the physical device at the logical layer of the memory device causes the first state associated with the physical device to be stored also at the logical layer of the memory device;

executing, at the logical layer of the memory device, actions of a transaction, wherein executing the actions of the transaction at the logical layer of the memory device causes a first change, at the logical layer of the memory device, from the first state associated with the physical device to a second state;

recording, during execution of the actions of the transaction at the logical layer of the memory device, an execution log, wherein the execution log comprises the actions of the transaction executed at the logical layer of the memory device;

determining, at the logical layer of the memory device, whether the first change, at the logical layer of the memory device, from the first state associated with the physical device to the second state satisfies a constraint;

in response to determining that the first change, at the logical layer of the memory device, from the first state associated with the physical device to the second state satisfies the constraint, replaying, at the physical layer, the actions of the transaction of the execution log to execute the actions of the transaction at the physical layer and cause a second change, at the physical layer, from the first state associated with the physical device to the second state;

after successfully executing a portion of the actions of the transaction at the physical layer, determining that an action of the actions of the transaction fails at the physical layer; and

in response to determining that the action of the actions of the transaction fails at the physical layer,

reversing, at the logical layer of the memory device, the second state back to the first state associated with the physical device,

identifying, at the physical layer, the portion of the actions of the transaction that successfully executed, and

implementing, at the physical layer, an undo action for each of the portion of the actions of the transaction that successfully executed at the physical layer, the undo action for each of the portion of the actions of the transaction being executed in a reverse chronological order from an order of execution of the portion of the actions of the transaction at the physical layer.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising comparing the logical layer of the memory device with the physical layer for consistency.

3. The method of claim 2, further comprising in response to determining that the logical layer of the memory device and the physical layer are inconsistent, executing a logical-only transaction to reload the logical layer of the memory device based on the physical layer.

4. The method of claim 2, further comprising in response to determining that the logical layer of the memory device and the physical layer are inconsistent, executing a physical-only transaction to repair the physical layer based on the logical layer of the memory device.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining that the undo action at the physical layer fails; and

in response to determining that the undo action at the physical layer fails, determining that the logical layer of the memory device and the physical layer are inconsistent.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the physical device is an element in a system selected from a group consisting of a communications network, a computing facility and a manufacturing facility.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the first state associated with the physical device is located at an address associated with a cell in a logical-layer database and wherein the logical-layer database is a semi-structured database.

8. The method of claim 2, wherein comparing the logical layer of the memory device with the physical layer for consistency is performed periodically.

9. A non-transitory computer-readable medium having stored thereon a plurality of instructions that, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to perform operations comprising:

replicating, at a logical layer, a first state associated with a physical device, wherein the first state is stored at the physical device as a physical layer, and wherein replicating the first state associated with the physical device at the logical layer causes the first state associated with the physical device to be stored also at the logical layer of the memory device;

executing, at the logical layer, actions of a transaction, wherein executing the actions of the transaction at the logical layer causes a first change, at the logical layer, from the first state associated with the physical device to a second state;

recording, during execution of the actions of the transaction at the logical layer, an execution log, wherein the execution log comprises the actions of the transaction executed at the logical layer of the memory device;

determining, at the logical layer, whether the first change, at the logical layer, from the first state associated with the physical device to the second state satisfies a constraint;

in response to determining that the first change, at the logical layer, from the first state to the second state satisfies the constraint, replaying, at the physical layer, the actions of the transaction of the execution log to execute the actions of the transaction at the physical layer and cause a second change, at the physical layer, from the first state to the second state;

after successfully executing a portion of the actions of the transaction at the physical layer, determining that an action of the actions of the transaction fails at the physical layer; and

in response to determining that the action of the transaction fails at the physical layer,

reversing, at the logical layer, second state back to the first state associated with the physical device,

identifying, at the physical layer, the portion of the actions of the transaction that successfully executed, and

implementing, at the physical layer, an undo action for each of the portion of the actions of the transaction that successfully executed at the physical layer, the undo action for each of the portion of the actions of the transaction being executed in a reverse chronological order from an order of execution of the portion of the actions of the transaction at the physical layer.

10. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 9, wherein the operations further comprise comparing the logical layer with the physical layer for consistency.

11. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 10, wherein the operations further comprise in response to determining that the logical layer and the physical layer are inconsistent, executing a logical-only transaction to reload the logical layer based on the physical layer.

12. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 10, wherein the operations further comprise in response to determining that the logical layer and the physical layer are inconsistent, executing a physical-only transaction to repair the physical layer based on the logical layer.

13. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 9, further comprising:

determining that the undo action at the physical layer fails; and

in response to determining that the undo action at the physical layer fails, determining that the logical layer and the physical layer are inconsistent.

14. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 9, wherein the physical device is an element in a system selected from a group consisting of a communications network, a computing facility and a manufacturing facility.

15. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 9, wherein the first state associated with the physical device is located at an address associated with a cell in a logical-layer database and wherein the logical-layer database is a semi-structured database.

16. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 10, wherein comparing the logical layer with the physical layer for consistency is performed periodically.