Organizing data in a virtual computing infrastructure

• US 9,171,323 B2
• Filed: 11/17/2011
• Issued: 10/27/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 06/15/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Oracle International Corporation (Oracle Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Oracle International Corporation (Oracle Corporation)
• Inventors: Van Biljon, Willem Robert, Pinkham, Christopher Conway, Cloran, Russell Andrew, Gorven, Michael Carl, Hardy, Alexandre, Divey, Brynmor K. B., Hoole, Quinton Robin, Kalele, Girish
• Primary Examiner(s): SMARTH, GERALD A
• Application Number:
  US13/299,301
• Publication Number:
  US 20120110056A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,440 Days
• Field of Search: 709/224
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/6218 to a system of files or objects, e.g. local or distributed file system or database
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2221/2141 Access rights, e.g. capability lists, access control lists, access tables, access matrices
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2221/2145 Inheriting rights or properties, e.g., propagation of permissions or restrictions within a hierarchy
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/04 Billing or invoicing
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/00 Finance; Insurance; Tax strategies; Processing of corporate or income taxes
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/02 Banking, e.g. interest calculation or account maintenance credit or loans G06Q40/03
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/10 Tax strategies
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0213 Standardised network management protocols, e.g. simple network management protocol [SNMP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/0236 Filtering by address, protocol, port number or service, e.g. IP-address or URL
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/101 Access control lists [ACL]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/102 Entity profiles
• 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
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/60 Scheduling or organising the servicing of application requests, e.g. requests for application data transmissions using the analysis and optimisation of the required network resources admission control or resource allocation H04L47/70
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/40 Network security protocols
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 15/66 Policy and charging system

Abstract

Organizing data in a cloud computing environment having a plurality of computing nodes is described. An authorization to service a request is received. The request may be from a user for launching an instance. In response to receiving the authorization and based on the request, an image list is determined. The image list includes information corresponding to a plurality of machine images. At least one machine image is identified from the image list associated with a functional requirement of the request. The instance is launched at the at least one computing node. The at least one machine image is updated after the instance has been launched.

Claims

1. A method of organizing data in a cloud computing environment having a plurality of computing nodes, the method comprising:

receiving an authorization to service a request, the request being from a particular user for launching an instance;

in response to receiving the authorization, determining, based on the request, an image list, the image list including information corresponding to a plurality of machine images, the plurality of machine images including images added to the image list by users other than the particular user;

identifying, automatically, at least one machine image from the image list associated with a functional requirement of the request;

launching the instance on at least one computing node;

updating the at least one machine image after the instance has been launched;

wherein the request identifies the image list but not any individual machine image within the plurality of machine images; and

wherein the image list includes multiple separate references to a same machine image.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein launching the instance includes launching an application and data associated with the request by the user.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

adding, to the image list, in response to input from users other than the particular user, a reference to the updated machine image while maintaining, in the image list, a reference to the at least one machine image as the at least one machine image existed prior to the updating;

wherein the image list includes references to multiple different machine images.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the request includes a launch plan defined by the user.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the image is an object upon which an action is to be performed.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the object is a software application from which an instance is launched.

7. The method of claim 5, wherein the object is data accessed when an instance is launched.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the plurality of machine images includes a plurality of versions of the same image;

and

wherein, within the image list, multiple different version identifiers refer to a single machine image.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising providing a default image version, when the launch plan does not specify a version of an image.

10. A method of organizing data in a cloud computing environment having a plurality of computing nodes, the method comprising:

receiving a launch plan from a user for launching at least one instance;

identifying a set of resource attributes included in the launch plan;

determining whether one or more of a plurality of computing nodes have capacity to meet the set or resource attributes;

generating a candidate list of computing nodes based on said determining; and

rejecting the launch plan if the set of resource attributes of the launch plan cannot be met by the one or more plurality of computing nodes.