Cross-cloud management and troubleshooting

• US 9,223,632 B2
• Filed: 05/20/2011
• Issued: 12/29/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 05/20/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Inventors: Iyer, Kannan C., Watson, Eric B.
• Primary Examiner(s): Williams, Jenee
• Application Number:
  US13/111,956
• Publication Number:
  US 20120297016A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,684 Days
• Field of Search: 709/217
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0709 in a distributed system consisting of a plurality of standalone computer nodes, e.g. clusters, client-server systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0751 Error or fault detection not based on redundancy power supply failures G06F1/30; network fault management H04L41/06
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0772 Means for error signaling, e.g. using interrupts, exception flags, dedicated error registers
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0784 Routing of error reports, e.g. with a specific transmission path or data flow
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/079 Root cause analysis, i.e. error or fault diagnosis in a hardware test environment G06F11/22; in a software test environment G06F11/36
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1482 by means of middleware or OS functionality
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/203 using migration
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5072 Grid computing
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/04 Processing captured monitoring data, e.g. for logfile generation
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/06 Generation of reports

Abstract

A cloud management system is described herein that provides the ability for an application to span two or more clouds while allowing operation, management, and troubleshooting of the distributed application as a single application. The system provides infrastructure that communicates across datacenters for execution and for centralizing knowledge of instances of an application that are running at different locations. The infrastructure provided by the system monitors both the application and connections between the clouds, with intelligence to know if issues are within the application or because of the connection between the clouds. The system coordinates management functions across multiple cloud platforms/locations. Thus, the cloud management system creates a single monitoring and troubleshooting interface and knowledge and execution fabric across multiple clouds so that applications spread across multiple clouds can be monitored, managed, and debugged more easily.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method to handle a request from a management tool to access application management data from distributed application instances, the method comprising:

receiving from an application management tool a management tool request to access management data related to an application running instances in one or more datacenters wherein receiving the management tool request comprises receiving a request from a performance monitoring tool to access status information describing operation of one or more application instances;

identifying one or more types of management data that satisfy the received request;

determining a distribution of the application that includes two or more instances of the application;

gathering management data to satisfy the request from each distributed application instance;

unifying gathered management data to provide a uniform response to the received management tool request; and

reporting the gathered and unified management data in response to the received management tool request,

wherein the preceding steps are performed by at least one processor.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein receiving the management request comprises receiving the management tool request through a programmatic application programming interface (API) exposed to tools for requesting management data.

3. The method of claim 2 wherein the API comprises a uniform interface for accessing management data without requiring tools to understand where or at how many locations application instances are running.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein identifying one or more types of management data comprises determining that the management tool request asks for information that is produced by each instance of the application.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein identifying one or more types of management data comprises determining which information to gather from each application instance and whether the one or more types of management data is already gathered locally from data pushed to a central location by each application instance.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein determining the distribution of the application comprises determining where the application is running and where the system will find management data to satisfy the request.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein gathering management data comprises accessing at least one instance in a private datacenter and at least one instance in a cloud computing facility.

8. The method of claim 1 wherein gathering management data comprises contacting each instance of the application to satisfy the received management tool request.

9. The method of claim 1 further comprising sending one or more troubleshooting commands to one or more remote application instances, wherein the remote application instances carry out the troubleshooting commands and report requested data back to a central location where the management tool can access information associated with the reported requested data.

10. The method of claim 1 wherein unifying gathered data comprises formatting data so that management tools need not be written to include an understanding of the various potential distributions of applications managed by the management tools.

11. The method of claim 1 wherein unifying gathered data comprises formatting data so that the computer system can freely migrate the application from location to location or to multiple locations as needed to handle application loads, while still providing administrators with a consistent management and troubleshooting experience.

12. The method of claim 1 wherein reporting the data comprises sending the data to the management tool through an interface on which the management tool request was received.

13. A computer system for cross-cloud computing for cross-cloud management and troubleshooting, the computer system comprising:

a processor and memory configured to execute software instructions embodied within the following components;

a location management component that manages information about multiple datacenter locations at which instances of an application are running;

a location data store that stores information that describes locations at which instances of the application are running;

a tool interface component that provides an interface to the computer system through which one or more tools can access management and troubleshooting information for the application;

one or more management tools that connect to the tool interface component to access management information or perform application troubleshooting;

a data migration component that migrates management information at one or more remote locations where the application is running back to a home location of the application; and

a troubleshooting component that performs one or more troubleshooting tasks on the application at one or more locations.

14. The system of claim 13 wherein the location management component includes information describing how to reach each location, connections available for retrieving management information, credentials for user accounts to use on each connection, and one or more application and datacenter components from which to gather troubleshooting information and send troubleshooting commands.

15. The system of claim 13 wherein the location management component receives information describing dynamic migration of application loads from one datacenter or cloud to another and updates the management information so that the location management component has a complete picture of all of the datacenter locations where the application is running.

16. The system of claim 13 wherein the tool interface component provides an initial connection point for tools to access information related to the application at a cloud-computing appliance located within an enterprise'"'"'s private datacenter.

17. The system of claim 13 wherein at least one management tool is designed to work with a local application, and the system provides the tool with information describing a distributed application running at multiple locations without the at least one management tool'"'"'s knowledge.

18. The system of claim 13 further comprising a billing component that reports billing information related to one or more locations where the application is running.

19. A computer-readable storage device comprising instructions for controlling a computer system to report data back from and handle troubleshooting requests at a location of a remote application instance, wherein the instructions, upon execution, cause a processor to perform actions comprising:

receiving management data at a remote application instance handling a portion of load generated by requests from clients of the application;

determining a home location of the application where an administrator can access management data reported by multiple instances of the application running at one or more distributed remote locations, the home location being a location where the application operates under steady conditions;

sending the received management data from the remote application instance to the determined home location of the application;

receiving a troubleshooting request from a management tool run at the home location to troubleshoot the remote application instance;

performing one or more troubleshooting actions in response to the received troubleshooting request; and

sending a troubleshooting result to the home location in response to the received troubleshooting request.