Systems and methods for configuring and managing computing resources to provide highly-scalable services

• US 9,274,849 B1
• Filed: 10/13/2010
• Issued: 03/01/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 09/08/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Disney Enterprises Incorporated (The Walt Disney Company)
• Original Assignee: Disney Enterprises Incorporated (The Walt Disney Company)
• Inventors: Estes, Matt, Heck, Joe F. II, Fritz, Adam, Galey, Lance, Snelling, David, Thompson, Scott
• Primary Examiner(s): Joshi, Suraj
• Application Number:
  US12/904,062
• Time in Patent Office: 1,966 Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5044 considering hardware capabilities
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5072 Grid computing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5077 Logical partitioning of resources; Management or configuration of virtualized resources specific details on emulation or internal functioning of virtual machines G06F9/455
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5083 Techniques for rebalancing the load in a distributed system

Abstract

One embodiment of the present invention sets forth a cloud computing environment that includes a service cloud and one or more services accessing the service cloud. The service cloud includes multiple resources of different types that support the execution of the services accessing the service cloud. Each resource and service in the cloud computing environment is configured via a centralized configuration service. In addition, resource allocation and predictive performance monitoring engines allocate resources and monitor the resources allocated to the services accessing the service cloud.

Claims

1. A cloud computing environment, comprising:

a plurality of resources configured to support a plurality of services accessing the cloud computing environment;

a configuration engine configured to generate a first configuration information related to the plurality of resources within the cloud computing environment and a second configuration information related to the plurality of resources;

a configuration store configured to store;

(i) the first configuration information, (ii) the second configuration information, and (iii) an identity token assigned to each of the plurality of services, wherein the identity token comprises a unique identifier associating each service with the first and second configuration information of the respective service;

a service framework layer configured as an abstraction interface between each of the plurality of services and the cloud computing environment, wherein the plurality of services interacts with the service framework layer on a level of abstraction that conceals the plurality of resources when accessing the cloud computing environment; and

a resource allocation engine configured to;

extract the identity token of a first service, of the plurality of services, from a request generated by the first service, wherein the first service accesses the cloud computing environment and issues the request through the service framework layer;

retrieve a first and a second configuration information of the first service from the configuration store based on the identity token; and

allocate, by operation of one or more computer processors, a portion of the plurality of resources to the first service based on at least one allocation algorithm applied to at least a portion of the first and the second configuration information.

2. The cloud computing environment of claim 1, wherein the resource allocation engine is configured to authenticate the first service based on the identity token of the first service prior to allocating the portion of the plurality of resources to the first service, wherein the identity token of the first service is specified in the request, wherein the service framework layer is configured to abstract:

(i) the first configuration information, (ii) the second configuration information, (iii) the identity token, and (iv) a service execution data, wherein the service execution data is collected by the service framework layer and stored external to the service framework layer, and wherein the service execution data is stored in the cloud computing environment.

3. The cloud computing environment of claim 2, wherein the identity token comprises a unique key assigned by the configuration engine to each instance of each service in the cloud computing environment, wherein the service framework layer comprises an application programming interface (API) through which the plurality of services can access the plurality of resources and is not a user interface, wherein at least one allocation algorithm comprises, in respective instances, each algorithm selected from the group comprising:

(i) a location sparsity algorithm, (ii) a location density algorithm, and (iii) a load balancing algorithm.

4. The cloud computing environment of claim 3, wherein each resource included in the plurality of resources is associated with a resource type that specifies one or more functional properties of the resource, wherein the extracted identity token is validated against a token store configured to store the identity token for each of the plurality of services.

5. The cloud computing environment of claim 4, wherein, when accessing the cloud computing environment, the first service transmits a service definition that specifies a first resource type, wherein the cloud computing environment is configured to support a plurality of instances of the first service.

6. The cloud computing environment of claim 5, wherein the resource allocation engine receives the first service definition from the first service and allocates a resource in the plurality of resources that is associated with the first resource type to the first service, wherein each of the plurality of services do not store the respective first configuration information and second configuration information.

7. The cloud computing environment of claim 1, wherein the resource allocation engine allocates a portion of the plurality of resources to the first service further based on performance requirements specified by the first service, wherein the a portion of the plurality of resources is able to meet at least in part the performance requirements associated with the first service.

8. The cloud computing environment of claim 1, wherein the service framework layer further comprises a logs and metrics collecting engine configured to collect performance information associated with the plurality of services and the plurality of resources.

9. The cloud computing environment of claim 8, wherein the performance information includes a utilization level of a first resource included in the plurality of resources.

10. The cloud computing environment of claim 8, wherein the performance information include service usage levels associated with the first service.

11. The cloud computing environment of claim 8, further comprising a predictive engine configured to analyze the performance information collected by the logs and metrics collection engine to monitor the performance of the plurality of resources and the first service.

12. The cloud computing environment of claim 11, wherein the predictive engine is further configured to perform, based on the analysis of the operational details, one or more operations to enhance the performance of the plurality of services when accessing the plurality of resources.

13. The cloud computing environment of claim 12, wherein a first resource included in the plurality of resources and a second resource included in the plurality of resources are allocated to the first service by the first service allocation engine.

14. The cloud computing environment of claim 13, wherein the first resource and the second resource are not located in the same rack space.

15. The cloud computing environment of claim 13, wherein the first resource and the second resource are owned by different parties.

16. The cloud computing environment of claim 15, wherein the portion includes a first resource that comprises a platform resource.

17. The cloud computing environment of claim 15, wherein the portion includes a first resource that comprises a hardware resource.