Method and system for modeling and analyzing computing resource requirements of software applications in a shared and distributed computing environment

• US 9,317,338 B2
• Filed: 10/21/2013
• Issued: 04/19/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 03/30/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: ServiceNow Incorporated
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Wong, Wai Ming, Hui, Michael C.
• Primary Examiner(s): Swift, Charles
• Application Number:
  US14/058,459
• Publication Number:
  US 20140047119A1
• Time in Patent Office: 911 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2209/5022 Workload threshold
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/50 Allocation of resources, e.g. of the central processing unit [CPU]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5005 to service a request
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5011 the resources being hardware resources other than CPUs, Servers and Terminals
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5016 the resource being the memory
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5022 Mechanisms to release resources
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5027 the resource being a machine, e.g. CPUs, Servers, Terminals
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5033 considering data affinity
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5038 considering the execution order of a plurality of tasks, e.g. taking priority or time dependency constraints into consideration scheduling strategies G06F9/4881 and subgroups
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5044 considering hardware capabilities
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/505 considering the load
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5055 considering software capabilities, i.e. software resources associated or available to the machine
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5061 Partitioning or combining of resources
• 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
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/70 Admission control; Resource allocation

Abstract

An application manager receives or defines a service specification for a first application that defines a set of required computing resources that are necessary to run each application component of the first application. A resource supply manager in communication with the application manager manages a plurality of computing resources in a shared computing environment. The application manager is operable to request the set of required computing resources from the computing resource supply manager, and wherein the resource supply manager determines the availability of the required computing resources within the shared computing environment according to resource allocation policies and allocates computing resources to the application manager, and wherein the application manager is operable manage allocation of the computing resources to the first application, the application manager operable to create and manage deployment of instances of each application component of the first application on the allocated computing resources.

Claims

1. A method for managing a plurality of applications in a shared computing environment having a share pool of computing resources, each application comprising a plurality of application components, the method comprising the steps of:

a) receiving at an application manager a service specification for a first application wherein the service specification defines a set of required computing resources that are necessary to run the first application;

b) requesting by the application manager the required computing resources through a resource supply manager, the resource supply manager for managing a plurality of computing resources in the shared computing environment, wherein the availability of the required computing resources within the shared computing environment is determined and allocated by the resource supply manager to the application manager according to resource allocation policies, and each of the application components for the first application are mapped to a corresponding allocated computing resource by the application manager where the required computing resources are determined to be available;

c) preparing each corresponding allocated computing resource for running the respective application components of the first application;

d) running the first application on the allocated computing resources by deploying and managing, by the application manager, instances of each application component of the first application on the corresponding allocated computing resource; and

e) repeating steps a) to d) for each successive one of the plurality of applications.

2. The method of claim 1, comprising the additional steps of terminating at least one of the plurality of applications by terminating each instance of the corresponding application components for said application and releasing the allocated computing resources to the share pool of computing resources of the shared computing environment.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the plurality of applications are generally of heterogeneous types.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the service specification also defines a set of constraints for the required computing resources, and wherein the application manager takes the constraints into account when requesting the set of computing resources from the resource supply manager.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the constraints define what computing resources can or cannot be allocated to the application manager to run the application components of the first application.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the service specification defines a priority for one or more of the plurality of applications, and wherein the application manager manages the plurality of applications taking into account said priorities.

7. The method of claim 1, comprising the additional steps of the application manager monitoring for instances of failure the status of the allocated computing resources on which each application component is running, and where there is an instance of failure, restarting the application component that has failed on the corresponding allocated computing resource.

8. The method of claim 1, comprising the additional steps of the application manager monitoring for instances of failure the status of the allocated computing resources on which each application component is running, and where there is an instance of failure, requesting a replacement computing resource from the resource supply manager and restarting the application component that has failed on the corresponding replacement computing resource.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the plurality of applications are adaptive for running in a heterogeneous resource environment.

10. A method for managing a plurality of applications in a shared computing environment having a share pool of computing resources, each application comprising a plurality of application components, the method comprising the steps of:

a) receiving at an application manager a service specification for a first application wherein the service specification defines a set of required computing resources that are necessary to run the application components of the first application;

b) for each respective application component of the first application,

i) requesting by the application manager a corresponding required computing resource through a resource supply manager, the resource supply manager for managing a plurality of computing resources in the shared computing environment, wherein the availability of the corresponding required computing resource within the shared computing environment is determined and allocated by the resource supply manager to the application manager according to resource allocation policies;

ii) where the corresponding required computing resource is determined to be available, mapping by the application manager the application component of the first application to a corresponding allocated computing resource;

iii) preparing, by the application manager, the corresponding allocated computing resource for running the respective application component of the first application; and

iv) deploying and managing by the application manager instances of the respective application component of the first application on the corresponding allocated computing resource; and

c) repeating steps a) to b) for each successive one of the plurality of applications.

11. The method of claim 10, comprising the additional steps of terminating at least one of the plurality of applications by terminating each corresponding instance of the respective application components for said application and releasing each allocated computing resource to the share pool of computing resources of the shared computing environment.

12. The method of claim 10, wherein the plurality of applications are generally of heterogeneous types.

13. The method of claim 10, wherein the service specification also defines a set of constraints for the required computing resources, and wherein the application manager takes the constraints into account when requesting the set of computing resources from the resource supply manager.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the constraints define what computing resources can or cannot be allocated to the application manager to run each application component of the first application.

15. The method of claim 10, wherein the service specification defines a priority for one or more of the plurality of applications, and wherein the application manager manages the plurality of applications taking into account said priorities.

16. The method of claim 10, comprising the additional steps of the application manager monitoring for instances of failure the status of the allocated computing resources on which each application component is running, and where there is an instance of failure, restarting the application component that has failed on the corresponding allocated computing resource.

17. The method of claim 10, comprising the additional steps of the application manager monitoring for instances of failure the status of the allocated computing resources on which each application component is running, and where there is an instance of failure, requesting a replacement computing resource from the resource supply manager and restarting the application component that has failed on the corresponding allocated resource.

18. The method of claim 10, wherein the plurality of applications are adaptive for running in a heterogeneous resource environment.