Integrated metering of service usage for hybrid clouds

• US 9,336,061 B2
• Filed: 01/14/2012
• Issued: 05/10/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 01/14/2012
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Beaty, Kirk A., Buckley, John G., Katsuno, Yasuharu, Kundu, Ashish, Naik, Vijay K., O'Halloran, Julia L.
• Primary Examiner(s): Zele, Krista
• Assistant Examiner(s): FORMAN, JAMES Q
• Application Number:
  US13/350,752
• Publication Number:
  US 20130185413A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,578 Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3003 Monitoring arrangements specially adapted to the computing system or computing system component being monitored
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3006 where the computing system is distributed, e.g. networked systems, clusters, multiprocessor systems multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/46; allocation of resources G06F9/50
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3082 the data filtering being achieved by aggregating or compressing the monitored data
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3093 Configuration details thereof, e.g. installation, enabling, spatial arrangement of the probes
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/86 Event-based monitoring
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/875 Monitoring of systems including the internet
• 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: H04L 41/0806 for initial configuration or provisioning, e.g. plug-and-play
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/06 Generation of reports
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0876 Network utilisation, e.g. volume of load or congestion level
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1001 for accessing one among a plurality of replicated servers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/53 using third party service providers

Abstract

An embodiment is directed to a hybrid cloud environment wherein a user of cloud computing services is disposed to consume cloud provided services delivered by each of a plurality of cloud computing service providers. Specified event data is received at an MCS component, wherein the event data pertains to metering events related to consumed services delivered by one or more cloud service providers. Event data includes event data furnished by one or more entities that actively monitor metering events at one or more local or remote cloud service provider locations. Event data is sent from the MCS component to a metering system, and the metering system generates reports from the event data that contains usage information on services provided by one or more cloud service providers, wherein information for a provider specifies amounts and quality of each type of service delivered to users by the provider.

Claims

1. In a hybrid cloud environment, wherein a user of cloud computing services is disposed to consume cloud provided services delivered by each of a plurality of cloud computing service providers, a method comprising:

receiving specified event data at a metering control service (MCS) component, wherein the event data pertains to metering events related to the cloud provided services delivered by one or more cloud service providers of said plurality of cloud computing service providers, and wherein the event data includes event data furnished by one or more entities that actively monitor metering events at one or more local or remote cloud service provider locations, and wherein the MCS component processes specified event data pertaining to a specified instance of the cloud provided services delivered by a given provider, and wherein said specified event data includes a start instance event and a stop or change instance event, and wherein said start instance event is followed by one or more intervals of selected duration, prior to an occurrence of said stop instance event, and during each interval the MCS component generates a message that indicates an existence of said specified instance of the cloud provided services delivered by the given provider;

sending processed aggregated event data from the MCS component to a metering system; and

operating the metering system to generate one or more reports from the processed aggregated event data that contains usage information on services provided by one or more cloud service providers of said plurality of cloud computing service providers, wherein the usage information for the given provider specifies a set of amounts and quality of each type of service that has been delivered to one or more users by the given provider.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein:

the processed aggregated event data is sent from the MCS component to the metering system either at selected times, in response to detection of specified events, or both at selected times and in response to specified events, selectively.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein:

the MCS component is deployed in a standalone environment, or on specified platforms, selectively, wherein one of said specified platforms comprises a hybrid cloud integrator provided with a framework having a plug-in interface, and the MCS component comprises a plug-in installed in the hybrid cloud integrator by means of said plug-in interface.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein:

one or more event source plug-ins are installed in the hybrid cloud integrator, wherein the MCS component acquires the metering events from any of the one or more event source plug-ins.

5. The method of claim 3, wherein:

the MCS component obtains the metering events and aggregated information directly from one or more of the cloud service providers of said plurality of cloud computing service providers.

6. The method of claim 4, wherein:

one of the one or more event source plug-ins comprises a cloud service broker, the cloud service broker receives cloud service requests from an on-premise workload manager and routes different cloud provisioning and change requests to different off-premise service providers of said plurality of cloud computing service providers, wherein the cloud service broker monitors the metering events associated with cloud provided services delivered by said off-premise service providers in response to said cloud provisioning requests and enables said MCS component to acquire said monitored metering events.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein:

each of said metering events is a type of event selected from a group of event types that include at least provisioning events and service lifecycle events related to changes in a service capacity, service performance, service behavior, service delivery method, and service termination.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein:

the MCS component has a handler that processes aggregated event data to generate corresponding usage records which are formatted for use by the metering system, wherein a given usage record specifies the usage of the cloud provided services delivered by the given provider.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein:

the metering system combines respective usage records with usage information pertaining to on-premise cloud computing services to generate a unified usage report.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein:

the MCS component processes exception conditions, wherein a first exception condition occurs in response to the MCS component detecting an existence of an active first provisioning instance and did not previously receive create or start instance event data pertaining to said active first provisioning instance, and wherein a second exception occurs in response to the MCS component detecting a termination of a previously active second provisioning instance and did not previously receive stop or delete instance data pertaining to said previously active second provisioning instance.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein

a third exception occurs in response to the MCS detecting that a capacity of an active provisioning instance is updated and did not previously receive an “

updated capacity”

event pertaining to said active provisioning instance.

12. In a hybrid cloud environment, wherein a user of cloud computing services is disposed to consume cloud provided services delivered by each of a plurality of cloud computing service providers, a data processing system comprising:

a bus;

a storage device connected to the bus, wherein the storage device stores program instructions; and

one or more processors connected to the bus, wherein the one or more processors execute the program instructions to;

receive specified event data at a metering control service (MCS) component, wherein the event data pertains to metering events related to the cloud provided services delivered by one or more cloud service providers of said plurality of cloud computing service providers, and wherein the event data includes event data furnished by one or more entities that actively monitor metering events at one or more local or remote cloud service provider locations, and wherein the MCS component processes specified event data pertaining to a specified instance of the cloud provided services delivered by a given provider, and wherein said specified event data includes a start instance event and a stop or change instance event, and wherein said start instance event is followed by one or more intervals of selected duration, prior to an occurrence of said stop instance event, and during each interval the MCS component generates a message that indicates an existence of said specified instance of the cloud provided services delivered by the given provider;

send processed aggregated event data from the MCS component to a metering system; and

operate the metering system to generate a report from the processed aggregated event data that contains usage information on services provided by each provider of said plurality of cloud computing service providers, wherein the usage information for the given provider specifies an amount and quality of each type of service that has been delivered to the user by the given provider.

13. The data processing system of claim 12, wherein:

the MCS component is deployed on a standalone basis, or on specified platforms, wherein one of said specified platforms comprises a hybrid cloud integrator provided with a framework having a plug-in interface, and the MCS component comprises a plug-in installed in the hybrid cloud integrator by means of said plug-in interface.

14. The data processing system of claim 13, wherein:

one or more event source plug-ins are installed in the hybrid cloud integrator, wherein the MCS component acquires the metering events from the one or more event source plug-ins.

15. The data processing system of claim 14, wherein:

one of the one or more event source plug-ins comprises a cloud service broker, the cloud service broker receives cloud service requests from an on-premise workload manager and routes different cloud provisioning and change requests to different off-premise service providers of said plurality of cloud computing service providers, wherein the cloud service broker monitors the metering events associated with cloud provided services delivered by said off-premise service providers in response to said cloud provisioning requests and enables said MCS component to acquire said monitored metering events.

16. The data processing system of claim 12, wherein:

the MCS component has a handler that processes aggregated event data to generate corresponding usage records which are formatted for use by the metering system, wherein a given usage record specifies the usage of the cloud provided services delivered by the given provider.