Apparatus, systems and methods for cross-cloud software migration and deployment

• US 9,430,213 B2
• Filed: 03/11/2014
• Issued: 08/30/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 03/11/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Cisco Technology, Inc. (Cisco Systems, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: CliQr Technologies, Inc. (Cisco Systems, Inc.)
• Inventors: Srinivasan, Venkat Narayan, Fu, Tianying
• Primary Examiner(s): Truong, Camquy
• Application Number:
  US14/204,630
• Publication Number:
  US 20150261514A1
• Time in Patent Office: 903 Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/45562 Creating, deleting, cloning virtual machine instances
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/4557 Distribution of virtual machine instances; Migration and load balancing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/45595 Network integration; Enabling network access in virtual machine instances
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/63 Image based installation; Cloning; Build to order
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45558 Hypervisor-specific management and integration aspects
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/4856 resumption being on a different machine, e.g. task migration, virtual machine migration G06F9/5088 takes precedence

Abstract

Embodiments disclosed facilitate obtaining a cloud agnostic representation of a first Virtual Machine Image (VMI) on a first cloud; and obtaining a second VMI for a second cloud different from the first cloud, wherein the second VMI is obtained based, at least in part, on the cloud agnostic representation of the first VMI.

Claims

1. A processor-implemented method comprising:

obtaining a cloud agnostic image representation from a first Virtual Machine Image (VMI) associated with a first Virtual Machine (VM) on a first cloud, the cloud agnostic image representation being obtained, in part, by removing a cloud specific layer in the first VMI; and

obtaining a second VMI for a second cloud different from the first cloud by

launching, on the second cloud, a second VM obtained from the cloud agnostic image representation;

downloading volume data to a volume associated with the second cloud in a format compatible with the second cloud, the volume data being obtained from a cloud agnostic representation of volume data associated with cloud agnostic image representation;

creating and attaching the volume comprising the downloaded volume data to the second VM;

augmenting the volume comprising the downloaded volume data with cloud specific configuration settings for the second cloud to obtain augmented volume data;

detaching the volume comprising the augmented volume data from the second cloud; and

creating the second VMI based on the volume comprising the augmented volume data.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the second VMI is obtained, in part, by obtaining a cloud specific layer corresponding to the second cloud, the cloud specific layer corresponding to the second cloud being obtained by augmenting the cloud agnostic image representation with cloud-specific settings for the second cloud.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein obtaining the cloud agnostic image representation comprises:

launching the first VM on the first cloud based, in part, on the first VMI;

modifying volume data associated with the first VM by removing cloud specific settings for the first VM;

obtaining bundled volume data by bundling the modified volume data associated with the first VM; and

storing a cloud agnostic representation of the bundled volume data.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the cloud agnostic representation of volume data is obtained by removing cloud specific settings for the first VM from volume data associated with the first VM.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the second VM is launched using a second operating system that is compatible with but different from first operating system associated with the first VMI.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the method is invoked using a user interface that permits selection of the first cloud, the first VMI and the second cloud, the first and second clouds being selected from a plurality of available clouds.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

deploying the second VMI on the second cloud.

8. An apparatus comprising:

a memory, and

at least one processor coupled to the memory, wherein the at least one processor is configured to;

obtain a cloud agnostic image representation from a first Virtual Machine Image (VMI) associated with a first Virtual Machine (VM) on a first cloud, the cloud agnostic image representation being obtained, in part, by removing a cloud specific layer in the first VMI; and

obtain a second VMI for a second cloud, by configuring the processor to;

launch, on the second cloud, a second VM obtained from the cloud agnostic image representation;

download volume data to a volume associated with the second cloud in a format compatible with the second cloud, the volume data being obtained from a cloud agnostic representation of volume data associated with the cloud agnostic image representation;

create and attach the volume comprising the downloaded volume data to the second VM;

augment the volume comprising the downloaded volume data with cloud specific configuration settings for the second cloud to obtain augmented volume data;

detach the volume comprising the augmented volume data from the second cloud; and

create the second VMI in the memory, the second VMI being created based on the volume comprising the augmented volume data.

9. The apparatus of claim 8, wherein to obtain the second VMI, the processor is configured to:

obtain a cloud specific layer corresponding to the second cloud, the cloud specific layer corresponding to the second cloud being obtained, in part, by augmenting the cloud agnostic image representation with cloud-specific settings for the second cloud.

10. The apparatus of claim 8, wherein, to obtain the cloud agnostic image representation, the processor is configured to:

launch the first VM on the first cloud based, in part, on the first VMI;

modify volume data associated with the first VM by removing cloud specific settings for the first VM;

obtain bundled volume data by bundling the modified volume data associated with the first VM; and

store, in the memory, a cloud agnostic representation of the bundled volume data.

11. The apparatus of claim 8, wherein the cloud agnostic representation of volume data is obtained by removing cloud specific settings for the first VM from volume data associated with the first VM.

12. The apparatus of claim 8, wherein the second VM is launched using a second operating system that is compatible with but different from a first operating system associated with the first VMI.

13. The apparatus of claim 8, wherein the processor is further configured to deploy the second VMI on the second cloud.

14. A non-transitory computer-readable medium comprising instructions, which when executed by a processor, perform steps in a method comprising:

obtaining a cloud agnostic image representation from a first Virtual Machine Image (VMI) associated with a first Virtual Machine (VM) on a first cloud, the cloud agnostic image representation being obtained, in part, by removing a cloud specific layer in the first VMI; and

obtaining a second VMI for a second cloud different from the first cloud by

launching, on the second cloud, a second VM obtained from the cloud agnostic image representation;

downloading volume data to a volume on the second cloud in a format compatible with the second cloud, the volume data being obtained from a cloud agnostic representation of volume data associated with cloud agnostic image representation;

creating and attaching the volume comprising the downloaded volume data to the second VM;

augmenting the volume comprising the downloaded volume data with cloud specific configuration settings for the second cloud to obtain augmented volume data;

detaching the volume comprising the augmented volume data from the second cloud; and

creating the second VMI based on the volume comprising the augmented volume data.

15. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 14, wherein the second VMI is obtained, in part, by obtaining a cloud specific layer corresponding to the second cloud, the cloud specific layer corresponding to the second cloud being obtained by augmenting the cloud agnostic image representation with cloud-specific settings for the second cloud.

16. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 14, wherein obtaining the cloud agnostic image representation comprises:

launching the first VM on the first cloud based, in part, on the first VMI;

modifying volume data associated with the first VM by removing cloud specific settings for the first VM;

obtaining bundled volume data by bundling the modified volume data associated with the first VM; and

storing a cloud agnostic representation of the bundled volume data.

17. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 14, the steps further comprising:

deploying the second VMI on the second cloud.